Do labour and environmental provisions in trade agreements lead to better social and environmental outcomes in practice?

13 December 2023 James Harrison is Professor in the School of Law at the University of Warwick. Emily Lydgate is Professor in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO).  Ioannis Papadakis is a researcher at the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) and a Research Fellow in Economics. Sunayana Sasmal currently serves as a Research Fellow in International Trade Law at the UKTPO. Mattia di Ubaldo is Fellow of the UKTPO and Research Fellow in Economics of European Trade Policies. L. Alan Winters is Founding Director of the UKTPO,  Co-Director of the CITP and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex. In answering this important question, different disciplinary approaches have emerged as have a range of different and sometimes contradictory findings. At the moment, scholars from the different disciplines are not talking to each other about the implications of this. The authors of this blog suggest it is vitally important that they begin to do so.   Trade agreements around the world increasingly include environmental and labour provisions. Their presence attests to policymakers’ recognition that trade agreements cannot simply focus on economic issues. They should also address environmental and social [...]

By |2023-12-13T08:41:51+00:0013 December 2023|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|3 Comments

Non-regression on environmental protection: Making sense of the REUL Bill

16 June 2023 Chloe Anthony, Doctoral Researcher at University of Sussex Law School and Legal Researcher for the UK Environmental Law Association’s Governance and Devolution Group. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is part of the Government’s ‘Brexit opportunities’ agenda. It is currently in its final stages in Parliament, going back and forth between the Houses, in a debate on the inclusion of clauses that aim to safeguard parliamentary scrutiny and prevent the lowering of environmental protections. It returns to the Commons on 20 June. […]

By |2023-06-16T11:37:10+01:0016 June 2023|UK- EU|1 Comment

The UK in a World of Green Industrial Strategies

13 March 2023 Emily Lydgate is Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Environmental Law at University of Sussex School of Law, Politics and Sociology and Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory The UKTPO is pleased to re-publish this TaPP Network Workshop Summary, an output of a TaPP workshop in January with speakers Geraldo Vidigal (University of Amsterdam), Emily Lydgate (UKTPO/CITP), Ilaria Espa (USI/WTI), and Greg Messenger (TaPP/University of Bristol). Rather than a blog, this note summarises views of panel participants and the authors. It provides useful insights on the latest developments in this area and policy recommendations for the UK in navigating the new subsidies race between the US and the EU. […]

By |2023-03-13T14:23:37+00:0013 March 2023|Uncategorised|0 Comments

The Effect of SDG-related Provisions in PTAs on SDGs

14 December 2022 Ruby Acquah and Mattia Di Ubaldo are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellows in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. This blog was originally published by Trade 4 Sustainable Development. The Role of Non-trade Provisions in PTA’s in Attaining the SDGs. Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are being increasingly used as a tool to pursue various non-trade policy objectives such as the protection of human rights and labour rights, the promotion of environmental sustainability, and combating climate change. […]

By |2022-12-14T15:55:57+00:0014 December 2022|Uncategorised|0 Comments

The EU’s proposed reforms to Trade and Sustainable Development chapters: a big change, or more of the same?

27 October 2022 Camille Vallier is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellow in Trade and Sustainable Law at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex. This blog was originally published by Trade 4 Sustainable Development. After having defended a sustainable development approach to trade based on cooperation and dialogue for the past decade, the European Union (EU) announced in June 2022 its intention to tighten its approach. The recent Communication “The power of trade partnership: together for green and just economic growth” presents the EU’s new strategy, which, among other measures, plans to extend the general state to state dispute settlement mechanism to the TSD chapter and to include the possibility of trade sanctions for non-compliance with certain provisions of the TSD chapter. These new measures have been adopted in response to a long-lasting observation that the current system does not enable a full and satisfying implementation and enforcement of sustainability provisions. […]

By |2022-10-27T16:38:40+01:0027 October 2022|UK- EU|1 Comment

Environment and climate change in the EU-UK negotiations: Arguing the toss over nothing

26 May 2020 Dr Emily Lydgate is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The fundamental difference between the EU and UK positions on environment and climate is that of tradition (in the UK) versus innovation (in the EU). In fact tradition is somewhat of an understatement – the UK has made good on its aspiration for a ‘Canada-style’ deal by copying the environment chapter from that Agreement in its proposed EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) more or less verbatim. This chapter is relatively mild in the level of obligation it imposes. It requires parties to uphold and enforce their own domestic environmental laws, but only if failing to do so would encourage trade and investment. Violation of this commitment does not lead to trade sanctions or fines. This raises some questions. […]

By |2020-05-26T13:38:27+01:0026 May 2020|UK- EU|0 Comments

UK food safety Statutory Instruments: A problem for US-UK negotiations?

12 September 2019 Chloe Anthony and Dr Emily Lydgate – lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The US remains top of the list of post-Brexit UK trade negotiations, with Boris Johnson recently putting a quick US deal as a first priority. The US’s strongly-worded negotiating objectives include loosening EU ‘non-science-based’ bans or restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, food additives, hormone-enhanced meat, in addition to the infamous chlorinated chicken. As former international trade secretary Liam Fox conceded, a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that excludes food and agriculture is a non-starter from the US perspective. […]

By |2019-09-12T12:05:39+01:0012 September 2019|UK - Non EU|1 Comment

A look at new UK pesticides regulation: Part 2

16 July 2019 Chloe Anthony, Ffion Thomas, and Dr Emily Lydgate – lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In May we published a blog analysing the EU Exit statutory instruments (SIs) on pesticides prepared under the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. One of the key concerns that we raised was that EU restrictions on pesticides with endocrine disrupting properties had been deleted. After this omission was identified, DEFRA responded very swiftly, clarifying that the deletion had been accidental and releasing a new Statutory Instrument (SI). […]

By |2019-07-16T10:46:24+01:0016 July 2019|UK- EU|0 Comments

Environmental non-regression in the Withdrawal Agreement: forcing the EU’s hand on the Level Playing Field

21 November 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Even if the draft Withdrawal Agreement is ultimately rejected, it provides more clarity on what the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) want in future relationship negotiations. Notably, it has prompted the EU to develop its call for a ‘level playing field’ in the areas of environmental and labour standards, State Aid and competition policy into a set of binding commitments now agreed by the UK Government. This blog examines the requirements for environmental standards and regulation. The EU has already indicated that it will seek ‘Level Playing Field’ commitments in any agreement, including a ‘Canada-style’ deal. These environmental commitments will likely comprise a minimum standard that the EU will require in any negotiated future relationship. […]

By |2018-11-21T14:10:54+00:0021 November 2018|UK- EU|3 Comments

Tilting the playing field? The asymmetry in the UK and EU’s regulatory ‘ask’

27 July 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The July UK White Paper on the future relationship with the EU calls for a ‘common rule-book’ for goods. This has sometimes been shorthanded as a proposal for a Single Market for goods (in contrast to services, which departs more dramatically from the status quo).[1] But the scope of regulation the UK proposes should fall within this ‘common rulebook’ is narrower than what would be covered in a Single Market for goods – as the EEA Agreement demonstrates. It’s narrower even than that covered by the EU-Ukraine DCFTA Agreement. So what does the common rule-book cover – and how might this match up with the EU’s regulatory ‘ask’ of the UK? […]

By |2018-07-27T14:54:22+01:0027 July 2018|UK- EU|1 Comment
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