Reducing the European Union’s global deforestation footprint through trade regulation

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is a major importer of forest risk commodities (FRCs) and thereby bears significant responsibility for the dangerous trend of global deforestation and forest degradation. This article analyses EU action to reduce its global deforestation footprint, including current initiatives to regulate the placing on the EU market of illegally sourced timber and the European Parliament (EP)’s recent push for more ambitious legislation with respect to forest and ecosystem-risk commodities. The article sets out several justifications for stepping up EU action to regulate trade in FCRs, arguing among other things that the EU has a moral imperative to avoid being complicit in global deforestation. The article also argues that measures to reduce the EU’s global deforestation footprint can, if carefully designed and applied, be compatible with the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The openness of the EU to cooperate with affected exporting countries can make an important contribution in this respect. The paper addresses these issues with reference to the recommendations put forward by the EP for an EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven deforestation. As the European Commission moves forward with its own legislative proposal on this topic, it is important that the EP’s ambitious recommendations are not overlooked.