The Sustainability Revolution in International Trade Agreements

by Vidigal, Geraldo; Claussen, Kathleen

• ISBN13: 9780198886884
• ISBN10: 0198886888
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780198886891
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-11-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Once seen as aspirational and relatively innocuous, 'sustainability' or 'sustainable development' provisions are now changing the face of international trade agreements. The Sustainability Revolution in International Trade Agreements gathers fundamental, first-hand analyses of these novel commitments across dozens of agreements, considering their legal, political, and economic aspects.

Drawing on perspectives from different parts of the world and engaging experts in the law and practice of sustainability provisions, this volume offers a comprehensive assessment of the latest developments and innovations in international trade agreements. It also evaluates the development challenges that sustainability requirements pose for countries with limited resources and capacity, for whom lower labour and environmental regulatory costs have been a competitive asset.

The present volume explores the intersectional aspects of sustainability - such as gender equality, biodiversity, animal welfare, and Indigenous rights - in addition to the more traditional dimensions of sustainability, namely economic development, environmental conservation, and improvement of labour standards.

There is little doubt that a sustainability revolution in global production patterns is needed. Considering the details of its operation - how it can come into being, who will bear the increased production costs, and how decisions on difficult trade-offs will be made - reveals the immense challenges involved in developing a new international law for sustainable trade. Read together, the chapters in this volume outline the contours this emerging legal framework, examine its practical operation, and offer important reflections upon the real extent and the foreseeable consequences of this sustainability revolution in international trade agreements.

Author Biography

Geraldo Vidigal, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam,Kathleen Claussen, Professor of Law, Georgetown University

Geraldo Vidigal is Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he coordinates the LLM in International Trade and Investment Law. He is Managing Editor of Legal Issues of Economic Integration (Kluwer) Theme Developer for International Economic Law at Oxford International Organizations. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge, an LLM in International Law from the Sorbonne Law School, and a Bachelor's in Law from the University of São Paulo. He integrates the roster of dispute settlement panellists of the World Trade Organization, where he was previously a Dispute Settlement Lawyer, and of the European Union (for trade as well as sustainable development).

Kathleen Claussen is Professor of Law at Georgetown University. She is the author of more than 40 articles and essays concerning trade, investment, and international dispute settlement, among other related research areas. She has also acted as counsel or arbitrator in over two dozen international disputes. She is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Economic Law, published by Oxford University Press. Professor Claussen is a graduate of the Yale Law School, Queen's University Belfast (where she was a Mitchell Scholar), and Indiana University where she was a Wells Scholar.

Table of Contents

1. A Sustainability Revolution? The Role of Trade AgreementsPart I Sustainability in International Trade Agreements: Conflict or Complementarity2. Embedding Sustainable Development in Trade3. Making Trade Agreements Contribute to Sustainability : The Potential of Behavioural Science4. Evaluating the Sustainability Agenda in International Trade Agreements: Aims, Effectiveness, Legitimacy, and Importance5. Sustainable Development and International Economic Law: Intersections or Convergence?6. Trade and Environment Negotiations at the WTO: A New Opportunity for SIDS?Part II Sustainability Obligations: Content and Compliance7. Labour Standards in EU Free Trade Agreements: Substantive Issues and Recent Developments Concerning Their Enforcement8. Trade Agreements and Disability Inclusion: Looking Beyond Labour and Gender Equality Provisions9. Infusing Indigenous Worldviews in Trade and Sustainability Agreements10. The Legal Links between Free Trade Agreements and Multilateral Environmental Agreements11. Exploring the Nexus of Environmental Sustainability and International Trade: The Significance of Self-Standing Obligations12. Integrating Climate Action into Free Trade Agreements13. Sustainability Obligations and Developing Countries: Any Scope for Special and Differential Treatment?14. Enforcing Sustainability Obligations: Adjudication and Post-Adjudication Enforcement15. Enforcing International Sustainability Standards on International and National Platforms16. Decentralized Enforcement of Sustainability Commitments: Rebalancing, Targeted Enforcement, and Production Requirements in Trade Agreements17. State and Private Accountability through the Rapid Response Labour Mechanism : Scope, Purposes, and Prospects for Effectiveness18. Sustainability Obligations in Trade Agreements: Do Exceptions and Defences Apply?Part III Sustainability in Trade Agreements and the Future of the Global Economy19. Copernican Revolution or Green Protectionism?20. The Role of 'Development' in Sustainable Development in Trade Agreements21. Interactions Between Free Trade Agreements' Sustainability Provisions and WTO Law22. Sustainability Meets Trade: Assessing Trade Agreements' New Endeavour to Incorporate Sustainability Issues23. From Neoliberalism to Ordoliberalism, and Beyond: Sustainability and Trade Governance24. The Road Ahead