ENVIRONMENTAL DATABASE FOR 2017

Note by the Secretariat^[1]

1.       The WTO Environmental Database (EDB) is prepared in response to a recommendation in the 1996 Report of the Committee on Trade and Environment (WT/CTE/1) for the Secretariat to compile and update annually all environment-related notifications to the WTO.^{[2] [3]}

2.       In recent meetings of the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE), Members have requested the Secretariat to improve the EDB's dissemination platform and its search functionalities.^[4] Based on these requests, the EDB has been upgraded and a new web-based EDB application has been developed. The new web-based EDB is available through the WTO website: https://www.wto.org/edb or through the URL address: https://edb.wto.org/.^[5]      

3.       Information in the EDB for 2017 is drawn from the 3,786 notifications submitted by WTO Members and the 17 TPRs circulated in 2017. The full data set for 2017 can be accessed at: https://edb.wto.org/search?field_year%5B%5D=2017&search_api_fulltext=&field_ics_hs_code=&type=notification. 

4.       This note is a summary report of the underlying data contained in the new EDB web-application. It covers information on: (i) environment-related measures notified under WTO Agreements and notification obligations (Section 1); and (ii) environment-related measures mentioned in Trade Policy Reviews (TPRs) (Section 2).