EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Research Articles

Gender in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement – third generation trade agreement as a gateway to policy coordination?

This article considers the place of trade and gender in EU-Canada relations, with a particular focus on CETA and its functioning in a broader sense. More specifically, the authors seek to understand the process of defining the trade and gender agenda under the CETA framework and the practical ways the EU and Canada have sought to respond to them. The authors examine the challenges and opportunities related to women’s participation in the EU-Canada trade flows, what the instruments developed to support them were, what tools were at their disposal, whether CETA had had a real impact on their business activities, as well as the dynamics of the policy exchange and learning. The authors find that CETA delivers solid structures to design and implement concrete actions, leading to more policy coordination between the EU and Canada on trade and gender issues. However, there are still several gaps that need to be addressed, with the lack of disaggregated data being the most important. Le genre dans l’Accord économique et commercial global entre le Canada et l’Union européenne : un accord commercial de troisième génération qui débuterait une coordination des politiques ? Cet article s’intéresse à la place qu’occupent le commerce et le genre dans les relations entre le Canada et l’Union européenne (UE), et plus particulièrement à la place de l’Accord économique et commercial global (AECG) et de son implémentation au sens large. Plus spécifiquement, nous cherchons à comprendre les processus de définition du commerce et du genre dans le cadre de l’AECG et les façons concrètes dont l’UE et le Canada y répondent. Nous nous interrogeons sur les défis et les opportunités de la participation des femmes aux flux commerciaux entre l’UE et le Canada, sur les outils créés pour les soutenir, sur les outils tels qu’ils ont été mis à leur disposition, sur l’impact réel de l’AECG sur leurs activités commerciales, ainsi que sur les dynamiques d’échange de politiques et d’apprentissage.

Article: The 2019 BLEU Model BIT: BLEU’s Vision of the Future of Investment Protection

This article compares the 2019 BLEU model bilateral investment treaty with the older 2002 version. After an overview of the BLEU’s role as a major actor in international investment law, the authors argue that the changes introduced by the 2019 Model BIT reflect the EU’s policy towards foreign investment protection. The drafters of the 2019 Model BIT were inspired by the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and trade Agreement and the European Commission’s proposal to establish a Multilateral Investment Court. The 2019 Model BIT marks a shift from liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the protection of the sovereign powers, in particular the State’s right to regulate, and the curtailing of investment protection presented as a response to the investment protection system’s misuse and abuse by investors. By placing certain limitations to substantive standards of protection, placing strong emphasis of sustainable development objectives and advocating a reform of the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), the 2019 BLEU Model BIT puts forward a vision for the future of investment protection that departs from the Washington Consensus of economic liberalization but also enables the investment protection system to survive in the face of the so-called backlash against ISDS and the criticism of civil society.

How does politicisation affect the ratification of mixed EU trade agreements? The case of CETA

ABSTRACT This article examines how politicization has affected the ratification of the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in EU member states. The study is based on the conceptual framework of discursive postfunctionalism. This approach builds on postfunctionalist arguments about the constraining impact of politicization on national governments’ EU-related policy making, but seeks to specify them further by examining mediating factors between political contestation and decisions of national policy makers. We test the explanatory power of discursive postfunctionalism by combining a comparative overview of CETA-related politicization and ratification patterns in all EU member states with in-depth case studies of five states that have seen particularly intense public contestation. Our research shows that politicization does not necessarily prevent the ratification of CETA; rather, its effects on policy making are mitigated by institutional provisions on the involvement of domestic institutions, the composition of government coalitions, and the discursive strategies of national governments.

Time to Preference: Early Preference Uptake under the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement

This study examines the uptake of trade preferences under the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement during their respective first 21 months of application. The research analyzes the impact of time on the preference utilization rate of EU imports from Canada and Korea and EU exports to the two countries. The findings shed light on how EU member states perform vis-à-vis each trade partner and whether certain product groups appear more successful than others in terms of using trade preferences. The study further analyzes the potential effects of learning how to use preferences over time. Finally, the study argues that firm-pair transaction level data is necessary for discerning more conclusive answers regarding why trade preferences are (not) used.</br>The results point to that lack of knowledge and awareness is the most plausible reason to a low use of trade preferences in the early days of an agreement. To increase preference utilization rates in the beginning as well as later during agreement implementation, continuous information campaigns appear to be essential, not least since importing and exporting firms change over time.

The Inclusion of Sustainable Development into New-Generation FTAS – What Can be Expected in Reserving Nations’ Rights to Regulate?

Abstract The last decade has seen a growing trend towards the combination of sustainability, in which environmental protection is the most important, with trade in both regional and international forums. Indeed, the term “sustainable development”, which rarely appeared in “traditional” trade or investment agreements, is easy to be found in many new-generation agreements such as CP-TPP or a series of FTAs recently signed by the EU with its partners such as Canada, Singapore and Vietnam. It has been observed that the interaction between sustainable development and trade-investment, especially via dispute settlement activities, has been intensively studied. However, as the combination of sustainability in FTA has just been promoted recently with the aim to tackle the abovementioned issue. The provisions on sustainable and environmental protection are included in the new generation FTA, i.e. CP-TPP, EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, EU-Singapore FTA and EU-Vietnam’s FTA. These sustainability-support regulations help to confirm the right of the hosting state to set its own levels of domestic protection in the environmental and social areas as well as to build and follow its own environmental policies. However, these provisions are still general compared to the set of trade-investment rules/obligations under the trade-investment agreements. The aim of this paper is to find out the meaning and status of the sustainability-support regulations under trade-investment agreements. It examines these provisions in light of maintaining countries’ right to protect the environment under abovementioned preferential trade-investment agreements in order to critically evaluate the effect of these rules on future measures of relevant countries to protect the environment.

The role of the corporate sector in the transformation of the international trade and economic relations system

The article discusses the role of MNCs in the process of transformation of global regulation of trade and international economic relations system. The relevance of this study is determined by one of the key trends in the world economy and the system of international economic relations of the late XX — early XXI centuries — by the process of corporatization of the economic space. There is a desuverenization and corporatization of the national economies of the countries. This process is associated with the increasing dependence of national economies on MNCs and is accompanied by the deepening of the process of corporate globalization of the economic space. The system of economic relations of mega-regional partnerships is the subject of the research. The purpose of the study is to determine the role of MNCs in the process of transformation of global regulation of trade and international economic relations system. There are different methods of scientific knowledge used in the research: comparative-historical, as well as general scientific methods: abstraction, axiomatic method, analysis, induction. As a result of the study, the author identified the key trends in the world economy of the XX–XXI centuries: the corporatization of the economic space, coupled with the desovereignization of national economies. The main findings of the study are: first, the trend towards corporate globalization in the world economy; second, a qualitative changes in the form of organization of trade and economic relations: the transition from globalization to globalizing regionalism — an increase in the number of mega-regional trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership / Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, etc.; third, the crucial role of MNCs in the transformation process of the global trade regulation system; fourth, qualitative changes in the form of relations between corporate sector and state. The results of the study can be used in further research on a given topic.

Conflicts of sovereignty over EU trade policy: a new constitutional settlement?

This paper investigates whether the politicization of a new generation of trade agreements has led to the transformation of EU trade policy. It provides a qualitative study of multilevel contention based on sources from civil society and the parliamentary archives in Belgium, Germany, and the European Union concerning the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and three subsequent agreements concluded by the EU with Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore. We argue that, far beyond mere institutional disputes, the contention surrounding CETA has epitomized two conflicting visions of sovereignty: on the one hand, a vision where national executives qua states share sovereignty under the auspices of the European Commission, and on the other hand, a claim to reassert popular sovereignty (and the channelling thereof by parliaments) in a multilevel fashion. We demonstrate that the strengthening of the latter vision has been limited as the empowerment of parliaments was not sustained when civil society’s mobilization waned. The EU institutions have successfully curtailed the category of mixed agreements thus limiting the involvement of national and regional parliaments. CETA was a climax in the politicization of trade yet failed to bring about a new constitutional settlement that enhances the popular component of sovereignty in the EU.

When actions do not match aspirations - comparison of the European Union policy claims against what has been negotiated for health services, trade and investment

BackgroundObligations arising from trade and investment agreements can affect how governments can regulate and organise health systems. The European Union has made explicit statements of safeguarding policy space for health systems. We assessed to what extent health systems were safeguarded in trade negotiations using the European Union (EU) negotiation proposals for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the negotiated agreement for the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).MethodsWe assessed if and to what extent the European Union policy assurances were upheld in trade negotiations. Our assessment was made using three process tracing informed tests. The tests examined: i) what was covered in negotiation proposals of services and investment chapters, ii) if treatment of health services differed from treatment of another category of services (audiovisual services) with similar EU Treaty considerations, and iii) if other means of general exceptions, declarations or emphases on right to regulate could have resulted in the same outcome.ResultsOur analysis shows that the European Union had sought to secure policy space for publicly funded health services for services chapter, but not for investment and investment protection chapters. In comparison to audiovisual services, exceptions for health services fall short from those on audiovisual services. There is little evidence that the same outcome could have been achieved using other avenues.ConclusionsThe European Union has not achieved its own assurances of protection of regulatory policy space for health services in trade negotiations. The European Union trade negotiation priorities need to change to ensure that its negotiation practices comply with its own assurances for health services and sustainable financing of health systems.

Brexit and Canada: Stopgap Solutions for the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) or a New Beginning?

This article investigates how Canada’s trade with the EU-27 and the UK might be affected by Brexit. As the transition period foreseen in the 2019 UK Withdrawal Agreement has ended, the EU and the UK are no longer one customs area. The EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), like other EU agreements, has ceased to apply to the UK. Henceforth, the policies and legislation of the UK and the EU-27 will invariably diverge. Taking into account both the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement as well as the Canada UK Trade Continuity Agreement concluded in late-2020, the article shows that the agreements reached, while providing immediate stopgaps for some of the fallout of Brexit, also represent potential for a new departure.

Article 8.30: Ethics in CETA (EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement)

Article 8.30: Ethics in CETA (EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement)

Linking “values” to EU trade policy—a good idea?

AbstractShould EU values be pursued by means of EU trade policy or separately via other policies? Article 21/3 TEU instructs the Council and the Commission to ‘ensure consistency between the different areas of its external action’, often (mis?)interpreted as a merger of all external policies with respect to values. Is this “merger” justified by the EU public interest? Linkage advocates are interested in the clout of EU trade and investment policy, but not in its objectives. Detailed recent research shows no empirical evidence of the effectiveness of value linkages. Thus, coupling values and EU trade policy may be costly and has few, if any, advantages; its main effect is continuous attention being paid to these issues (seen as a virtue by some). This article includes illustrations concerning the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), EU/China cooperation on sustainable development and the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).

EU-캐나다 포괄적경제무역협정(CETA)상의 투자법원제도(ICS)에 관한 분석, 평가 및 국제적 전망

EU-캐나다 CETA상의 ICS의 설립과 운영은 향후 국제사회에서의 ISDS에 있어서 새로운 동향으로 작용할 수 있다. 특히 기존 ISDS에 비해 독창적이고 진보적인 내용으로는 미국이 중심이 되어 적용되고 있는 ICSID를 통한 기존 투자협정상의 분쟁해결절차와는 다른 중개절차의 도입, 상설적인 투자법원 및 재심이 가능한 상소법원의 설립과 운영, 심리공개를 통한 절차적 투명성 제고 및 보장, 소규모 사건의 경우 단독심리의 허용, 국제사회에서의 다자간 투자법원제도 설립에의 기여 등을 들 수 있다. 이러한 기존 ISDS에 대한 개선을 통한 새로이 도입되는 ICS는 국제사회에서 ISDS절차에 대한 제도개선의 논의를 활성화할 것이며, 또한 국제적으로 투자 관련 협상에서 일종의 가이드라인으로 작용할 가능성이 있다. 무엇보다도 EU가 주축이 되어 기존 ISDS에 대한 개선을 시도하는 ICS의 도입은 향후 국제사회에서의 도입을 희망하는 소위 국제투자법원을 지향하고 있기 때문에 그 귀추가 주목되고 있다.<BR> 그러나 이러한 국제투자법원제도의 도입이나 설립은 미국을 중심으로 한 투자분쟁해결에 대한 현재의 국제적 상황에 비추어 볼 때 더 많은 추가적인 논의가 필요해 보인다. 따라서 우리나라는 이러한 최근의 국제적 동향에 주목하여 국익의 관점에서 국제적인 논의 동향에 뒤처지지 않도록 해야 한다. ISDS와 관련한 ‘새로운 제도적 도입내용’과 관련해서는 우리나라의 개별 입장을 준비해 국제사회에 우리나라의 사정에 맞는 적절한 대안이 반영되도록 함과 아울러 우리나라에 불리한 사항에 대해서는 이를 적절히 방어하도록 해야 할 것이다. 이와 관련해서는 투자 및 투자자의 보호에 우선할 것인지, 아니면 투자유치국의 이해를 보다 우선적으로 고려할 것인지에 대한 충분한 검토가 필요할 것이다. 그런데 기존의 ISDS에 대한 비판에도 불구하고 이것의 종료가 임박해 보이지는 않아, 새로운 ICS의 주류화에는 상당한 시간이 소요될 가능성이 있다. 그럼에도 불구하고 기 타결된 EU-캐나다 CETA, 2020년 여름 발효될 것으로 보이는 EU-베트남 투자보호협정상의 투자법원제도를 면밀히 분석하여 향후 국제적 추세에 대비하는 것은 중요한 의미가 있을 것이다.

THE ROLE OF EU INSTITUTIONS IN COMMON TRADE POLICY: AN ASSESSMENT ON EU-CANADA COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC AND TRADE AGREEMENT

What are the roles of the European Union (EU)’s main institutions in common trade policy? To address this question, this study uses a political-economic approach. The positions of the European Commission, Council of the European Union and European Parliament on EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) are examined. The study uses content analysis as a research methodology, based on a categorization of values and economic interests projected by the EU’s contemporary trade strategy “Trade for All”. Differently from previous studies which use a political-economic approach to analyze the EU’s external relations with developing countries, this article makes a contribution to EU trade policy literature by combining a political-economy perspective with an institutional one to examine a EU trade agreement signed with a highly industrialized country. Within this context, the findings reveal that the Parliament and Council are more value-oriented, than economic interest-oriented. The Commission is instead found slightly more economic interest-oriented than value-oriented. However, the priorities of three institutions do not diverge significantly in terms of political economy. Each institution manages to impose its own priorities on both the (value-related) normative and (interest-related) material parts of CETA and agrees on producing a neoliberal economic outcome.

Comparative Analysis between the 2018 and 2004 Dutch Model Bilateral Investment Treaty Texts

This article compares the recently published 2018 Dutch model bilateral investment treaty text (2018 Model bit) and the former 2004 version. The changes to the 2018 Model BIT reflect the reaction by European Union (EU) Member States to the increasing number of investor-state disputes against them, the general backlash against free trade agreements (FTA), and the CJEU’S decision in Achmea. Furthermore, the drafters of the new Dutch Model bit carefully took into consideration the framework of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the European Commission’s proposal for the establishment of an Investment Court System (ICS) as a substitute for the current investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS). As a result, the 2018 text incorporates significantly stricter provisions than the ones of the former version.

Reforming ISDS: Changing (Almost) Everything, So That Everything Stays the Same?

This article critically reviews some of the most recent developments in relation to reforms of ISDS, focusing on both the European and the international reform efforts. As to the former, we discuss two major developments: the establishment of the Investment Court System (ICS) in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the proposed mechanism of a Multilateral Investment Court (MIC), intended to replace ICS, once in force. At the international level, we offer an overview of the UN negotiations to reform ISDS conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. In reviewing these reform efforts we ask whether and how the (proposed) reforms address the major flaws of ISDS and, more particularly, the negative impact on the human rights of investment-affected communities and individuals. Regrettably, we find that the panoply of reform proposals discussed at the EU level and in the UN environment run the risk of reflecting the aspiration of the old adage: ‘for everything to stay the same, everything must change’. We then present two main paths more likely to achieve transformative change: the first is to maintain ISDS, but to reform it in new and radical ways; the second implies the definitive disposal of ISDS. As to the former, we discuss proposals for granting states, investment-affected communities and individuals a right to initiate a claim against investors. We conclude that a reformed international investment law, which incorporates human rights and endows investment-affected communities and individuals with enforceable rights, may be a better alternative than abandoning ISDS tout-court.

Recent Evolution in International Trade in the Transatlantic Area: Unexpected Consequences or Nothing New Under the Sun?

Since January 2017, the US Government has taken some controversial positions in international trade. This includes, most notably, the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, the implementation of higher tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the suspension of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The present contribution wishes to study whether the US trade positions have caused any effect in transatlantic trade relations, with a specific focus on the EU, Canada and Mexico. Formal trade talks between the EU and Canada and the EU and Mexico go back at least to the 1970s. Currently, EU–Canada and EU–Mexico trade relations revolve mainly around the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), provisionally entered into force in September 2017, and the modernization of the Global Agreement between the EU and Mexico, the trade part of which was concluded in principle in April 2018. This contribution argues that the US trade agenda has generated some effects in transatlantic trade relations, such as strengthening the economic and geopolitical alliance between the EU, Canada and Mexico and accelerating their agreements negotiation and/or approval. These effects, however, are not surprising. Indeed, they perfectly follow a historical pattern according to which the EU, Canada and Mexico have always tried to strengthen their economic and political ties as a reaction to US moves. That notwithstanding, it is argued that the CETA and the modernized Global Agreement are innovative in a number of areas and this is the result of a number of circumstances and US moves that predate President Trump administration.

El arbitraje de inversiones entre la Unión Europea y Singapur: ¿Del arbitraje de diferencias Estado-Inversor a un sistema de Tribunales de Inversiones?

El régimen de arbitraje de inversiones entre la Unión Europea (UE) y Singapur ha pasado del arbitraje de diferencias Estado-inversor propuesto por el borrador del Acuerdo de Libre Comercio entre la UE y Singapur del 2015 a un Sistema de Tribunales de Inversiones en el borrador del Acuerdo de Protección de las Inversiones entre la UE y Singapur (APIUES) del 2018. Esta evolución se fundamenta en: a) los cambios de forma y fondo introducidos por el APIUES; y, b) un análisis comparativo de los sistemas de tribunales de inversiones previstos en el APIUES, la Asociación Transatlántica para el Comercio y la Inversión entre la UE y los Estados Unidos, y el Acuerdo Económico y Comercial Global entre la UE y Canadá.Recibido: 10 febrero 2019Aceptado: 21 junio 2019Publicación en línea: 31 julio 2019

State-to-State Dispute Settlement Provisions in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

On 26 September 2014 the European Union and Canada announced the conclusion of the negotiations of a new agreement that would open the doors for new business opportunities and enhanced economic co-operation, creating a trade bridge between two economic powers. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a secondgeneration agreement, since it is not merely focused on the abolition of tariffs but more properly on the abolition of nontariff barriers. The agreement also contains innovative stateto-state dispute settlement provisions. The purpose of this article is to analyze these provisions but also to underline the extent to which they represent an innovation in comparison with the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU). In order to do so, the article offers an overview of the major salient issues on dispute settlement in preferential trade agreements as well as on the EU-Canada CETA state-to-state dispute settlement provisions and compares the latter to the WTO DSU. The analysis sheds light on the rather more simple nature of the EU-Canada CETA dispute settlement chapter compared to that of the WTO DSU because of the absence of an appellate review stage, which will probably be balanced by a more incisive role for the CETA Joint Committee. The analysis of the contours of the dispute settlement chapter of the CETA concludes with the identification of the major similarities with the WTO DSU but also by identifying the major improvements in the EUCanada CETA, if compared with the WTO DSU. Ultimately, this article shows how CETA has reinforced the economic partnership between the European Union and Canada without disregarding civil society participation and transparency in the dispute settlement phase.

Expanding the Movement of Natural Persons Through Free Trade Agreements? A Review of CETA, TPP and ChAFTA

Researchers and international institutions have tried to solve a fundamental paradox in the politics of migration. While introducing stricter migration policy stands high on the agenda of many countries, demographic facts suggest that they will need to introduce more extensive labour immigration to avoid labour shortages. Meanwhile, attempts to introduce a legally binding international regime on labour mobility, most ambitiously through Mode 4 of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and as requested by developing countries, have had limited success. This article explores one of the political options for resolving this: regulating the movement of natural persons through free trade agreements. It examines three recently concluded free trade agreements (FTAs), the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in an attempt to answer two questions. First, do the signatories commit to more expansive possibilities for labour mobility than through the GATS? Second, what has the political reception of such measures been? While most of the signatories are willing to schedule more far-reaching commitments through FTAs than through the GATS, these commitments typically fall within the realm of existing work permit systems in domestic law. In addition, we find examples of political backlash in countries that have included somewhat more ambitious mobility provisions in FTAs, particularly in Australia. These FTAs may still play a role by improving mutual recognition of skills, and limiting the impact of national reforms to restrict labour migration. However, we conclude that FTAs appear to be neither a manifestly successful instrument for significantly liberalizing labour mobility, nor an evidently desirable one. We call for a more holistic approach that refrains from temporary labour mobility programmes to meet permanent demand for labour, with respect for migrant workers’ rights at its core.

Comparative Analysis between the 2018 and 2004 Dutch Model Bilateral Investment Treaty Texts

This article compares the recently published 2018 Dutch model bilateral investment treaty text (2018 Model BIT) and the former 2004 version. The changes to the 2018 Model BIT reflect the reaction by European Union (EU) Member States to the increasing number of investor-state disputes against them, the general backlash against free trade agreements (FTA), and the CJEU’S decision in Achmea. Furthermore, the drafters of the new Dutch Model bit carefully took into consideration the framework of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the European Commission’s proposal for the establishment of an Investment Court System (ICS) as a substitute for the current investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS). As a result, the 2018 text incorporates significantly stricter provisions than the ones of the former version.