Voluntary Ecolabels in International Trade Law: A Case Study of the EU Ecolabel

Abstract

ABSTRACT One category of voluntary approaches to environmental governance is ecolabels used to nudge consumers towards purchasing environmentally friendly products. The purpose of this article is to critically review the trade law implications of voluntary ecolabels, with special reference to the EU Ecolabel. For a long time, the lack of trade disputes related to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) before the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body rendered research on the legality of voluntary ecolabels in trade law unavoidably speculative. Consequently, the existing scholarship has failed to inform the environment law community clearly how trade law views voluntary ecolabels. This article aims to fill the gap in the literature by evaluating the consistency of the EU Ecolabel with the TBT rules. The article concludes that it is highly unlikely that the EU Ecolabel may be found inconsistent with the TBT Agreement. Nevertheless, there remains some legal risks.