The August 30 agreement on granting poor countries access to low-cost medicines was among the few items of good news on the rocky road towards the World Trade Organization's Fifth Ministerial Conference, to begin in the Mexican city of Cancun on Sep. 10. Disagreements persist in nearly all other areas of the ambitious negotiating agenda, including agricultural trade, services and investment. The environment, meanwhile, is but a marginal issue.

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Previous ministerial meets took place in Singapore, Geneva and Seattle. The latest was in the Qatar capital, in late 2001, and now the ministers are getting ready to head to Cancun to continue the WTO-led process of global trade liberalization.

The WTO has no agreement specifically dedicated to the environment, but it does have a Committee on Trade and Environment, which discusses, for example the trade provisions in multilateral environmental accords, “green” labels on export products and the representation of environmental groups in trade talks.

The United Nations Environment Program and representatives from some international environmental agreements will have an ad hoc presence at the Cancun conference.

In the UNEP document on Trade and Environment, the agency's director, Klaus Toepfer, calls for more active UN participation in trade negotiations, and urges greater emphasis on issues such as trade in environmental goods and services, as well as curbing the negative environmental impacts of agricultural trade subsidies.

The compatibility of WTO rules and the standards set by environmental treaties is a crucial matter. There are some 20 multilateral environmental accords, such as the Montreal Protocol on reducing ozone-depleting gases, which sets restrictions for the production, consumption and trade of aerosols that contain CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons).

Likewise, the Basel Convention monitors trade and transport of toxic waste, and the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), regulates commerce in wildlife.

Multilateral organizations like the World Bank, specialized groups like the Trade Forum, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, as well as representatives from a broad spectrum of civil society groups will also be on hand in Cancun, proposing different approaches and alternatives to the international trade negotiations.