The Emergent Origins of Environmental Clauses in Trade Agreements

• In Event: The Design of Free Trade Agreements

Abstract

The proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements has been described and mapped as a complex adaptive system across various fields. This logic applies cleanly to the current proliferation of environmental clauses in bilateral trade agreements, which increasingly factor into states’ economic interactions. The goal of this paper is to empirically map the growth of these provisions within bilateral agreements over time, in order to better understand the state- and system-level influences on the likelihood of their emergence. I use tools from social network analysis to structurally map and statistically test competing theories on the influences behind and rationales for the inclusion of these provisions between any two states, specifically through use of temporal exponential random graph models. I buttress this analysis with in-depth exploration of particularly salient instances of these clauses, or their absence, in order to more finely adjudicate on the results from the network models employed. The results of this research inform predictive claims on the likelihood of these clauses’ inclusion in trade agreements, and prescriptions for improving this likelihood.

Author

• Tim Marple, University of California, Berkeley