(a) "WTO provides a platform for agreements amongst its members which form the legal foundation of global trade." Critically…

(a) The WTO, established on 1 January 1995 by the Marrakesh Agreement, has 166 members. It is both a forum for negotiating agreements and the guardian of a binding legal code for trade. Its covered agreements are accepted as a "single undertaking":

• GATT 1994;
• the Agreement on Agriculture, SPS, TBT, anti-dumping, subsidies (SCM) and safeguards;
• GATS;
• TRIPS;
• the Trade Facilitation Agreement (2017);
• the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU);
• the Trade Policy Review Mechanism.

The "new international economic order" (NIEO)

• The 1974 General Assembly Declaration and Programme of Action on the NIEO (Res 3201–3202) and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (Res 3281) called for fairer terms of trade, special treatment for developing countries and sovereignty over resources.
• The WTO answered this only partly, through special and differential treatment (the Enabling Clause of 1979, GSP, longer transition periods, the TRIPS flexibilities of the Doha Declaration 2001).

Importance

• Rule of law in trade: the WTO's core disciplines are:
• Most-Favoured-Nation treatment (GATT Art I);
• national treatment (Art III);
• bound tariffs (Art II);
• elimination of quantitative restrictions (Art XI);
• transparency;
• exceptions for health, environment and security (Arts XX–XXI). These replace power-based bargaining with predictable rules that benefit smaller economies.
• Dispute settlement: the DSU introduced compulsory jurisdiction, "reverse consensus" adoption, and compliance backed by authorised retaliation (Art 22). Over 600 disputes have been filed. Examples:
• US–Gasoline (1996) and US–Shrimp (1998) balanced trade and environment under Art XX;
• India–Quantitative Restrictions (1999) led India to dismantle its balance-of-payments QRs;
• India–Solar Cells (2016) found India's domestic content requirements inconsistent with national treatment;
• Russia–Traffic in Transit (2019) held the security exception (Art XXI) to be justiciable.
• Development and integration: tariffs have fallen sharply, and China, Viet Nam and others have integrated into the rules. TRIPS flexibilities and the 2022 COVID-19 TRIPS decision on vaccines aided public health.
• New rules: the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement, agreed at MC12 in 2022, entered into force on 15 September 2025.

Limitations

• Dispute settlement crisis:
• the Appellate Body has been non-functional since December 2019 because the US blocked appointments;
• losing parties now "appeal into the void";
• the stop-gap MPIA arbitration covers only some members, and India is not among them.
• Negotiating paralysis:
• the Doha Development Round (2001) stalled;
• agriculture remains skewed, since developed-country subsidies persist while developing countries' food security programmes are constrained;
• India secured the Bali "peace clause" (2013) for public stockholding, and invoked it for rice in 2020, but a permanent solution is still pending;
• MC13 (Abu Dhabi, 2024) and MC14 (Yaoundé, March 2026) produced limited results, and at MC14 the e-commerce customs-duty moratorium was not renewed.
• Unilateralism: the security exception, used for US steel tariffs from 2018, and the sweeping US "reciprocal" tariffs of 2025, together with trade wars and industrial-policy subsidies, erode MFN.
• Plurilaterals and regional agreements: RCEP, CPTPP and joint initiatives (investment facilitation, e-commerce) bypass consensus, and India has opposed incorporating them.
• Missing agenda: outdated rules on digital trade, State-owned enterprises, climate-related trade measures (such as the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) and labour.

Assessment: The WTO remains the legal foundation of about three-quarters of world trade conducted on MFN terms. Even without the Appellate Body, it provides panels, transparency and a forum. It has only partly realised the developmental justice sought by the NIEO. Its relevance depends on restoring binding appellate review, a development-oriented agriculture outcome, and reform that accommodates new issues without abandoning multilateralism.

(b) The UN Charter does not mention the environment. The UN has nonetheless become the main architect of international environmental law, and the statement echoes the Stockholm Declaration's call on States to protect and improve the human environment for present and future generations.

Key conferences and declarations

• Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (1972):
• Declaration with 26 principles, including Principle 1 (the right to an environment of quality) and Principle 21 (sovereignty over resources together with the responsibility not to cause transboundary harm);
• an Action Plan;
• creation of UNEP (GA Res 2997).
• **Brundtland Report (1987), Our Common Future: defined sustainable development**.
• Rio Earth Summit (1992):
• the Rio Declaration: CBDR (Principle 7), public participation (Principle 10), precaution (Principle 15), polluter pays (Principle 16) and EIA (Principle 17);
• Agenda 21;
• the Forest Principles;
• the UNFCCC and the CBD opened for signature. The UNCCD followed in 1994.
• Later summits: Johannesburg (2002) and Rio+20 (2012), which gave UNEP universal membership through the UN Environment Assembly and started the SDGs (2015; Goals 6, 7, 12–15).

Treaty regimes negotiated under UN auspices

• Ozone: the Vienna Convention (1985) and the Montreal Protocol (1987) with the Kigali Amendment on HFCs (2016). This is the most successful environmental treaty, and the ozone layer is recovering.
• Climate:
• the UNFCCC (1992) and the Kyoto Protocol (1997);
• the Paris Agreement (2015): the 2°C/1.5°C goal, NDCs, the global stocktake (2023) and the loss-and-damage fund;
• the new climate finance goal of US$300 billion a year by 2035 (COP29, 2024);
• the IPCC (1988, set up by UNEP and the WMO) provides the science.
• Biodiversity:
• the CBD, with the Cartagena (2000) and Nagoya (2010) Protocols;
• the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), including "30 by 30";
• the BBNJ Agreement (2023) on marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, which entered into force in January 2026.
• Chemicals and waste: the Basel (1989), Rotterdam (1998), Stockholm POPs (2001) and Minamata (2013) Conventions. Negotiations on a plastics treaty have not concluded.
• Oceans: UNCLOS Part XII on protection of the marine environment. ITLOS's 2024 advisory opinion treated greenhouse gas emissions as marine pollution.

Rights and adjudication

• Right to a healthy environment: Human Rights Council Res 48/13 (2021) and GA Res 76/300 (2022) recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
• ICJ climate opinion: the ICJ's advisory opinion of 23 July 2025 held that States have obligations under treaties and customary law to prevent significant climate harm, and that breach can entail State responsibility.

Indian implementation

• Constitution: Arts 48A and 51A(g).
• Laws implementing Stockholm and Rio: the Water Act 1974, the Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, whose Preambles refer to the Stockholm decisions, and the Biological Diversity Act 2002 (CBD).
• Courts: the Supreme Court has absorbed these principles (Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum (1996)). In M.K. Ranjitsinh v Union of India (2024), it recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change under Arts 14 and 21.
• Climate commitments: India's updated NDC (2022) targets a 45% reduction in emissions intensity and 50% non-fossil power capacity by 2030, and net zero by 2070.
• International initiatives: India leads the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

Evaluation: The UN has built a dense normative and institutional framework. However, implementation gaps, weak compliance mechanisms, finance shortfalls and North–South disputes over CBDR mean that "appropriate action" by member States remains the decisive variable.

(c) Both bodies of law protect human dignity, but they arose from different traditions. International humanitarian law (IHL) comes from the law of war: Lieber Code 1863, Geneva 1864, Hague 1899/1907. International human rights law (IHRL) comes from the post-1945 human rights movement.

Comparing IHL and IHRL

• Purpose:
• IHL: to limit the suffering caused by armed conflict by balancing military necessity against humanity. It accepts that war happens and regulates its conduct (jus in bello), regardless of whether the war itself is lawful.
• IHRL: to guarantee to every person, at all times, the rights inherent in human dignity, such as life, liberty, equality, expression and subsistence, and to limit State power over individuals.
• Sources:
• IHL: the Hague Conventions (1907); the four Geneva Conventions (1949); Additional Protocols I and II (1977) and III (2005); weapons treaties (CWC, BWC, Ottawa, CCM); and customary IHL.
• IHRL: the UDHR (1948); the ICCPR and ICESCR (1966); CERD, CEDAW, CAT, CRC and CRPD; and regional conventions (ECHR, ACHR, African Charter).
• When it applies:
• IHL: only in international or non-international armed conflicts, and in occupation (Common Arts 2 and 3).
• IHRL: at all times, in peace and in war.
• Who is bound:
• IHL: States, organised armed groups (Common Art 3, AP II) and individuals, who bear criminal liability for war crimes.
• IHRL: primarily States, towards persons within their jurisdiction, including abroad where they exercise effective control (HRC General Comment 31; Al-Skeini, ECtHR 2011).
• Who is protected:
• IHL: categories of "protected persons": the wounded, the sick, the shipwrecked, prisoners of war and civilians. It also governs combatants' conduct and means and methods of warfare.
• IHRL: every human being, without distinction.
• Content:
• IHL: distinction (AP I Art 48), proportionality (Art 51(5)(b)), precaution (Art 57), and the prohibition of unnecessary suffering (Art 35(2)). It also covers the treatment of POWs, the duties of an occupying power, and the Martens clause.
• IHRL: civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights, including fair trial, freedom of expression, work, health and education.
• Derogation:
• IHL: none, since IHL is designed for the emergency of war.
• IHRL: permitted in a public emergency (ICCPR Art 4), except for non-derogable rights (Arts 6, 7, 8(1)–(2), 11, 15, 16, 18).
• Implementation:
• IHL: the ICRC, Protecting Powers, the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (AP I Art 90), the grave breaches regime with universal jurisdiction, and the ICC (war crimes, Art 8).
• IHRL: treaty bodies, individual complaints, the Human Rights Council and UPR, regional courts, and domestic remedies.

Interaction

• Lex specialis: the ICJ treats IHL as the lex specialis in armed conflict. In the Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion (1996, para 25), whether a killing is an "arbitrary" deprivation of life under ICCPR Art 6 is judged by IHL.
• Concurrent application: in the Wall advisory opinion (2004, para 106) and Armed Activities (DRC v Uganda) (2005), the ICJ held that human rights protection does not cease in war. Some rights are governed only by IHL, some only by IHRL, and some by both.
• Humanising IHL: the ICTY in Tadić (1995) extended war crimes to non-international conflicts, reflecting a shift from a "State-sovereignty-oriented" to a "human-being-oriented" approach.
• India: India implements IHL through the Geneva Conventions Act, 1960 (it is not a party to APs I and II) and IHRL through the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 and Part III of the Constitution.

The statement is therefore accurate. IHL is a regime for limiting the effects of conflict, and IHRL a regime for securing the conditions of human existence at all times. They converge in armed conflict to give complementary protection.