In past years the resort to trade restrictions for purposes of environmental policy has given rise to an increasing number of international dispute settlement proceedings, both on the world-wide level in the context of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the newly established World Trade Organisation, and on the regional level in the European Community and among the member countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement.;The present work discusses the evolution of trade law in the global and regional context and analyzes and compares the different world-wide and regional approaches to the various interface problems of trade and environmental policies. The book includes in an annex a selection of the most important provisions, reports and court cases.