Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

84 Chapter 5
solution, because it might violate existing GATT [General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade] rules and because it would be difficult to determine the
extent to which the imposition of pollution standards adds to production
costs.” 48 Such a trade war would probably escalate as the environment
increasingly became an issue also in Europe; the environment was already
an issue in Japan. The U.S. Department of State thus intended to use the
Stockholm conference for reaching agreement on international regulations
and standards in order to protect national economic interests and avoid
trade disruptions. 49 Similarly, to protect the United States’ economic interests,
some senators wanted the U.S. delegates to the Stockholm conference
to “advocate and support multilateral accords . . . enforceable by the
United Nations or multilateral economic sanctions.” 50
Also, in the case of ocean dumping, international agreement would offer
an international solution to the economic costs imposed by domestic regulation.
A U.S. official participating in the regime negotiations explained:
“One reason the United States strongly supported an ocean dumping treaty
in the first place was its hope that other nations—especially industrialized
ones—will establish environmentally protective regulations similar to our
own. To the extent they do not, foreign industry may gain a competitive
edge, since the price of its products will not reflect the costs of pollution
abatement. And so, once enactment of domestic ocean dumping legislation
was foreseen, the United States became enthusiastically instrumental
in establishing an international control mechanism reflecting our domestic
law.” (McManus 1973, p. 26) 51 In short, agreement on international
regulation would imply that also foreign industry should reflect the costs
of pollution control in its products.
Thus, on the economic side, soon-to-be realized domestic regulation
created incentives to establish a global environmental regime and
prompted U.S. leadership in ocean dumping regulation. To protect
national economic interests, the United States was in strong support of
international regulation as this could provide an acceptable solution to
the economic costs of domestic regulation. The Stockholm conference was
the preferred forum for reaching agreement on international regulation,
both from the economic and the environmental perspective. Hence, the
United States tabled a proposal for a global ocean dumping convention at
the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Marine