Trade Actors Research Articles

Creating a more inclusive approach to wildlife trade management.

Global wildlife trade involves a diverse array of species. Although sustainable trade underpins livelihoods for communities worldwide, unsustainable trade, whether legal or illegal, threatens thousands of species and can lead to extinctions. From plants and fungi to fish, amphibians, mammals, invertebrates, and reptiles, a diverse array of species across taxa are affected by trade. Attention to wildlife trade has increased in recent years, but its focus has largely remained on a narrow range of high-profile species, with taxa deemed less charismatic frequently overlooked, despite some having significant trade volumes and levels of threat to wild populations. These biases can hamper effective policy interventions, reduce awareness of wider threats from trade, and prevent conservation efforts from focusing on the most pressing issues. It is important to broaden the scope of research and policy discussions and create a more inclusive approach to trade management. The diversity of approaches to wildlife trade can be improved by expanding monitoring of trade to a wider variety of taxa; collecting fundamental ecological data to underpin assessments of trade sustainability; improving and codesigning conservation interventions with key stakeholders and trade actors; and developing appropriate strategies for managing the supply, trade, and demand in diverse wildlife products to ensure species and livelihoods are protected.

“Vivre en paix et en bonne intelligence avec les princes locaux” in Senegambia in the Age of Slave Economy: Diplomatic Treaties, Trade, Conflicts, and Peace in Interaction (1679–1815)

Abstract The violent and competitive context in which trade relations between the states of Senegambia and Europeans evolved required moments of calm and stability, which were decisive and important factors in the cohabitation of trade actors. Diplomacy was a fundamental political lever for European trade in Senegambia. It had become a major stake in the daily lives of the actors. Diplomacy was generally reserved for field actors from different political cultures and with different political and economic ambitions. Diplomacy took the form of negotiations, and took the form of simple agreements of principle, notably in the context of palavers, or the conclusion of trade and peace treaties. The aim of diplomacy, for example, was to establish strong, peaceful commercial relations between trade players and to regularize the tax system, which was the fundamental basis of trade and the expression of the sovereignty of local chiefs towards the Europeans.

The nature and extent of the Taliban’s involvement in the drug trade before and after the regime change (1994–2022): insights from experts

ABSTRACT This article considers what experts know about the nature and extent of the Taliban’s involvement in the drug trade from 1994 until 2022. The findings indicate that the Taliban has been consistently involved in the drug trade in various roles and capacities. This involvement, fortified by familial and tribal connections with key drug trade actors, allows the Taliban to establish local legitimacy and strengthen its influence in rural areas. Despite the Taliban’s transition from insurgency to governance in August 2021, factions within the group have remained involved in the drug trade, and some drug traffickers hold official positions in the Taliban-led government. Study findings reveal that the Taliban’s opium ban serves strategic objectives, which include gaining political recognition and increasing opium prices. These findings underscore the importance of independent and comprehensive monitoring of the Taliban’s counternarcotics policies and urge caution in any engagements regarding counternarcotics initiatives with the Taliban-led government.

The Geoeconomic Turn in EU Trade and Investment Policy: Implications for Developing Countries

The so-called geoeconomic turn in global trade policy-making has changed the context in which the European Union positions itself as a trade actor. However, there is little scholarly attention paid to how the geoeconomic turn affects the EU’s relations with developing countries. This article analyses the potential implications of new EU autonomous trade and investment instruments for developing countries, and how the EU has taken these consequences into account when designing them. We rely on a combination of desk research of official documents, trade data, and secondary literature complemented with expert interviews. We find that a trade-off between geoeconomic and development objectives is more pertinent in sustainability-related than in competitiveness- and security-oriented instruments. In these sustainability instruments, differential treatment of developing countries rarely features in the design—despite some proposals having been made. The geoeconomic turn has thus made it more difficult to align the different objectives in the EU’s trade and investment policies, and development concerns are sometimes relegated to the background.

Trading Go Digital: Experience and Influence of the Digital Phenomenon on Traditional Traders

The development of digital technology has significantly changed the trade landscape, influencing the way business is conducted around the world. This research aims to investigate the experience and influence of digital phenomena on traditional trade. Qualitative research methods were used, with in-depth interviews and content analysis as the main tools for data collection. Through this approach, a deep understanding of how traditional commerce adapts and evolves in the digital era is gained. The research results show that digitalization has provided challenges and opportunities for traditional trade actors. On the one hand, digitalization has increased market accessibility, enabling traditional traders to reach new customers through online platforms. On the other hand, increasingly powerful digital competitors pose a threat to the continuity of traditional trading businesses. Traditional merchants must adapt quickly to new technology to remain competitive.

The e-Walls of Brexit: Digital Adjustments in Customs Programs Between France, Belgium and the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Contemporary border wall policies are characterized by digitization of control procedures to filter out mobilities and adjust control to trade flows. This digitization has been mostly studied in terms of technology deployment and usages by state and non-state actors to deal with migration. When applied to control of trade flows, “smart bordering” also involves functional adjustments between public and trade actors, as well as customs cooperation. The bordering at stake with Brexit provides a revealing case study. Brexit entailed supply chain security for goods crossing the UK–France/Belgium border. For companies, transporters, and customs, avoiding physical controls at ports became imperative. Each country generalized data sharing and pre-lodgment through “smart bordering” models and various Information Technology (IT) programs. This paper examines such digitization programs and the adjustments between public and private actors confronted with IT programs and the mutation and cooperation of customs agencies in this process. It concludes that the UK lacked anticipation, while France and Belgium were proactive in accordance with EU harmonization. The digitization of control also reveals changes in identity-making of customs, emphasizing its autonomy as a border agent and its role as a trade supporter, on top of traditional policing or taxation duties.

Valuable bycatch: Eliciting social importance of sharks in Sri Lanka through value chain analysis

Decades of unsustainable fishing have caused widespread declines in shark populations leading to calls for increased management and policy. To design successful measures, an understanding of the social context and drivers for trade is needed. This study uses a value chain approach in Sri Lanka, where shark landings have declined rapidly, to map shark trade actors, ascertain determinants of price of shark meat and determine wider social value of shark products. Data was collected over one year from surveys of sales events (n = 630), and semi-structured interviews (n = 24), at two sites on the south and west coasts. We identify a dynamic, flexible supply chain with a small number of specialised stakeholders that may alternate roles depending on factors such as supply of sharks. Sharks were the primary income source for most (71%, n = 17) and 25% (n = 6) reported no alternative income sources. Trade was dominated by dried shark meat in the domestic market, and demand shaped by its perceived nutritional benefits and taste. Identification of species was difficult, and shark meat was primarily sold as size categories, however, whether or not shark was sold as blue shark (Prionace glauca) significantly impacted price reportedly due to lower international demand for their fins. Stakeholders perceived substantial drops in shark landings and trade > 10 years ago. We show that, within Sri Lanka, shark products represent a nexus of two dramatically different markets: high-value fins for their export markets and low to medium-value meat important for domestic earnings. The presence of dried products reportedly increases resilience of shark trade to socio-ecological shocks. Disentangling the relative social importance of these products, through product-specific and species-specific data is vital for a move towards predictive management that is capable of robust outcomes.

Decolonising EU Trade Relations with the Global Souths?

That the European Union’s common commercial relations with ex-colonies and more broadly the ‘tiers monde’ now rest variously on benevolence, depoliticised practices, equal partnerships and values fuels reigning foundational myths about the EU in global politics. Efforts to disrupt these received presuppositions have come from interpretivist, postcolonial, post-development, post-structuralist and other heterodox research traditions. Yet the academy has been largely impervious to knowledges that genuinely question and subvert, in both theory and praxis, Eurocentric ways of seeing the world and understanding the EU as a ‘benevolent’ trade actor on the world stage. In dialogue with existing heterodox approaches, this article asks how we might puncture the coloniality of dominant knowledge regimes about EU trade relations vis-à-vis the global souths, i.e., peoples and places that the EU deems peripheral and, as such, in need of trade-related interventions in the name of development. To this end, we propose different ‘subject-positions’ with which to unthink and rethink our ways of knowing EU trade policy and the Eurocentrism lurking behind it by turning to decolonial thought. We borrow heavily from the work of Meera Sabaratnam whose ‘decolonising strategies’ in studying world politics we attempt to exemplify through a critical interrogation of the canonical scholarship around three distinct ‘policy worlds’ of EU external trade relations: Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) and Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters in free trade agreements. Finally, we think reflexively about the decolonial option and the ruptures it triggers as to what EU trade policy is and the colonial logics sustaining ‘normative’ and ‘geopolitical’ narratives on/by the EU as a trade power.

Mission Accomplished? Balancing Market Growth and Moral Legitimation in the Fair Trade Moral Market

Mission Accomplished? Balancing Market Growth and Moral Legitimation in the Fair Trade Moral Market

Optimizing testing strategies for early detection of disease outbreaks in animal trade networks via MCMC.

The animal trades between farms and other livestock holdings form a complex livestock trade network. The movement of animals between trade actors plays an important role in the spread of infectious diseases among premises. Particularly, the outbreak of silent diseases that have no clinically obvious symptoms in the animal trade system should be diagnosed by taking special tests. In practice, the authorities regularly conduct examinations on a random number of farms to make sure that there was no outbreak in the system. However, these actions, which aim to discover and block a disease cascade, are yet far from the effective and optimum solution and often fail to prevent epidemics. A testing strategy is defined as making decisions about distributing the fixed testing budget N between farms/nodes in the network. In this paper, first, we apply different heuristics for selecting sentinel farms on real and synthetic pig-trade networks and evaluate them by simulating disease spreading via the SI epidemic model. Later, we propose a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based testing strategy with the aim of early detection of outbreaks. The experimental results show that the proposed method can reasonably well decrease the size of the outbreak on both the realistic synthetic and real trade data. A targeted selection of an N/52 fraction of nodes in the real pig-trade network based on the MCMC or simulated annealing can improve the performance of a baseline strategy by 89%. The best heuristic-based testing strategy results in a 75% reduction in the average size of the outbreak compared to that of the baseline testing strategy.

Article 10 - The good geopolitical trade actor? The European Union’s discursive justification of the Anti-Coercion Instrument

Traditionally, the EU has presented itself as a normative trade actor, as opposed to other geopolitical trading powers. However, today, it is increasingly recognized that the EU is undergoing a geopolitical turn which also manifests itself in its trade policy. Yet, confusion remains regarding what a ‘geopolitical EU trade policy’ entails and how the EU sells this new perspective in its trade policy. This article contributes to the ongoing debate on this topic by investigating how the European Commission discursively justifies its geopolitical turn in trade. Methodologically, we analyze EU trade discourse with particular attention for othering strategies. Empirically, we study a most-likely case of ‘geopoliticization of trade’, namely the Commission’s initiative to launch an Anti-Coercion Instrument, by analyzing the most important EU documents covering the ACI so far and EU statements on the ACI in relevant media. We find that the Commission distinguishes a ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ variant of geopoliticization of trade, whereby the former is conceived as ‘good’ and pursued by the EU, while the latter is seen as ‘bad’ and employed by non-EU trading powers. This diverges from previous EU trade discourses since the 2000s, which portrayed the EU as transcending geopolitics – a normative power pursuing free trade and multilateralism – and other powers as essentially geopolitical – self-interested, protectionist, and regionalist. The EU’s new othering strategy legitimizes the EU’s geopolitical turn in trade, by simultaneously turning away from its previous, ‘naively’ normative trade discourse, while also contrasting the EU’s trade policy to the ‘offensive’ geopolitical trade from ‘bad’ trade actors.

Routes, places and strategies of transnational business between Casablanca (Morocco), Nouakchott (Mauritania) and Dakar (Senegal)1.

This article analyses the dynamics of economic, social, and political linkages on a West African axis between Morocco, Mauritania, and Senegal, focusing on the commercial sphere and its modalities (commercial spaces, transportation of goods, actors). Combining analyses of the strategies of institutional actors (in particular the role of the Moroccan state) and those of transnational trade actors (migrants, entrepreneurs, transnational firms), we examine the type of macro-region that is under construction between these countries, which are strongly bound by human and trade flows. To understand the dynamics of regionalisation underway, a multi-sited and pluri-annual qualitative approach has been favoured. The different places we studied - markets, border crossings, streets or neighbourhoods known for their boutiques selling imported products, parking lots serving as both resting places and trading areas - are all specific entry points and anchors for understanding regional geopolitics and the strategies at work among economic and political actors along the trans-Saharan route that connects Tangier to Dakar.

SOVEREIGNTY FICTIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM'S TRADE AGENDA

AbstractThis article explores how sovereignty fictions have been used to advance different legal, political and economic aims in the articulation of the United Kingdom's future approach to global regulation. By mapping the transformative shifts in sovereignty paradigms, this article highlights the disconnect between the absolutist sovereignty popularised in the UK government's political rhetoric and the concept of regulatory sovereignty that underpins the UK's future trading strategy. To maintain its status as a global leader in regulation and standards-setting, the UK government will need to diffuse power and delegate autonomy through networked orders of public and private actors. These competing sovereignty paradigms are analysed with reference to European Union (EU) law and practice, to highlight the opportunities and challenges for the UK as an independent trade actor. This article concludes by evaluating how sovereignty fictions can disrupt the objectives of the UK's proposed ‘common law’ approach to regulatory governance and discusses the policy interventions that may be required to enable the UK to harness its potential as a regulatory leader.

The informal sector and the challenge of regional development in southeastern Tunisia

This paper tries to highlight the territorial development in the governorates of South?East Tunisia on the border with Libya. Our main objective is to show the existence of a direct relationship between regional diparity and work in informal trade.This work proposes to aggregate a set of regional development indicators of each delegation in order to draw up a typology of the delegations as well as to calculate a territorial development index for each delegation and to discern any failures hindering their development. Also, this analysis addresses the subject of informal trade in southeastern of Tunisia. Following this, a survey will be made with the informal trade actors to analyze their situations and finally an analysis of the state intervention as well as recommendations will be proposed. Our work has shown that regional and local disparity is one of the causes of informal trade in the southeast. As well as the workshops, that we organized confirmed that most of the players in the informal trade are unemployed young people. Here, there are also people who are currently working and who a fixed income, but they are informal traders.

Implementasi Fair Trade dalam Perdagangan Komoditas Kacang Mete dari Bali Timur

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic fair trade is thought to be a trading plan that can aid economic recovery. Companies that conduct fair trade schemes, on the other hand, face hurdles as a result of the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. The East Bali Cashews (EBC) company, which offers fair trade for cashew nuts as a major commodity in Ban village, Karangasem, is highlighted in this study. This study seeks to explain the role of corporation as non-state actor in international trade by adopting a pluralist approach and the concept of fair trade. The study compares the implementation of fair trade by EBC during the COVID-19 pandemic with before the pandemic using a comparative qualitative method with primary data obtained through in-depth interviews. This study is significant in examining the critical role of corporation as primary actor in fair trade schemes that directly affect cashew farmers as small producers. In order to advance the welfare of farmers and cashew as a promising commodity for Ban Village's development.

FALLINGBEHIND: THE EUROPEAN UNION TRADE STRATEGIES FROM 1999 TO 2021

As one of the most important global trade actors, in the period that lasted from 1999 to 2021the European Union promoted five different trade strategies. Some of them, such as the strategy of “managed globalisation” (of 1999) and “Global Europe” (of 2006) represented a deviation from the previous trade practice, while others (“Trade, Growth and World Affairs” from 2010, “Trade, Growth and Development” of 2012, and “Trade for All” of 2015), for the most part, included significant improvements compared to previous strategic documents. The latest communication document of the European Commission, “Open, Sustainable and Assertive Trade Policy” (of 2021), points to the Union’s adaptation to new circumstances, emphasising the concept of open strategic autonomy and proclaiming a return to multilateralism based on fair and sustainable rules. Although the EU seeks to present itself as a leading initiator of change in the existing static trading system, this paper will attemptto prove that,in its strategic positioning and undertaken activities,the European Union is falling behind its key global competitors, the US and China. The systemic, state-centric and societal reasons for the relatively frequent changes of key trade documents and the essentially defensive action of the European Union in the global trade system will also be analysed.

Impacts of Blockchains on International Maritime Trade

The impact of blockchains on maritime trade has been studied from economic and managerial angles. But their combined study from the legal, economic, and managerial angles has rarely been studied. If the economic stakes are beginning to be identified, the way in which the law defines blockchains is more delicate to understand; the international dimension of maritime transport associated with the various national regulations complicates the analysis. After studying the economic benefits of blockchains on maritime trade we analyzed the legal benefits and the outstanding legal issues. These analyses led to a study of the relationship between the maritime supply chain and blockchains. This study shows that the adoption of this innovative technology by maritime trade actors will have many economic, logistical, and legal consequences that cannot be dissociated and are nevertheless systematically dissociated; but that it is difficult to clearly identify or confirm due to the small number of case studies. JEL Codes: O33, R40

Human Security Concerns of South Asia: (India and Pakistan’s Perspective) & Holistic Approaches of EU towards Advancing Regional Security in South Asia

The South Asian states have been facing grave challenges to human security since long as a result of increasing extremism, religious intolerance, border conflicts and terrorism. These domestic, regional and global factors are a menace and main hindrance in the progress and prosperity of this region and are the most contributing factors behind the fragile establishment and non- stability of peace in the region. Terrorism has posed a serious threat to peace, security and stability of this region and the rest of the international community. Besides it has caused huge amount of loss in terms of human lives and economical terms as it has lowered the progress graph of the region to the lowest in its history at times. This article highlights the human security problems specific to India and Pakistan, though contextualized within broader human security challenges affecting South Asia. Today, both India and Pakistan are facing different types of internal and external threats ranging from cross border terrorism to internal militia groups. The South Asian region has strategically strong and weak features, where Pakistan and India are two major regional players, who always remain in tussle to manifest their hegemony in the region by gaining more and more military and other aggressive and other forms of power. Therefore, the issues regarding peace and security depend on the relationship between these two countries, even security in other small neighboring countries depend on this relationship. India and Pakistan lives in an environment lacking in human security. At present, former is suffering from radical approaches in the political system of the country and whole democratic setup is being continuously replaced by religious oriented ideology while Pakistan is facing crucial problems like political instability, socio-economic underdevelopment, energy crises, terrorism, drone attacks, suicide bombing impacting human security in the country. The authors suggest that India and Pakistan need to make progress in the field of economics and trade and realize that at present it is in the interest of not only the two states but also their huge populations. There is an urgent need for the EU to revise and update its South Asia strategy. The EU is not yet an important player in South Asia, but the region is of increasing importance to the EU – not only for economic reasons, but also for the security of the European continent. Indeed, not only does the EU rely heavily on the Indian Ocean to secure its position as a major actor in world trade, but instability in regions like Afghanistan and Pakistan directly impact European security through their links to home-grown terrorism and similar threats.

Digging Deeper: Understanding the Illegal Trade and Local Use of Pangolins in Palawan Province, Philippines

The illegal wildlife trade represents an urgent conservation challenge, but measuring, understanding, and designing interventions to address it is a complex task. As some of the world's most illegally trafficked wild mammals, pangolins are regularly observed in the illegal wildlife trade, but little is known of the intricacies of the trade at local levels, particularly for lesser-known species such as the Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis). This research represents the first range-wide study to concurrently document local use and trade of the Philippine pangolin across Palawan Province, Philippines, and provides new information on trade actors, dynamics, and the conditions that help to facilitate this industry. The study was carried out across 18 Palawan municipalities, covering all mainland municipalities, Araceli Island, and the Calamianes Island group. A mixed methods approach was used, combining 1,277 bean count surveys to investigate consumption and hunting levels, alongside 59 in-depth key informant interviews to better understand trade logistics and dynamics. Our results suggest that local use of the species is geographically widespread, but trade hubs were most frequently reported from northern municipalities. Several enabling conditions help facilitate trade across the province, and our data suggest the species may be contributing to the international pangolin trade at levels considerably higher than seizure records indicate.

Article 47 of the Charter in the Opinion Procedure: Some Reflections Following Opinion 1/17

The emphasis on Article 47 of the Charter in Opinion 1/17, as a separate ground in the compatibility review, has a constitutional dimension. Once again, as in Achmea, the specific characteristics of the EU legal order, especially with regard to the affirmation and development of the rule of law, are analysed in the investment protection legal framework. However, Article 47 has a specific role and function in the EU legal order, establishing the guarantees for a composite judicial system at the basis of the principle of autonomy. Preserving the specific function of Article 47 in the balance between effectiveness, procedural protection, and national autonomy in the EU legal order is also of utmost importance in the current rule of law crisis. This paper affirms that external relations are outside the scope of Article 47 of the Charter. This does not however mean that the principle of judicial protection and the right of access to an independent tribunal have only an internal EU law dimension. The Union’s contribution to the development of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and to the establishment of permanent investment courts confirms that promoting the rule of law is part of the Union’s external action. The Court of Justice could assess the CETA’s compatibility with the right of access to an independent tribunal without having recourse to Article 47 of the Charter, on the ground either of the principle of autonomy or of the compatibility with the substantive provisions of the common commercial policy. This paper argues that while judicial protection as part of the autonomy claim could meet some conceptual limits, promoting judicial protection as part of the common commercial policy could reinforce the perception that the Union is a credible and influential actor in international trade and in international procedural law.