Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy (Harvard University Press 1995, ISBN 0-674-90084-7) is a book by UC Berkeley political scientist and business professor, David Vogel.
It analyzes the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, and the treaties that created the European Community and Union, and looks at cases including the GATT tuna-dolphin dispute, the EC's beef hormone ban, the Danish bottle case.
Vogel finds that, while counterexamples do exist, trade liberalization on balance has strongly reinforced environment-improving regulations.
A good example is auto emissions requirements, which have gradually stiffened and leveled up in the trading system over time.
First, stiffer regulations sometimes enhance the competitive advantage of firms, thus lining up industrialists with environmentalists in an open economy.