Prof. Timothy Meyer has written a thought-provoking article about how governments selectively enforce trade laws in ways that undermine environmental interests. He argues trade enforcement against products with social benefits (i.e., renewable energy and farmed fish) slows their development and results in an implicit subsidy for products with social costs (i.e., fossil fuels and wild-caught fish)—at the expense of products with social benefits.

The notion of “fair” trade implies that trade agreements should protect values other than pure trade liberalization. But which values must be protected in order for trade to be “fair”? This Article makes two novel contributions. First, focusing on the environmental context, it demonstrates that selective enforcement in trade law today is pervasive. Notably, instead of selectively enforcing environmental laws to gain a trade advantage—the traditional concern of critics—governments selectively enforce trade laws in ways that hurt environmental interests.