Global Policy Forum

The United Nations should create  a World Environment Organisation to ensure that member countries  respect ecological commitments they have made, French Prime  Minister Lionel Jospin said on Monday.  

The organisation, a body that would be similar to the World  Trade Organisation, would help countries gain control over  globalisation by creating international regulations on the  environment, he told a World Bank meeting in Paris.  

"During its presidency of the European Union, France will  launch an initiative on this," said Jospin, a Socialist who has  frequently said that governments have to respond to  globalisation with more world-wide regulation.  

France takes over the rotating EU presidency on July 1.  

Jospin said the proposed organisation would work with  existing U.N. agencies such as the United Nations Environment  Programme.  

"The time has come to tackle the problem of the  architecture of global regulation," he said.  

"We must complete this architecture where it is deficient,  where organisations are missing, for example a World Environment  Organisation to ensure respect for international commitments in  this sphere."  

In his speech to the World Bank conference on development,  Jospin said: "Trade rules should take account of human rights,  of social rights, of the defence of the environment and the  necessity to preserve cultural diversity."

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