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Using the World Bank 'Global Preferential Trade Agreements Data Base' with a sample of 268 free-trade agreements, this article analyzes the environmental clauses that figure in these agreements, in particular in those relating to developed and emerging economies. The first part is qualitative and identifies the essential traits of the observed phenomena. The second is econometric, based on the logit method, and it identifies the determining factors for the introduction, in their different forms, of environmental clauses in free-trade agreements, regional or not, bilateral or multilateral, and attempts to identify environmental issues in North-South negotiations.