This article takes the relationship between the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) and the Cartagena Protocol as a case study of the persisting debate on the potentially conflicting relationship between international trade and environmental laws. In order to investigate how conflicts between the treaties can best be avoided within the ambits of international law, this article focuses on the legal implications of the regulation of international trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and studies the legislative and implementing activities in this regard at the domestic level. It involves a systematic exploration of how conflicts between the SPS Agreement and the Cartagena Protocol could be avoided from a national perspective which has rarely been discussed, and the extent to which this approach might influence how treaty conflicts should be dealt with generally in international law. Particularly, the article examines areas of possible synergies and potential conflicts between the treaties, and where potentially conflicting provisions are found, how such can best be avoided with a view to facilitate the adequate and effective international and domestic regulation of GMOs in manner that, on the whole, supports trade and biosafety
Journal of World Trade