“The promotion by the European Union of labour and environmental norms through its trade agreements”
In other words…
In recent years, bilateral and regional trade agreements have not only increased in numbers, but also in terms of their legal scope and obligations. A growing number of trade deals are now seeking to promote economic integration beyond the elimination of tariff barriers, fostering regulatory convergence in many different policy areas. However, this deepening of economic ties has also raised numerous concerns, notably regarding its impact on the environment and on workers’ conditions. As Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are now achieving all kinds of policy objectives, some actors have committed to reflect these concerns into their own trade deals. This is the case of the EU which has pledged to use its commercial agreements as “levers to promote, around the world, values like sustainable development, human rights, fair and ethical trade and the fight against corruption”[1].
Through its FTAs, the EU has developed a model of external governance centred around the negotiation and the implementation of ‘Trade and Sustainable Development’ (TSD) chapters. These chapters tend to follow a similar template from one agreement to another by including: (1) broad labour and environmental obligations based on internationally recognised standards (e.g., ILO Fundamental Conventions, Multilateral Environmental Agreements); (2) a state-to-state enforcement procedure that does not foresee any sanction in case of non-compliance; and procedural and institutional arrangements, including a new framework for bilateral cooperation, as well as the formal involvement of civil society organisations in the implementation of the FTAs.
This approach is commonly referred to as ‘promotive’. During the negotiation stage, the EU relies on the attractiveness of its market to secure higher commitments from other countries. As financial or trade sanctions are not considered as a means of enforcement, it allows the EU to negotiate broader substantive standards in addition to robust mechanisms of dialogue. This gives the opportunity to the EU to engage more positively with its trading partners after the adoption of its trade deals, through structured dialogue and a shared commitment to abide to international rules. Thus, by initiating new cooperative processes, the EU intends to push its partners to better observe certain social and environmental norms. Whilst this model of governance has some merits, it has also raised a few eyebrows among legal experts and scholars of international relations: can such norms be effectively promoted to other countries purely through communication and socialisation processes?
This question has been heavily debated within political and academic circles, and the answer remains rather uncertain. This is mostly due to how difficult it is to verify causal relationships between the adoption of trade agreements on the one hand, and labour and environmental policy changes in trading partners on the other. For this reason, most assessments have been confined to the way the EU negotiates its FTAs, where impact can directly be evaluated through the legal provisions that made it into the final agreements. However, in (too) many cases, such labour and environmental provisions do not automatically translate into their effective application. There is still a need to better understand how the EU interacts with its partners once the agreements are concluded, and the kind of normative influence it can wield under this TSD framework over time. Johnathan Goffioul intends to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on several country case studies, including Japan.
His approach builds heavily on previous works on ‘diffusion’ – that is, “a process through which ideas, normative standards, or policies and institutions spread across time and space”[2]. He wants to assess whether the EU has been able to trigger any domestic changes in other countries through its TSD policy and identify which conditions may affect the success or failure of this promotive model. This will be done through process tracing and extensive interviews with officials and civil society actors from both the European and non-European sides. In doing so, Johnathan is hoping to contribute to the wider discussions on how trade agreements can (or cannot) be utilised to meaningfully tackle sustainability problems.
As the EU has very recently adopted a more assertive approach to promote “green and just economic growth” through its FTAs, the researcher believes this is the right time to unveil the kind of impact the EU has had so far, and the challenges that ultimately need to be overcome to make trade more sustainable.
[1] European Commission (2015). Trade for All: Towards a more responsible trade and investment policy. 14 October 2015: 5.
[2] Börzel, Tanja & Risse, Thomas. 2012. “From Europeanisation to diffusion: Introduction.” West European politics 35, no. 1: 5.
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The researcher’s portrait
Johnathan GOFFIOUL is a third-year PhD student at the University of Waseda (Japan). He holds masters in History and in Management from UCLouvain (Belgium), in European Studies from the College of Europe (Poland), and a LL.M. in Economic Law from the University of Waseda (Japan). Prior to joining the doctoral program, he worked in Brussels for European advocacy groups, and as an intern for the European Commission.
