The WTO's legally-binding rules impact on the economic and social well-being of a WTO Member and its dispute set­tlement system and enforcement mechanism (including trade sanctions) make the WTO a powerful body when compared to the United Nations which also has legally binding treaties on environment and natural resources management and on social issues such as the ILO Conventions.
     Therefore it is not surprising that "WTO-inconsistent" allegations are often made against environmental negotia­tors or WTO Members seeking to take strong national envi­ronmental or health or social measures at the international level. For example, in recent multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) such as the Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety, there were intensive negotiations over the hierarchy of agreements (Mackenzie et al., 2003). Major developed countries that are producers and exporters of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) wanted trade agreements to prevail over MEAs. Developing countries and some devel­oped countries, such as Norway and the European Union, wanted to ensure the supremacy of MEAs. The result is the approach of "mutual supportiveness" between trade agree­ments and MEAs, with a stated preambular paragraph af­firming the equal status of all the agreements.
     In practice and because of the WTO's formal and en­forceable dispute settlement system, this could have the ef­fect of creating a legal hierarchy through its decisions with respect to United Nations agreements, which was actually not the intention of countries that negotiated the trade agree­ments and the establishment of the WTO. Thus, the struggle between trade on the one hand and environmental, health and social dimensions on the other hand, continues.

3.5.2     Trade at any cost?
However, the WTO is not about "trade at any cost" even though the policy freedom of Members has been reduced. WTO agreements have a context for trade. For example, the preamble of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) affirms "... the objec­tive of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment. ..." A number of WTO agree­ments also provide for various types of review and amend­ments, such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (see 3.3.1).
     Article XX of GATT (1994), which provides general exceptions to trade liberalization, is of crucial importance. This is because the body of WTO-related rules does not contain general exemptions of an environmental nature, nor does it provide a special status for MEAs. Article XX of GATT contains several general exceptions, among them for trade-restricting measures (a) "necessary to protect human, animal and plant life and health"; and (b) "relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such mea­sures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption".
     This means that WTO Members may adopt or enforce measures for these purposes, even though they restrict trade. There are, however, conditions for measures (including im­port bans) taken under Article XX. First, there must be no "arbitrary or unjustified discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail". Thus a Member can-

not put restrictions (on health or environmental grounds) on an imported product, without having the same restrictions on similar domestic products. Secondly, the restrictive mea­sures must not be "a disguised restriction on international trade". Thus, there is scope for WTO Members to take pro­tective measures and to restrict trade of certain products, in­cluding agricultural products, for environmental and health purposes.
     Despite the exceptions and special provisions in the WTO agreements, these are not enough and have limited scope in ensuring environmental protection, sustainable re­source management and the safeguarding of human, animal and plant health. The current international trading system is also not able to ensure social equity; while inequalities be­tween the developed world and Asia have gone down, there has been an increase in inequality within countries (Macgil-livray, 2006).
     Where there are possible conflicts between the WTO and other agreements, the situation raises even more con­cerns, as it could mean that the WTO could be effectively adjudicating on those other agreements. The WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism cannot be the judge of non-WTO Agreements and may not be the best way to resolve dis­putes in these important areas of policy-making (Shaw and Schwartz, 2005). The difficulties were evident in the recent dispute led by the United States against the European Com­munities on the European approval procedures for GMOs. Although the WTO Dispute Panel did not rule on the legal­ity of the procedures or on the right of national governments to ban GMOs or to take restrictive measures, the case il­lustrated the inappropriateness and even discomfort of the trading system in dealing with biosafety (and hence, envi­ronmental, health and socioeconomic) issues (Bernasconi-Osterwalder and Oliva, 2006; FOEI, 2006; Lim and Lim, 2006; Palmer, 2006).
     Therefore, MEAs and other social development instru­ments with their own compliance mechanisms are necessary (e.g., the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety has a Compli­ance Committee) to ensure that these agreements are imple­mented fully. Trade forums are not appropriate to be the judge and arbiter of sustainability.

3.5.3     Standards for environmental, health and social dimensions
It is important to recognize the validity of other standard setting bodies such as MEAs. For example, during the ne­gotiations of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, many countries wanted a provision on the setting of international biosafety standards under the Protocol. Major developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan rejected this, arguing that standard setting bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the Interna­tional Office of Epizootics and the bodies of the Interna­tional Plant Protection Convention would be sufficient.
     The compromise was Article 2(5) of the Cartagena Pro­tocol: "The Parties are encouraged to take into account, as appropriate, available expertise, instruments and work undertaken in international forums with competence in the area of risks to human health."
     Therefore, the standards set in UN MEAs such as the