No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
A 'Sustainability Impact Assessment' of the Economic Partnership Agreements: Challenging the Participatory Process
Abstract
For the past decade the EU has been preparing to end its tradition of preferential and partially reciprocal trade with the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries. With the expiry of trade preferences in 2007 under the Cotonou Agreement, these trade partners have agreed to negotiate Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and trade on reciprocal terms, in a bid to preserve their special relationship. A Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) was commissioned by the EU to engage stakeholders in discussion about the real and potential challenges of the new trade regime facing ACP countries. This paper examines the participatory process of the EPA negotiations, in particular the Sustainability Impact Assessment, through the lens of country ownership and deliberative democracy. Discussion of the participation process will be twofold: analysing whether the issues raised in the public sphere are reflected in the CARIFORUM-EC EPA, and the extent to which the SIA is legitimised through public participation.
... Deliberation is performed through several modes of argumentation involving disagreement (Gammage, 2010); To test the veracity of the deliberation, there must be For deliberation to be robust, LWCs need to engage in discussion and debate where issues are contested (Bebbington et al., the existence of conflict and reasoned argument (Leach, 2006;Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2012). Mechanisms employed include discussion, consensus decision making, mediation. ...
Bottom-up watershed governance that features citizen engagement in decision-making is touted as a
panacea for better social and environmental outcomes. However, there is limited agreement on how exactly this
engagement occurs, and how it can be assessed. Water decision-making may result in better social outcomes
when decision-making is deliberative and democratic. This article brings together a cross-disciplinary framework
to assess deliberative democratic practices in local water councils (LWCs) in the Prairie Provinces, Canada. We
apply this framework to assess and compare LWCS, using data from a review of secondary sources and semistructured
qualitative interviews with members of LWCs. Our framework was useful for identifying strengths and
shortcomings of deliberative democracy within and across LWCs. The strengths of the Manitoba model are its
significant mandate and stable tax funding. Alberta’s strengths are in the areas of community representation and
significant contested deliberation. Saskatchewan’s strengths are its interconnectedness with other organisations,
sectors, and governments. While LWCs have made important contributions to local watershed governance, a
consideration and comparison of deliberative democratic practices offers options for policy change strengthening
the deliberative democratic practices of LWCs.
The EU has established a new architecture of international labour standards governance within the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters of its Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). To examine the operationalization of this framework, we draw upon 121 interviews undertaken with key informants in three FTAs signed with the Caribbean, South Korea and Moldova. We engage with wider debates over external governance and the projection of EU power by showing how operational failings, including a lack of legal and political prioritization of TSD chapters and shortcomings in the implementation of key provisions, have hindered the impact of the FTAs upon labour standards. We also identify significant limitations to the EU's ‘common formulation’ approach when applied to different trading partner contexts, alongside ambiguities about the underlying purpose of the trade–labour linkage. Reflection about the function and purpose of labour standards provisions in EU trade policy is therefore required.
As free trade agreements proliferate, the relationship between trade and human rights continues to attract attention across academic disciplines. The linkages between human rights and liberal trade rules have been the subject of debate for some time. Since most countries tend to afford constitutional protection to both human rights and freedom of trade, there appears to be an inescapable connection between the two regimes. In theory, at least, economic growth should improve human rights standards and conditionality can be one way through which human rights compliance is achieved. However, in practice, States often pursue economic objectives that conflict with their human rights obligations. This article explores the linkages and potential conflicts between human rights and trade in the context of regional trade agreements, with a focus on the interim Economic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Southern African Development Community Group.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.