Global Trade Governance in a Multipolar World
International trade has immense potential to promote sustainable development. Against this background, this project examined the evolving nature of global trade governance and the provision of global public goods in its context, focusing on the following themes: the future of the World Trade Organization, linkages between trade and climate policies, public and private standards and their impact on international trade and developing countries, regional integration and norms for global trade governance in a multipolar world.
Project Lead:
Clara Brandi
Financing:
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
Time frame:
2012 - 2016
/
completed
Project description
The project examined the evolving nature of global economic governance. More particularly, the project centred on the following themes:
The Future of the World Trade Organisation
The first aim of the project was to analyse the difficulties of the ongoing Doha-Round and to investigate possibilities for WTO reform. The successful conclusion of the Doha-Round would provide urgently needed impulses for strengthening international trade rules, but after 10 years of negotiations there is still no consensus on a number of central issues. Especially the divergent bargaining positions of the traditional and emergent powers prevent the conclusion of the Doha-Round and underline the global governance challenges in today’s multipolar world. Against this background, the project investigated possibilities to reform the multilateral trading system in light of current and future global governance challenges with a view to sustainable development.
Linkages between Trade and Climate Policies – Challenges for Global Governance Global Governance
The second aim of the project was to analyse important dimensions of the relation between trade and climate policies in a multipolar world. The project focused on the following questions: To what extend are instruments of trade policy useful to combat climate change? How can global trade and global climate governance be better coordinated? What is the role of multilevel governance in this context? The research project also assessed the possibilities and limitations of combining state and non-state governance approaches with a view to sustainable development. For example, the project analysed the effects of public and private standards for international trade with a special focus on standards that aim to combat climate change and that take live cycle analyses of green house gas emissions into account.
Rising Powers, Trade Governance and Environmental and Social Standards
Against the backdrop of the risk of failure of traditional modes of global governance, such as international treaties and intergovernmental organisations, to adequately regulate the global economy in a multipolar world, a novel type of regulatory system is emerging that is becoming ever more important: Non-governmental organisations, business and other private actors, individually and together in newly combined arrangements, are giving rise to innovative institutions to apply transnational norms and standards to business. Key questions included: Do rising powers and their firms, often supported by their governments, drive down international sustainability standards that affect producers and consumers across the world or are they are more likely to strengthen them in light of their interest in being ‘leaders’ in a viable global economy? Can bottom-up processes driven by civil society and business adequately complement the often imperfect processes of more traditional governance arrangements?
Comparative Regionalism – Diffusing Regional Integration Approaches?
The Arab League, ASEAN, ECOWAS and MERCOSUR aspire to deepen both trade and monetary integration, for instance by seeking to turn their free trade area into a customs union or a common market and harmonising their monetary policies. This project seeked to examine the EU’s influence on regional cooperation by drawing on concepts from the new generation of diffusion approaches, based on the assumption that regional organisations have developed some interesting similarities and that this can, at least partially, be explained on the basis of diffusion processes of institutions and policies primarily from the EU to other regional organisations. The project made use of diffusion approaches to test their power to explain similarities (and differences) of monetary cooperation and integration among regional organisations. The central question addressed was: Under what conditions and in what ways does the EU affect the trajectory regional monetary cooperation elsewhere?
Norms for Global Trade Governance in a Multipolar World
This part of the project focused on global norm-building processes and the relationship between norms and global and regional trade governance with a focus on changes in global economic governance due to the rise of emerging economies and resulting power shifts. The focus was on the following questions: Which types of norm-building can we observe in the context of global and regional trade governance? What kind of normative principles should be satisfied in the context of global and regional trade governance so that the trading system fulfils relevant demands of fairness and justice in a multipolar world and how can the fulfillment of these principles be improved?
Publications
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Sustainability standards and certification: towards sustainable palm oil in Indonesia?
Brandi, Clara / Tobias Cabani / Christoph Hosang / Sonja Schirmbeck / Lotte Westermann / Hannah Wiese (2012)
Briefing Paper 9/2012 -
Green trade for sustainable development? Risks and opportunities on the road to a green economy
Brandi, Clara (2012)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The Current Column of 6 August 2012) -
Low carbon standards and labels in rising powers
Brandi, Clara (2012)
Rising Powers and Global Standards Network (Working Paper 5) -
Agriculture is special: conclusions drawn from the death throes of the Doha round for a development-friendly agricultural trade policy
Brüntrup, Michael / Clara Brandi / Nikolai Fuchs (2011)
Briefing Paper 14/2011 -
The end of GATT-WTO history? – Reflections on the future of the post-Doha World Trade Organization
Brandi, Clara / Matthias Helble (2011)
Discussion Paper 13/2011 -
Doha end game or the end of the Doha round: south-south cooperation as an alternative to multilateralism?
Brandi, Clara (2011)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The current column of 30 May 2011) -
The state of global governance: achievements, challenges and the way forward
Brandi, Clara (2011)
published on Brookings Audit, Global Policy, 18 April 2011 -
The World Trade Organization as a subject of distributive justice
Brandi, Clara (2011)
in: Ayelet Banai / Miriam Ronzoni / Christian Schemmel (eds.), Social justice, global dynamics: theoretical and empirical perspectives, London: Routledge, 186-199 -
The financial crisis and international trade: the consequences for developing countries
Berensmann, Katrin / Clara Brandi (2011)
Briefing Paper 13/2011 -
Trade policy: after the financial crisis
Berensmann, Kathrin / Clara Brandi (2011)
in: Development and Cooperation 52 (4), 166-167 -
International trade and climate change: border adjustment measures and developing countries
Brandi, Clara (2010)
Briefing Paper 11/2010 -
Die ärmsten Länder brauchen freien Marktzugang
Brandi, Clara (2009)
published on Zeit online, 7. Dezember 2009 -
Is the World Trade Organization “fit” for the future?
Brandi, Clara (2009)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The current column of 7 December 2009) -
Verfügbarkeit von Handelsfinanzierung: Herausforderung für Global Economic Governance
Brandi, Clara / Birgit Schmitz / Caroline Hambloch (2014)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 3/2014 -
Aiding exports: lessons from emerging economies
Brandi, Clara (2013)
in: Dirk Willem de Velde / Mohammad A. Razzaque, Assessing aid for trade: effectiveness, current issues and future directions, London: The Commonwealth, 331-358 -
WTO post Bali – new hope for multilateralism?
Brandi, Clara (2013)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The Current Column of 9 December 2013) -
What are the implications of the planned US-EU free trade agreement for developing countries?
Berger, Axel / Clara Brandi / Julia Kubny (2013)
published on KfW Development Research (Development in Brief 18) -
Welche Folgen hat das geplante Freihandelsabkommen zwischen USA und EU für Entwicklungsländer?
Berger, Axel / Clara Brandi / Julia Kubny (2013)
published on Entwicklungspolitik Kompakt 18 (14. Oktober 2013) -
Das Ende von Doha
Berger, Axel / Clara Brandi (2013)
in: Handelsblatt 8.7.2013, 17 -
Successful trade promotion in emerging economies: lessons for low-income countries?
Brandi, Clara (2013)
published on Aid for Trade Special, Business Fights Poverty, 15 January 2013 -
The global trading system at a turning point
Berger, Axel / Clara Brandi (2013)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The Current Column of 8 July 2013) -
Jetzt kommt der Anwalt der Schwellenländer
Brandi, Clara (2013)
published on Zeit Online 28.05.2013 -
Change of WTO leadership – fresh dynamism for Herculean challenges?
Brandi, Clara (2013)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The Current Column of 21 May 2013) -
The transatlantic free trade agreement: think of the consequences!
Berger, Axel / Clara Brandi (2013)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (The Current Column of 4 March 2013) -
Trade and climate change: environmental, economic and ethical perspectives on carbon border adjustments
Brandi, Clara (2012)
in: Ethics, Policy, and Environment 16 (1), 79-93 -
Sonderrolle der Landwirtschaft : Einsichten aus der Agonie der Doha-Runde für eine entwicklungsfreundliche Agrarhandelspolitik
Brüntrup, Michael / Clara Brandi / Nikolai Fuchs (2011)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 13/2011 -
The financial crisis and developing nations: ramifications and responses
Wolff, Peter (2009)
in: Rural 21, 43 (2), 8-9 -
Finanzkrise und internationaler Handel: Folgen für Entwicklungsländer
Berensmann, Kathrin / Clara Brandi (2011)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 10/2011 -
Handelspolitik: Folgen der Finanzkrise
Berensmann, Kathrin / Clara Brandi (2011)
in: Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit 52 (4), 166-167 -
Socioeconomic justice beyond borders: the World Trade Organization and the scope and site of principles of justice
Brandi, Clara (2010)
European University Institute, Florence -
Intellectual property rights as a challenge to providing global public goods: the cases of public health, food security and climate stability
Brandi, Clara / Christine Ladenburger / Anna Pegels (2010)
Discussion Paper 17/2010
Links
Special: Transatlantische Handels- und Investitionspartnerschaft (TTIP)
Highlight: Trade and climate change: environmental, economic and ethical perspectives on carbon border adjustments