Chaire de recherche du Canada en ÉPI
Team
Laurie is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, affiliated to the Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance (PEGO) research group at the Institute of Political Science. She is also affiliated with the Institute of Public Law and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research. Laurie completed her Ph.D at the École supérieure d'études internationales of the Université Laval in 2024, for which she received a Joseph Armand Bombardier Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration of the Graduate Institute of Geneva (IHEID) in Switzerland in 2022 and the School of Social Sciences of the University of Melbourne in Australia in 2023. Her interdisciplinary research combines political science and law and focuses on climate policy, international trade law and international political economy.
Before starting her PhD, Laurie held various positions in Quebec public administration. She worked as a trade policy advisor for Quebec Ministry of Economy and Innovation (2016-2019) and Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (2016). She also worked as an advisor to the Parliamentary affairs of Quebec National Assembly (2013). As a trade policy advisor, she participated in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the negotiation of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and a dispute settlement procedure at the World Trade Organization.
Research interest
International economic law; international political economy; international environmental governance; environmental policy; carbon taxation.
Teaching
ETI-7030 "Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research: Tackling International Issues"
(Title in french: Initiation à la recherche interdisciplinaire: Aborder les enjeux internationaux" )
Projet de recherche en cours
"Climate federalism" à l'Université de Berne
Peer-reviewed articles
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Durel, Laurie. 2024. ‘Border Carbon Adjustment Compliance and the WTO: The Interactional Evolution of Law’. Journal of International Economic Law: jgae007. doi:10.1093/jiel/jgae007.
International law and its understanding can evolve outside of treaties, but little is known about the elements that can explain these changes. This paper looks at the debate on border carbon adjustment (BCA) compatibility with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and argues that international law depends on the actors’ perceptions, which can change over time. It applies an interactional international law framework to explain how a policy that was once deemed incompatible with WTO rules is now considered ‘WTO-compliant’ by the European Union. A discourse network analysis is conducted based on debates from the WTO and the literature over 24 years. Results show that since 2012, the legal literature has increasingly been more confident that BCA could be WTO-compatible, despite the absence of significant changes in WTO case law during the same period. This increase in support was sustained by an expanded practice of legality and a perceived lack of legality of applicable WTO rules. This research offers new insights into the dynamics of international law. It provides new methodological avenues for scholars seeking to trace the evolution of law and legal understanding through formal and informal processes
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Durel, Laurie, and Laure Gosselin. 2023. ‘Timely Climate Proposals. Discourse Networks and (Dis)Continuity in European Policies’. Journal of European Public Policy: 1–28. doi:10.1080/13501763.2023.2268673.
How do discursive fields influence support for climate policies? The European Green Deal (EGD) has gained media attention in part because it was presented as a cross-sectorial strategy aiming to ‘transform the European economy’. Our analysis focuses on two specific policy proposals of the EGD: the carbon border adjustment mechanism and the reform for a greener Common Agricultural Policy. By comparing their discourse network structure, we aim to understand policy (dis)continuity introduced with the EGD. We use an original longitudinal dataset and discourse network analysis to map framing dynamics over time and understand how particular frames can gather support in policy networks. Our study shows that two elements favor policy change, namely the resonance of new frames with the discursive field and the presence of brokers connecting previously disconnected actors or coalitions. This paper is relevant for scholars interested in the discursive layer of policy networks as well as (dis)continuity in policy debates