The evolving environment-trade nexus in the EU and WTO: building blocks of a just transition?

This article evaluates the environment-trade nexus in the European Union (EU) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the light of the imperatives created by complex global challenges such as climate change. It is argued that responding to these imperatives requires triangulation of the environment-trade nexus with its social dimension, but that this is currently insufficiently considered in both WTO and EU contemporary trade-environment discourse, policy and instruments. To address this, the concept of ‘just transition’ is engaged as an objective and a framing concept, exploring what it means for international trade law and for the environment-trade nexus in the WTO and EU, and challenging the dominant binary ‘trade-environment’ discourse. The article concludes that both the WTO and EU legal orders can accommodate the necessary triangulation of the environment-trade nexus with its social dimension, to support just transition, but that this is dependent upon active policy management engaging the social dimension.