EU Imported Biodiversity Loss: The Gaps and Overlaps Between Trade Impact and Provisions on Biodiversity in EU Free Trade Agreements

Trade and biodiversity are connected in many ways. One of them is the negative impact of trade itself on biodiversity. This chapter focuses particularly on whether the integration of environmental provisions, including some relevant to biodiversity, in EU Free Trade Agreements could mitigate this negative impact of trade on nature. To do so, the chapter aims to expose the gaps and overlaps between the impact of trade on biodiversity and the core biodiversity-related provisions of EU trade agreements’ Trade and Sustainable Development chapters. Firstly, by considering the negative impacts that trade may have on biodiversity, directly or through embedded biodiversity loss, and that trade agreements may enhance. The chapter thus brings a rationale behind the inclusion of biodiversity-related provisions in EU trade agreements to the fore. Secondly, the chapter presents the main goals of the relevant environmental clause in EU trade agreements and what kind of protection they can provide for biodiversity. Based on these two elements, the chapter identifies, in a third and final section, the gaps and overlaps between these negative impacts of, or enhanced by, EU trade agreements on biodiversity and the main goals of environmental provisions.