WTO Consistency Analysis of Draft US and UK Forest Legislation

Tulip carried out legal analysis for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading US-based environmental advocacy organisation, examining the WTO consistency of draft forest-related legislation under consideration in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The analysis was designed to support NRDC’s advocacy work by providing a rigorous legal assessment of the trade law implications of proposed domestic measures aimed at combating deforestation and protecting forests from illegal logging and land conversion.

The analysis responded to a growing global momentum around regulatory approaches to forest protection, driven in part by the example set by the EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR) and the recognition among policymakers in other major economies that domestic consumption patterns are a significant driver of deforestation in biodiversity-rich countries. The US and UK have both considered legislative frameworks that would impose due diligence requirements on companies placing commodities associated with deforestation on their domestic markets, following a broadly similar logic to the EUDR but adapted to their respective legal and constitutional contexts.

Tulip’s analysis assessed the legal architecture of the draft measures against the disciplines of relevant WTO agreements, with particular attention to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS). A central legal question in both cases was whether import restrictions or due diligence requirements based on production and processing methods (PPMs) — specifically, the conditions under which a commodity was produced with respect to deforestation — would be consistent with WTO non-discrimination principles. The analysis examined the conditions under which such measures could be justified under the environmental and conservation exceptions of GATT Article XX, assessing the likelihood that they would survive WTO dispute settlement if challenged by affected trading partners. It identified both design features that would strengthen WTO consistency and potential legal vulnerabilities that would need to be addressed in the drafting and implementation of the legislation.

Given the confidential nature of the engagement, specific details of the draft legislation and the legal findings are not disclosed. The project reflects Tulip’s capacity to provide rigorous, practical legal analysis on complex WTO law questions in support of environmental advocacy and policy development.