Ecologically unsustainable trade

International trade, although balanced in monetary terms, may be unequal in terms of the exchange of biomass and sink-capacity. It may also be unilate rally or mutually unsustainable if it implies the overuse of the biocapacit y in either one or both of the trading partners. In this article, the ecolo gical footprint concept is used to distinguish different types of ecologica lly unsustainable trade, but the issue of the possible effects of trade on the ecological footprints is also raised. We distinguish four such effects: an allocative effect, an income effect, a rich-country-illusion effect, an d a terms-of-trade effect. Since international trade can be a subtle mechan ism by which ecological sustainability is preserved locally by means of imp orting biomass and sink-capacity from other countries, it can also blur the view of responsibility for the ecological effects of production and consum ption. At the end of this article, some ethical and political dilemmas rela ted to these issues are raised. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.