Indeed, the EU, as the worlds largest market, has the same opportunity that the US had after WWII to set up a trade system that gets enough countries to sign up that its worthwhile following its rules to get access to the aggregate marketplace.

It could be something as simple as a side agreement of what method of production restrictions all parties will in fact respect whether or not they are subject to successful challenge with countervailing duties permitted within the WTO.

After all, at its core, the WTO system works on a civil court style system - if a successful complaint is brought, the penalty is that all affected parties can impose countervailing duties. If there are certain circumstances where a large number of countries agree to refrain from imposing those countervailing duties, that de-claws the WTO.

Indeed, the G-77 could get an agreement on a non-toxic next round of the WTO, except within the bounds of that side agreement - and the right agreement could pull in a large swathe of sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Get a large enough swathe of Sub-Saharan Africa and South America in that side agreement together with the EU, and it might be a tough decision for China to make whether join it and make for effective over-ride of the standing WTO interpretation of its rules that allows "no method of production regulation allowed" to override the dead letter public benefit provisions.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

... the likelihood that its too dense for me to parse as well, but if I have a chance, I'll see what I can find out.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

There is a round of bans on imports of products containing the banned substances. Since that is largely non-discriminatory. Its the ban of imports of products made using the banned substances that do not contain the banned substances that is trickier under the WTO. The provisions for trade with non-signatories to the agreement is to try to ban the import, where feasible. The provision for trade with signatories is that each signatory that is unable to completely phase out use of the banned substance for domestic production bans the export of products made with the banned substance. And of course, there is nothing in the WTO to force any country to allow the export of any product.

So that would be deal - in exchange for being permitted market access to the EU for a range of products not presently agreed to in the WTO, in particular agricultural products, the signatories that do not have domestic CO2 regulation up to a certain standard agree to impose a carbon export tax on a range of products, include allowing a technical panel of the agreement set adjustments based on actual production methods in use in the country.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.