Early Career Workshop June 15th, 2023
The Greening of Trade in a Geo-economic Context?
Effectiveness, Legitimacy, and Justice in the Trade-Environment-Nexus
International trade is increasingly shaped by environmental challenges and geo-economic tensions. States and non-state actors pursue policy instruments with substantive trade- and environmental implications such as the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, the European Green Deal, the US Inflation Reduction Act, Indonesia’s export ban on palm oil, or corporate sustainability standards. The features and interactions of these instruments as well as their consequences for environmental and trade goals, interests, and impacts are still poorly understood.
This workshop aims to critically reflect on these developments and related policy instruments in the trade-environment-nexus. We will address questions across different levels of governance and sectors such as:
- Which designs and instruments are effective in achieving environmental and trade aims?
- How do current geo-economic tensions in trade affect the ecological transformation?
- How do current ecological transitions and transformations and crises affect international trade?
- How legitimate are instruments in the trade-environment-nexus from the perspective of different actors?
- How do public and private actors govern long-term sustainability goals with short-term geopolitical challenges and economic interests?
- How do different actors envision and implement notions environmental and social justice in the trade-environment-nexus?
Organised by: Simon Happersberger (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Asgeir Barlaup (KU Leuven) and Paulina Flores Martinez (University of York)