Chaire de recherche du Canada en ÉPI
Publications
2025
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Morin, JF and P. Pic (2025) "Sequencing Binding and Non-Binding Agreements The Case of Outer Space Governance" International Theory.
Two states can have several bilateral agreements between them, some legally binding and others not. Is there a discernible pattern to how states structure the chronological sequence of binding and non-binding agreements governing a specific issue area? For example, do states prioritize a framework treaty to establish the foundation of their cooperation and let bureaucrats iron out details in non-binding instruments? Or do they first experiment with low-commitment agreements before eventually settling on a more permanent treaty? This paper explores these questions using the example of space governance, which is characterized by a high number of bilateral agreements. Examining space agreements between 287 state dyads, it argues that a combination of power asymmetry and trust levels influences the likelihood of certain types of sequences of binding and non-binding agreements. These findings are of particular relevance to the literature on informal governance, regime complexes, and space politics.
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Michaels, J. and JF Morin (2025) "Assets and Ashes: Wildfire Management and the Politics of Climate Change", Earth System Governance, 25; 1-18.
This Perspective examines the interplay between natural and political systems. Drawing on first-hand experience and recent studies, it employs various graphic novel techniques to illustrate feedback loops that connect the expansion of extractive industries into the urban-wildland interface, the incidence of human-induced wildfires, the use of prohibition policies in wildfire management to protect specific assets, the accumulation of combustible materials, the emission of greenhouse gases from wildfires, and the acceleration of climate change. However, it challenges the notion of endless self-reinforcing vicious cycles by demonstrating how shifts in asset valuation can catalyze a new politics of climate change. Forestry might become a potential vanguard example of an industry shifting its self-perceptions and political alignments in the face of more climate change induced wildfires. This transdisciplinary artistic Perspective builds on and speaks to research in the fields of forest management, climate politics, wildfire sociology, and human ecology.
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Veilleux, J and JF Morin, 2025, "Environmental Treaty-Making in Decline", IEADB Policy Brief #1.
For many years, States have relied on treaties to address environmental challenges such as biodiversity protection, pollution control, and climate change. However, a shift occurred in recent years. Environmental cooperation through treaties has been declining, despite the intensifying impacts of environmental degradation on populations. While this trend began more than a decade ago, it has become increasingly pronounced, raising concerns about the international community’s capacity to respond collectively to environmental crises.
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Morin, JF and C. Couette (2025) "The Missing Ingredients for a Polycentric Governance System of Orbital Debris." Global Environmental Politics. 25(2): 1-25
The pollution of Earth’s orbits by debris represents a pressing environmental problem. Recognizing that geopolitical factors hinder the adoption of a multilateral solution, several experts advocate for a polycentric governance system, inspired by Elinor Ostrom’s work. This paper assesses the viability of such a proposal. It finds that the global network of space organizations exhibits some of the structural characteristics of a polycentric system. However, arrangements concluded among these organizations fail to promote sustainability norms and interviews with key stakeholders reveal the absence of several favorable factors for a sustainable polycentric governance system. The paper concludes that a polycentric structure alone does not guarantee the emergence of sustainable governance. As orbital space is a relatively “easy case” for applying polycentricity theory to the global commons, this research serves as a reminder about the limitations of polycentric approaches in global environmental politics.
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2024
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Beaumier, G., & Newman, A. (2024). When Serving the Public Interest Generates Private Gains: Private Actor Governance and Two-Sided Digital Markets. Perspectives on Politics, 1–18. doi:10.1017/S1537592724001099
From speech to privacy, broad public interests are increasingly governed online by policy decisions taken by private companies. We examine when and how firms make such decisions. In contrast to the shadow of hierarchy and functionalist explanations of private authority, we build an analytical framework based on business power and the economics literature concerned with two-sided markets. We argue that companies operating as digital platforms may use private actor governance to consolidate their influence. More precisely, public-interest regulation on one side of the market (e.g., protecting the privacy of end-users) may increase the dependence of firms on the other side of the market (e.g., increasing the price paid for information by advertisers). We probe our argument by looking at the privacy policy implemented by Apple in 2021. Our findings demonstrate the growing role played by digital companies in global regulatory debates and call attention to how market structures can simultaneously incentivize public-interest regulation and become a source of business power.
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Morin, JF, N. Laurens, C. Brandi and J. Schwab (2025) "Using Trade Provisions to Make Environmental Agreements More Dynamic". International Studies Quarterly.69(1)
This paper examines the impact of trade provisions on treaty dynamism. It differentiates between static treaties, which remain unaltered, and dynamic treaties, which generate new commitments, either by bringing about additional rules or attracting new parties. We argue that incorporating trade provisions into multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) enhances their dynamism. Such provisions can empower interest groups to advocate for new international commitments and can prompt businesses in non-party states to pressure their governments to join the MEA. Analyzing a dataset of 647 MEAs, we find that provisions that restrict trade flows are associated with higher numbers of amendments and accessions. This insight is crucial for resolving the so-called ‘ambition/participation dilemma’ and designing more adaptable treaties, particularly at a time when there is increasing enthusiasm for using trade measures to set up international climate clubs.
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Beaumier, G., Heering, J., & Newman, A. (2024). Running out the digital clock: transatlantic privacy politics and veto points in time. Journal of European Integration, 46(7), 993–1013. https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2024.2398434
Why does the European Commission continue to sign onto unstable international data flow agreements with the United States? After two agreements were struck down by the European Court of Justice, and clear signals that a new one could meet a similar fate, the European Commission agreed to the Data Privacy Framework. To make sense of this behavior, we connect traditional work on veto points with work on historical institutionalism to highlight an international negotiation strategy – running out the clock. While traditional veto points literature suggests multiple institutions with varying preferences will limit the set of potential policies or their adoption, we highlight how these dynamics change when considering veto points in time. We showcase our argument by building three historical narratives detailing the negotiation of the successive data flow agreements. Our findings have important implications for the future of the transatlantic privacy regime as well as negotiation dynamics.
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Morin, JF & G. Beaumier (2024) "The Organizational Ecology of the Global Space Industry", Review of International Political Economy, 31(6): 1865-1893.
The global space industry is booming. While governmental agencies used to dominate outer space activities, private space organizations (PSOs) now launch rockets, operate strategic satellites, and even take tourists on space expeditions. How can we explain this emergence of PSOs? Building on organizational ecology theory and drawing on a novel dataset of 1,751 space organizations and 52 semi-structured interviews, this paper finds that mutualistic relations between governmental space agencies and PSOs have been instrumental in the rise of PSOs. This emphasis on mutualism challenges the prevailing belief that a few visionary private entrepreneurs create the space industry from the ground up. It also refutes the notion that PSOs simply out-compete a stagnant public sector. PSOs have not superseded governmental space agencies; they are nurtured by and develop with them. This paper is one of the first to explain how private actors can emerge in a field historically dominated by governmental actors. In doing so, it contributes to studies on public-private interactions by showing how mutualism can structure a nascent industry. It also opens up new avenues for research on the political economy of outer space by making available a rich dataset of space actors
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Beaumier, G., C. Couette & JF Morin (2024) "Hybrid organisations and governance systems: the case of the European Space Agency," Journal of European Public Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2325647
The constitutive organisations of governance systems tend to multiply and diversify over time. In parallel, a tendency toward homophily favours the creation of clusters of homogeneous organisations. Yet, few systems drift to the point of disconnection or dislocation. Several remain sufficiently cohesive to allow adaptation and other complex properties to emerge. To maintain equilibrium between order and chaos, some organisations must create bridges between otherwise homogeneous groups. This paper argues that hybrid organisations are ideally suited for this role. By their nature, hybrids share characteristics with different types of organisations in global governance, allowing them to overcome strict homophily and create bridges across clusters. Hybrids benefit from acting as brokers and in doing so, they facilitate the exchange of material and ideational resources across the governance system. Even if it is not their intention, they contribute to holding governance systems together and counterbalance the effect of homophily. We illustrate this argument by examining the space governance system and the hybrid nature, bridging activities, and brokerage role of the European Space Agency.
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Couette, C. (2024) Epistemic competition in global governance: The case of pharmaceutical patents. Global Policy, 00, 1–12. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13342
Expert consensus helps policymakers solve complex problems by identifying and legitimizing policy solutions. Yet, persistent hesitation remains among policymakers regarding the technically adequate policy solution despite the existence and mobilization of epistemic communities. This paper contends that more attention should be given to studying the epistemic competition that may arise when multiple epistemic communities grapple with the same problem but have divergent understandings of its technical nature and its adequate policy solutions. Building on Science and Technology Studies and on the literature on polarization, this paper suggests that two social dynamics, namely the mobilization of resources and increased polarization, may complexify the technical disagreement among experts. In turn, these dynamics may lead to a deadlock in the debates, negatively impacting the institutional context where they take place. To illustrate this, this paper analyzes the case of the pharmaceutical innovation system, which has been prone to tensions between experts arguing for strong patent protection and experts arguing for greater flexibility to meet public health needs. This paper builds on a mixed method combining a social network analysis of experts invited to provide their expertise in the WHO-WTO-WIPO Trilateral Cooperation events and on semi-structured interviews with 24 of these experts.
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Morin, JF, J. Allan and S. Jinnah (2024) "The Survival of the Weakest: The Echo of the Rio Summit Principles in Environmental Treaties". Environmental Politics. 33(3), 486–507.
This article examines the influence of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Rio Summit, on the design of subsequent international environmental agreements (IEAs). In particular, it investigates the extent to which the principles outlined in the Rio Declaration were integrated into IEAs concluded in the following years. We focus our investigation on three principles: the precautionary principle, common but differentiated responsibilities, and the polluter pays principle. Analyzing a collection of 2,211 IEAs and their 509 amendments, we find that the Rio Summit catalyzed the dissemination of these principles. However, our study also reveals that the Rio Conference was an inflection point, wherein weaker expressions of these principles became more prevalent. Stronger expressions, which were included in some IEAs prior to the Rio Summit, became relatively less common thereafter. We call this evolutionary process the “survival of the weakest”.
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Beaumier, G., & Cartwright, M. (2024). Cross-network weaponization in the semiconductor supply chain. International Studies Quarterly, 68(1), sqae003.
How do states’ positions across multiple and interconnected economic networks affect their power? The Weaponized Interdependence (WI) scholarship emphasizes that states centrally located in global economic networks have access to new sources of coercion. In this paper, we look at how their positions across multiple networks interact with each other to create new opportunities and vulnerabilities. We use network analysis to map the semiconductor supply chain and show that it can be viewed as four interrelated networks: (1) design, (2) raw material, (3) manufacturing equipment, and (4) assembled chips. We then highlight how states’ centrality varies across these networks and how it shapes their respective opportunities for coercion. Looking specifically at the United States, we emphasize how its centrality in the design network enables it to weaponize chokepoints in the trade network of assembled chips. In so doing the paper makes three contributions. First, it highlights how interactions among multiple economic networks provide new opportunities for states to weaponize interdependence. Second, it contributes to recent attempts using network analysis to analyze structural power on the global stage. Last, it demonstrates how network methodology can help detect potential (ab)uses of WI and how the potential for weaponization evolves over time.
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Morin, JF, C. Brandi and J. Schwab (2024) "Environmental Agreements as Clubs: Evidence from a New Dataset of Trade Provisions" Review of International Organizations, vol 19: 33–62.
Creating intergovernmental environmental clubs is a prominent policy proposal for addressing global environmental problems. According to their proponents, environmental clubs provide an incentive to join them and accept their environmental obligations by generating exclusive “club goods” for their members. Yet, the existing literature considers environmental clubs as a theoretical idea that still has to be put into practice. This article asks whether, in fact, the numerous international environmental agreements (IEAs) containing trade-related provisions provide club goods to their parties. It does so by investigating the effects of these provisions on trade flows among parties compared to flows with non-parties. We introduce an original dataset on 48 types of trade provisions in 2,097 IEAs that we make available with the publication of this article. Based on this new data and a panel of worldwide bilateral trade flows, we find evidence that existing IEAs and their trade-liberalizing content are associated with increased trade among their parties relative to trade with non-parties. We conclude from this finding that systems of IEAs provide club goods to their parties. Uncovering the existence of environmental clubs has significant methodological and policy implications. It is an important first step for future research on the actual effectiveness of clubs in attracting participation and raising environmental standards.
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Beaumier, G, M Papin and JF Morin (2024) "A Combinatorial Theory of Institutional Invention". International Theory. 16(1): 50-76.
From climate change to disruptive technologies, policymakers constantly face new problems calling for unprecedented institutional solutions. Yet, we still poorly understand the inventive process leading to the emergence of new institutional forms. Existing theories argue that exogenous changes provide incentives and opportunities for institutional invention. However, they fail to explain how the inventive process itself endogenously structures their emergence. Drawing from complexity theory and Brian Arthur’s work on technological inventions, we develop a structural theory recasting the process of inventing new institutions as the combination of pre-existing institutions. Building on three assumptions related to this combinatorial process, we argue that the distance between institutions shapes the emergence of new institutional forms and their regime’s trajectory. Following the initial take-off in the number of institutional inventions at the creation of a regime, we expect the rate of institutional inventions over replications will slow down as nearby institutions are combined and accelerate as distant ones are combined. We illustrate these expectations by looking at three regimes: data privacy, climate governance, and investment protection. Together, they showcase how our combinatorial theory can help make sense of the emergence of unprecedented institutions and, more generally, the pace of unfolding complexity in various international regimes.
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Bélanger L and JF Morin (2024) "Treaty Amendment Procedures: A Typology from a Survey of Multilateral Environmental Agreements". Leiden Journal of International Law.37(1): 62-87
Treaty amendments constitute a critical but under-researched aspect of international law. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey of 491 amendment procedures across 691 multilateral environmental agreements. We use this data collection to build a typology of amendment procedures based on various combinations of control, adaptability, and flexibility. We introduce the property space reduction method as a valuable tool for building typology and analysing international law. We find a clear trend towards the inclusion of amendment procedures, which makes treaties increasingly adaptable. This adaptability is generally coupled with flexibility to avoid infringing on consent. As a result, amended treaties risk being increasingly fragmented into differentiated bundles of obligations split among subsets of members. We also examine how key features of treaty membership, such as power distribution, correlate with the occurrence and types of amendment procedures.
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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
2023
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Morin, JF and E. Tepper (2023) "The Empire Strikes Back: Comparing US and China’s Structural Power in Outer Space". Global Studies Quarterly, Volume 3(4), ksad067,
This article assesses the structural power of the United States and China in the field of space governance. While much of the literature on space power focuses on their technologies and capabilities, we take a complementary approach and explore their capacity to shape the regulatory landscape. Possessing structural power has far-reaching implications for global power projection as well as for various industries, such as telecommunications, transportation, and remote sensing. To assess structural power, we gathered and analyzed three types of data: a dataset featuring 1,709 space organizations, a second dataset comprising 1,764 international space arrangements connecting them, and insights from fifty-two interviews with key space actors. Our findings indicate that the United States holds significant structural power thanks to its thriving commercial space sector and extensive international network. This has enabled the global diffusion of its preferred norms while simultaneously constraining China’s space cooperation network. Despite its remarkable technological capabilities, China has not been able to translate them into substantial global structural power. To encourage further exploration in this domain, we make available our original dataset of 1,764 space arrangements, including 970 in full-text format, inviting fellow researchers to investigate other facets of outer space governance.
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Beaumier G. (2023). Novelty and the demand for private regulation: Evidence from data privacy governance. Business and Politics, 25(4): 371-392.
Private regulations are often presented as low-cost and flexible institutions that can act as policy incubators. In this article, I question under which conditions they go beyond legal compliance and experiment with new rules. Based on a content analysis of 126 data privacy regulations adopted between 1995 and 2016 in the European Union and the United States and thirty-five semistructured interviews, I show that most private regulations include no regulatory novelties. By disaggregating the temporal and spatial distribution of the few novelties, I add nuance to this overall finding and show that private regulations adopted in the United States before 2000 experimented more than others. I argue that this variation reflects the different demands for private regulation in the two jurisdictions and their evolution over time. In the European Union, the early adoption of privacy laws led public regulators and businesses to look for private regulations to reduce transaction costs and thus limited their interest in experimenting with new requirements. In the United States, businesses hoped to gain a first-mover advantage by including new data privacy rules in their private regulations. However, the growing use of private regulations to ease transnational data flows also led to their use as tools to reduce transaction costs.
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Pic, P. P. Evoy and JF Morin (2023) "Outer Space as a Global Commons: An Empirical Study of Space Arrangements" International Journal of the Commons, 17(1), pp. 288–301.
The designation of outer space as a global commons is a contentious issue. Some argue that officially recognizing it as such could discourage private investment, while others claim that it would not sufficiently promote sustainability. To address these debates, this article examines how space actors use a global commons framework in their institutional arrangements. Based on a collection of 1042 space arrangements, we characterize a subset of arrangements that explicitly reference concepts related to the notion of global commons. We observe that this framework is seldom used in bilateral arrangements and is mostly absent from recent agreements made by influential players. Furthermore, we find that employing principles related to global commons in arrangements does not result in significantly different operational rules. As a result, we conclude that a clearly defined global commons perspective has yet to be articulated and institutionalized.
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Pic, P. (2023). Une géographie politique de l’exploitation des ressources naturelles en Arctique: Évolution contrastée d’un enjeu polarisant. Dans : L’Académie des sciences morales et politiques éd., Annuaire français de relations internationales: 2023 (pp. 769-783). Éditions Panthéon-Assas.
Discourses about Arctic resources and their exploitation often carry a lot of misconceptions. In this chapter, we specifically want to deconstruct some of these tenacious representations. Through a political geography approach, we propose an examination of the spatial logic of the exploitation of extractive resources in the Arctic and underlying political stakes. We begin with an overview of the availability of proven and estimated resources in the region. Starting from this first observation, which already contributes to nuance an often too optimistic discourse on regional availability, we consider the many constraints that arise in the face of exploitation: technical, financial constraints… We also emphasize the importance of distinguishing between hydrocarbons and mining resources: the difficulties encountered are not of the same order. This allows us finally to analyze the political stakes of resource exploitation in the Arctic – from local geopolitics and social acceptability to major global issues. While the exploitation of resources in the Arctic is an established fact, we wish to propose a nuanced analysis of this reality and to consider its scope at all scales.
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Landriault, M., Pic, P., & Lasserre, F. (2023). Beyond Hans Island: The Canada–Denmark agreement’s possible impact on mobility and continental shelves. International Journal, 78(1-2), 243-253.
The governments of Canada and Denmark signed a historic agreement on Hans Island on 14 June 2022. Although most of the agreement was devoted to the resolution of the Hans Island dispute, it also settled other issues. We argue that provisions on mobility and the continental shelf in the Labrador Sea give rise to interesting precedents that could have far-reaching effects for northerners. The agreement on enhanced mobility could represent a first step in a more ambitious process of facilitating Inuit mobility across Nunavut and Greenland, while the settlement on the continental shelf illustrates how states could collaborate on other continental shelf cases, including the continental shelf in the Central Arctic Ocean.
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Brandi, C & JF Morin (2023) Trade and the Environment: Drivers and Effects of Environmental Provisions in Trade Agreements. Cambridge University Press.
The mushrooming of trade agreements and their interlinkages with environmental governance calls for new research on the trade and environment interface. The more than 700 existing preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include ever more diverse and far-reaching environmental provisions. While missed opportunities remain and harmful provisions persist, numerous environmental provisions in PTAs entail promising potential. They promote the implementation of environmental treaties and cover numerous environmental issues. New concepts, data, and methods, including detailed content analysis across multiple institutions, are needed to explain these interlinkages and understand whether and how PTAs with environmental provisions can contribute to tackling global environmental challenges. Making use of the most extensive coding of environmental provisions in PTAs to date and combining quantitative data with qualitative analyses, this Element provides a comprehensive yet fine-grained picture of the drivers and effects of environmental provisions in PTAs. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
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Papin, M., and P. Beauregard (forthcoming). “Can’t Buy Me Love: Billionaire Entrepreneurs’ Legitimation Strategies in Transnational Climate Governance”, Environmental Politics.
Several billionaires have recently emerged as leaders of climate governance. So far, little research has examined how they legitimize their involvement in climate networks. We argue that billionaire governance entrepreneurs have high levels of resources but low procedural legitimacy. They pursue output legitimacy to support their political action, highlighting their effectiveness in managing climate issues. Their main strategies, depoliticization, outgrouping, and technical solutionism, may give them short-term legitimacy but risk undermining their long-term goals of addressing climate change. We analyze the discursive legitimation strategies of a successful billionaire entrepreneur in transnational climate governance, Michael Bloomberg. Our empirical analysis is based on the study of more than 800 statements, speeches, and news releases related to Bloomberg’s climate action from 2010 to 2021. It contributes to the study of entrepreneurship, leadership, philanthropy, and transnational actors in climate governance.
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Laurens, N., J. Hollway and JF Morin (2023) "Checking for Updates: Ratification, Design, and Institutional Adaptation" International Studies Quarterly, vol. 67(3) sqad049,
Although most international agreements are concluded for indefinite periods, the issues they address and parties’ preferences are constantly evolving. In some cases, parties seek to close any growing gaps between negotiators’ expectations and the changing context by updating their original agreement to its new circumstances. States have several formal tools at their disposal to do so, such as protocols, amendments, and addenda. We refer to this process as institutional adaptation. This paper seeks to explain why some agreements are adapted numerous times during their lifetime while others are not. It argues that state parties are more likely to adapt their international agreements when they acquire new information about their partners’ behavior, preferences, or the state of the environment. We focus on two key elements facilitating this process. The first consists of unexpected variation in treaty participation, and the second concerns the design features of the agreement. Relying on event history analysis and an original dataset of design features and membership of 371 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), we find that low levels of ratifications, high levels of accessions, highly institutionalized MEAs, and anticipatory design features are associated with more frequent institutional adaptation. These findings provide important lessons for the design of dynamic treaties.
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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
2022
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Laurens, N (2023) "Institutional adaptation in slow motion: Zooming in on desertification governance" Global Environmental Politics.
The ability of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) to keep pace with their changing circumstances is crucial for a more effective global environmental governance. Yet, we know little about how new institutional design features are taken up by MEAs, allowing them to evolve over time. Building upon Kingdon’s (1984) multiple streams theory, I conceive the development of new institutional design features as the association between streams of problems, solutions, and political receptivity at critical moments. I apply this framework to two features introduced within the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) framework and find that the main design entrepreneurs were the UNCCD Secretariat and independent scientists. The article provides important insight into characteristics that can make MEAs more adaptive. Namely, treaty bodies able to generate feedback about problems, push for solutions, and provide windows of opportunity for advocates to present and revise their proposals were found critical to the development of new design features.
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Morin, JF, V. Fournier and S. Paquin (2022) "The Federated Entities in Environmental Treaties Dataset: Questioning Conventional Wisdom on Green Paradiplomacy" Canadian Journal of Political Science 55(1): 226-241.
The existing literature underestimates the contribution of federated entities to international environmental agreements. This research note introduces a novel dataset on the role of federated entities in 2,077 environmental agreements. We demonstrate the value of this dataset by revisiting common assumptions that stem from the literature. According to conventional wisdom, 1) federated entities’ participation in environmental agreements is a recent phenomenon; 2) this phenomenon is led by federated entities in Western democracies; 3) it has accelerated as a response to the climate crisis; and 4) it is driven by the same movement that favors the participation of diverse stakeholders. This research note questions these preconceived ideas and illustrates how the new dataset sheds light on the role of federated entities in environmental governance.
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Pic, P. (2022). The politics of Arctic scales. The Polar Journal, 12(2), 281–302.
Many representations and narratives about the Arctic and Arctic politics carry misconceptions and flawed generalizations. Usually, the term ‘Arctic’ is used as an unproblematized—by default—geographical frame, without considering why this particular ‘Arctic’ framing was chosen and what this choice entails. Yet, considering geographical framing is important as the very choice behind it already carries a political agenda. This paper argues that focussing on the interplay between the different ‘scales’ of the Arctic can shed light on the politics of Arctic scales and resulting discourses. To that end, I analysed every Arctic strategy published by both Arctic and non-Arctic actors. I concentrated on strategies that specifically focused on the Arctic region as a whole, to draw comparisons from these framings. Using thematic analysis, I examined how the Arctic is construed and how the scale at which Arctic issues are framed comes with political consequences. In doing so, I wish to underline the interplay scales and underlying political processes. I conclude by stressing that recognising and attending to the production of ‘scale’ as an inherently political process greatly improves our understanding of regional politics.
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Pic, Pauline; Escudé, Camille; Vidal, Florian (2021), Numéro spécial ‘Politiques de l’Arctique’. Études Internationales, 51(1).
This special issue showcases some contributions presented during the symposium “Arctic policies in perspective” which was held at Sciences Po, in Paris, on December 18 and 19, 2019. These two days of discussions aimed at shedding light on the Arctic in a context of the international development of the region, where the signs of cooperation are always vibrant, as indicated by the signing of the moratorium to ban fishing in the central Arctic Ocean. At the same time, weak signals would indicate an increase in security tensions with the jamming of the gps disrupting civil aviation in the Barents region or the return of the United States Navy to Iceland. Far from an image of a unified, frozen and exotic space, the Arctic is now being recognized as a space at the heart of international relations. This special issue is therefore dedicated to discussing and reflecting on the diversity of these Arctic worlds, based on innovative and transdisciplinary research. The links between different prisms of analysis - geographic, strategic, historical, political science - make it possible to see in the Arctic Ocean and the circumpolar territories a space particularly sensitive to the recomposition of the international political scene as to the climatic upheavals which modify singularly this vulnerable region.
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Preventing collisions between space objects in outer space: Clarifying the law of state responsibility for better enforcement (Doctoral thesis in Air and Space Law pursued at McGill University under the supervision of Prof (Dr) Ram S Jakhu
This thesis deals with the issue of collisions between space objects in outer space and argues that proper enforcement of State responsibility is a tool to address the issue. The already crowded Earth’s orbit is threatened by rapidly increasing space debris, testing of anti-satellite weapons, the launch of thousands of satellites in various mega-constellations, CubeSats which are cheap to manufacture, and the renewed space race between the States. However, a single collision between space objects in outer space has the probability of triggering a string of collisions, leading to a Gravity-like situation. At the moment, States are often reluctant to assume responsibility for threats to sustainable use of outer space. The current international space law does not assign the responsibility of States adequately and appropriately, in addition to being indeterminate. This thesis uses the theoretical framework of justice as the basis of international space law to solve the inappropriate assignment of State responsibility by balancing the competing interests of States, including the special interests of the developing countries, and by reducing indeterminacy of international space law. The solution includes arguing that knowledge of an impending collision makes a State responsible to share the data and that State responsibility for better oversight of national space activities can be ensured through a combination of State control, governance by insurance and governance by bilateral space treaties clarifying the ‘appropriate’ responsible State.
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Coman, R., A. Crespy, F. Louault, J-F Morin, J-B Pilet et Emilie, van Haute (2022), Méthodes de la science politique: De la question de départ à l'analyse des données, de Boeck. (2e edition)
Un manuel qui met l'accent sur les méthodes et méthodologies propres à la science politique, avec des conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherche.
Une initiation à la recherche en science politique à travers :
- une présentation pédagogique des méthodes de collecte et d’analyse des données
- des conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherche
- des exemples concrets extraits de la littérature récente
- des tableaux de synthèse, des mises en situation et des définitions des termes clés
Pour apprendre à :
- réaliser un travail scientifique
- élaborer une stratégie de recherche
- choisir et collecter les données pertinentes
- analyser et interpréter les résultats
- identifier les forces et les faiblesses de chaque méthode
Avec exercices interactifs en fin de chapitres pour intégrer et réviser la matière
Table des matières
- Chapitre 1 : La science politique, une mosaïque de postures
- Chapitre 2 : Les approches théoriques
- Chapitre 3 : Les grandes options méthodologiques
- Chapitre 4 : Les étapes de la construction d’une stratégie de recherche
- Chapitre 5 : Enquêtes et bases de données
- Chapitre 6 : Les méthodes expérimentales
- Chapitre 7 : Les entretiens
- Chapitre 8 : L’analyse de discours et de contenu
- Chapitre 9 : L'analyse des réseaux sociaux
- Chapitre 10 : Le traçage de processus dans une étude de cas
- Chapitre 11 : L’observation empirique
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Westman, L., J. Patterson, R. Macrorie, C.J. Orr, C. Ashcraft, V. Castán Broto, D. Dolan, M. Gupta, J. van der Heijden, T. Hickmann, R. Hobbins, M. Papin, E. Robin, C. Rosan, J. Torrens, and R. Webb. 2022. “Compound urban crises”, Ambio, 51: 1402–1415.
The crises that cities face—such as climate change, pandemics, economic downturn, and racism—are tightly interlinked and cannot be addressed in isolation. This paper addresses compound urban crises as a unique type of problem, in which discrete solutions that tackle each crisis independently are insufficient. Few scholarly debates address compound urban crises and there is, to date, a lack of interdisciplinary insights to inform urban governance responses. Combining ideas from complex adaptive systems and critical urban studies, we develop a set of boundary concepts (unsettlement, unevenness, and unbounding) to understand the complexities of compound urban crises from an interdisciplinary perspective. We employ these concepts to set a research agenda on compound urban crises, highlighting multiple interconnections between urban politics and global dynamics. We conclude by suggesting how these entry points provide a theoretical anchor to develop practical insights to inform and reform urban governance.
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Stender, F. C. Brandi and JF Morin (2022) "Do Greener Trade Agreements Call for Side-Payments", Journal of Environment and Development. 31(2): 111-138.
Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) increasingly include environmental provisions. While the existing literature documents these provisions’ environmental impacts, this paper sheds light on their relation with aid flows. Using an event-specification and data on bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments for a sample of 147 developing country recipients in the period from 2002-2017, we find evidence that the number of environmental provisions in PTAs is positively associated with aid during negotiation phases. With high-income countries typically pre-determining the extent of environmental provisions in their upcoming PTAs, this suggests that aid serves as a side-payment for recipients to sweeten the pot and agree upon already formulated PTA content. While both aggregate ODA and its subcomponent environmental aid a priori qualify as candidates for pre-signature side-payments, we find that only the former fulfills this expectation, presumably reflecting more leeway to exploit aid fungibility.
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Laurens, N, C. Brandi & J-F Morin (2022) "Climate and Trade Policies: From Silos to Integration" Climate Policy 22(2): 248-253.
This paper investigates linkages between trade and climate policies by examining commitments made in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. While environmental protection and economic growth are often perceived as conflicting policy goals, PTAs and NDCs have the potential to encourage mutually supportive approaches to climate and trade governance. Building upon three recent datasets, the paper locates a sample of 21 countries in a typology of four issue-linkage strategies across both types of instruments: policy integration, policy silos, asymmetry in favor of trade policy, and asymmetry in favor of climate policy. It finds that countries that reveal a preference for strong linkage with climate in their PTAs typically do not reveal a preference for strong trade linkage in their NDCs, and vice versa. No state from the sample favors strong policy integration. After sketching out possible explanations for this observation, the paper concludes that policy-makers have significant room for enhancing synergies between trade and climate commitments and that scholars have a role to play in this endeavor.
2021
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Beaumier, G., & Kalomeni, K. (2021). Ruling through technology: politicizing blockchain services. Review of International Political Economy, 29(6), 2135–2158.
Next to artificial intelligence and big data, blockchains have emerged as one of the most oft-cited technologies associated with the digital economy. Leading technology companies have recently contributed to making the technology used more widely by developing integrated blockchain offerings. The emergence of such services yet strikingly clashes with the original stated goal of the technology to remove any form of central political authority, such as the one companies behind these new services can represent. How should we then understand the embrace of blockchains by companies that this technology was notably supposed to displace? Using the concept of infrastructure from Science and Technology Studies, we argue that these companies are not merely adopting the technology but actively promoting a new assemblage of socio-technical devices to reassert their authority over how information is exchanged online. Based on a comparative analysis of the technical documentation of Ethereum and Amazon Web Services (AWS) blockchain services, we highlight how actors contributing to building digital infrastructures regulate their users' behavior by affording them different capacities and constraints. We moreover show how by pursuing its commercial interest, AWS supported a corporate form of governance historically promoted by the United States to oversee the digital economy.
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San Martim Portes, A., Venâncio, M. & Gonçalves, L. Geographic Indications in Brazil and their socio-environmental dimensions: gaps and opportunities of the Brazilian GI regulation for agricultural products, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Volume 16, Issue 4-5, April-May 2021, Pages 384–393.
Geographic Indications (GIs) are an internationally recognised form of protection for goods based on their quality or reputation and a fairly recent instrument in Brazilian law. In this context, there is an ongoing discussion in academia regarding the relevance of GIs as a tool to promote the sustainable development of territories. This debate considers that there is a strong connection between a good’s reputation and quality and its traditional and sustainable production practices. This research aims to understand how Brazilian GI regulation of agricultural products protects and encompasses socio-environmental sustainability dimensions, discussing the main gaps and opportunities thereof. For that, from an interdisciplinary perspective, this study provides a small-N qualitative content analysis of 30 Brazilian GIs, identifying their socio-environmental provisions, and debating whether GIs can become a mechanism for greater environmental protection in Brazil.
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Pic, Pauline; Babin, Julie; Lasserre, Frédéric; Huang, Linyan; Bartenstein, Kristin (2021). “The Polar Code and Canada’s Regulations on Arctic Navigation : shipping companies’ perceptions of the new legal environment”. The Polar Journal, 11(1), 95-117.
In 2017, the Polar Code, negotiated under the auspices of the IMO, came into force. Later that same year, Canada issued new regulations applicable to navigation in the Canadian Arctic. In this paper, we investigate how this new legal environment is perceived by shipping companies. We conducted a survey, asking companies, both active and not active in the Arctic, how they assess the impact of the legal changes on their operations. Using a qualitative methodology, we coded and analysed 99 questionnaires. Our research shows that companies not active in the Arctic are, as could be expected, largely unaware of the Polar Code and often unwilling to respond to our survey, showing a limited interest in the Arctic shipping market. Companies active in the Arctic and well aware of the issues of safety of navigation and environmental protection generally welcomed the Polar Code. Respondents were less familiar with the new Canadian regulations, arguably corroborating findings according to which the Northwest Passage is not currently considered a potential regular shipping route.
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Morin, JF and B. Richard (2021) "Astro-Environmentalism: Toward a Polycentric Governance of Space Debris", Global Policy, 12(4): 568-573
The Earth’s orbital space is increasingly threatened by debris. It is frequently described as a common-pool resource vulnerable to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ scenario. Scholars have suggested ambitious policy proposals to tackle the tragedy of space debris and assure the sustainability of the Earth’s orbits. Their proposals can be classified into three categories: hierarchical regulations, economic incentives and property rights. All three categories require some form of central coordination. However, there might be an alternative approach to the problem and other potential solutions. Elinor Ostrom suggested that decentralized, polycentric systems are appropriate for governing common-pool resources. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a polycentric form of governance can encourage a more sustainable use of the Earth’s orbits.
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Morin, JF, S. Jinnah and A Orsini (2021) "Pandemics and Environmental Crises: Similar Problems; Different Governance Systems" Pandemics: A multidisciplinary Approach. Edited by P. Bourbeau and J-M. Marcoux. Oxford University Press.
The political science literature often assumes that policymakers rationally design governance systems according to the underlying problem structures they aim to address. This chapter argues that the problem structures of pandemics and environmental crises are similar on several accounts. Yet their governance systems differ in significant ways. The chapter explains this incongruity by pointing to systemic perceptions biases and structural power differentials. Addressing these biases and establishing new linkages could improve the global governance of both issue areas
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Morin, JF and M. Cartwright, "How the US and EU are Promoting Their Intellectual Property Interests in Asia", AsiaGlobal Online, 02/2021
Strengthening intellectual property rights in the Asia Pacific is a priority for both the European Union and the United States. This is for good reason: They together received more than 70 percent of all international revenue for the use of intellectual property worldwide, according to World Bank data. Jean-Frédéric Morin of Université Laval in Québec, Canada, and Madison Cartwright at the University of Sydney in Australia examine the relationship between EU and US regulatory initiatives on Asia-Pacific IPR – and their apparent unnecessary duplication.
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Morin, JF. C. Olsson, and EÖ Atikcan, eds (2021), Research Methods in the Social Sciences: An A-Z of Key Concepts, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Research Methods in the Social Sciences is a comprehensive yet compact A-Z for undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking qualitative and quantitative research across the social sciences, featuring 71 entries that cover a wide range of concepts, methods, and theories
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Kim, R. and JF Morin (2021) "Massive Institutional Structures in Global Governance: A Bird's-eye View of the Trade-Environment Supercluster Complex", Global Environmental Politics, 21 (3): 26–48.
Global governance is a complex web of institutions. It consists of elementary regimes that form regime complexes, which in turn give rise to what we call superclusters around broad policy domains such as trade and environment. In recent years, scholars have explored what these macroscopic structures look like and how they evolve over time. Yet the complex ways in which entire governance superclusters interact and coevolve with one another through multiple interlinkages, and what might emerge through this process, have not received much attention. In this paper, we expand the ontological frontier of global governance research by offering a first bird’s-eye view on supercluster-level institutional interaction with an empirical focus on trade and environment. We constructed and analyzed a dynamic network-of-networks model consisting of 694 trade and 2,731 environmental agreements joined by 2,305 treaty citations. Our analysis reveals what we call a supercluster complex, which is a massive institutional structure in global governance consisting of two or more interlocking superclusters that exert a measurable influence on each other’s course of development. Based on our exploratory analysis, we argue that the supercluster complex serves as an institutional fabric that enables the degree of self-organized coordination observed between the trade and environment policy domains. Our preliminary findings warrant more research on supercluster complexes as an important but little-noticed phenomenon in global governance.
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Morin, JF, B. Tremblay-Auger, and C Peacock (2022) "Design Trade-Offs Under Power Asymmetry: COPs and Flexibility Clauses ", Global Environmental Politics, 22 (1) 19-43.
Negotiating parties to an environmental agreement can manage uncertainty by including flexibility clauses, such as escape and withdrawal clauses. This article investigates a type of uncertainty so far overlooked by the literature: the uncertainty generated by the creation of a Conference of the Parties (COPs) in a context of sharp power asymmetry. When negotiating an agreement, it is difficult for powerful states to make a credible commitment to weaker states, whereby they will not abuse their power to influence future COP decision-making. Flexibility clauses provide a solution to this credibility issue. They act as an insurance mechanism in case a powerful state hijack the COP. Thus, we expect that the creation of a collective body interacts with the degree of power asymmetry to make flexibility clauses more likely in environmental agreements. To test this argument, we draw on an original dataset of several specific clauses in 2,090 environmental agreements, signed between 1945 and 2018. The results support our hypothesis and suggest that flexibility clauses are an important design feature of adaptive environmental agreements.
2020
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Blümer, D., JF Morin, C. Brandi and A Berger (2020) "Environmental provisions in trade agreements: Defending regulatory space or pursuing offensive interests?" Environmental Politics 29(5): 866-889
The increasing uptake of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is well documented, but little is known about why countries prefer certain types of provisions over others. Exploiting a fine-grained dataset on environmental provisions in PTAs and hypothesizing that environmental provisions are more likely to be adopted when they aim at preserving countries’ regulatory sovereignty, the likelihood of adoption is indeed higher for defensive provisions, but this likelihood decreases if there is a large variation in PTA members’ stringency of environmental regulations, and in particular, for PTAs with asymmetric power relationships. While countries first and foremost attempt to preserve their regulatory sovereignty when adopting environmental provisions, countries with stringent environmental regulations and strong bargaining power vis-à-vis their trading partners also try to level the playing field and pursue more offensive interests.
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Pic, Pauline; Lasserre, Frédéric (2020). “Océans, Cosmos, Antarctique : de nouveaux espaces de conquête?”. Relations Internationales, 2(182), 135-152.
Oceans, especially in polar regions, and outer space, are today considered to be the “last frontiers.” These spaces where states project power are also spaces where states face several specific challenges, which are of an environmental nature in particular. They invite us to rethink the modes of political action. How, then, do states deal with these non-traditional spaces, and how do they structure their action there? In this paper, through several concrete examples, we seek to initiate a process of reflection by highlighting certain logics that underlie the organization of international political action in these spaces. We consider their nature and what the notion of “conquest” implies. The international community has managed to frame potential desires within international conventions. But if legal frameworks do exist, that does not mean that they have the capacity to appease all the tensions created by the desire to control these spaces. The questions raised by current events also highlight complex issues of a different nature, sometimes relating to sovereignty (as in Antarctica, for example), whilst at others relating to sovereign rights, when we speak of extended continental shelves, or the right to place satellites in orbit . . . . These questions also gain a new dimension in connection with the presence of new players, be they state or private. How do these actors conceive of these non-traditional spaces?
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Brandi, C, A. Berger, A. Cosbey, S. Droege, M. Elsig, I. Espa and JF Morin, 2020. Trade and Climate Change: A Key Agenda for the G20. T20.
This policy brief investigates the interplay of two critically important Group of Twenty (G20) agenda items: trade and climate change. We argue that there is significant room for a stronger emphasis on climate-friendly trade measures that are in line with the global trade regime. We believe that the G20 should fully tap into this potential. We recommend (1) using preferential trade agreements to leverage climate action, (2) phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, (3) seeking international cooperation and consensus on the implementation of border carbon adjustments, (4) making use of investment law and, more generally, (5) fostering trade and climate linkages through the G20.
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Morin, JF and M Cartwright (2020) "The US' and EU's Intellectual Property Inititiaves in Asia: Competition, Coordination or Replication?" Global Policy 11(5): 557-568.
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been a priority for the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). However, over the past two decades, the EU and US have failed to advance their preferred IPR standards through multilateral forums and have pursued bilateral alternatives instead. How have the EU and US pursued their strategies in this fragmented environment? Looking specifically at the Asia-Pacific, we compare their bilateral initiatives on IPR across three strategies: treaty-making, coercion and socialization. Through this analysis, we examine whether the EU and US’ bilateral actions indicate regulatory competition, coordination or replication. We find that the overall tendency has been towards replication, which raises questions about the reasons for this redundancy and its policy consequences. As the rise of bilateralism is not unique to IPR, our findings have implications for global governance more generally.
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Papin, M. 2020. Where does novelty come from? Transnational municipal networks in global climate governance. PhD dissertation. Université Laval.
In recent years, cities have become visible in the realm of global climate governance. While they sometimes talk in their own name, they are often represented by Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs). TMNs are structures in which cities discuss and exchange information and good practices, and collaborate on a variety of urban issues. They can also be considered actors promoting the interests of cities at the global level. Scholars have looked at the emergence of TMNs, their functions, and their effects. There is some confusion regarding the latter, especially the capacity of TMNs to generate novel practices and the way in which these might emerge. This study focuses on governance instruments as novelties generated by TMNs. Considering the fact that not all TMNs generate novel instruments, it asks: why do some TMNs generate more novel governance instruments than others? To answer this question, this research uses a network and complex system framework, seeing interactions as the main enabling condition for the emergence of novel instruments. It also uses some insights from organisational theories to study TMN age and organisational resources as possible variables explaining the emergence of novelty. This study then conducts an empirical analysis on the interactions and governance tools emerging in a system comprising of 15 TMNs. A social network analysis and cross-case analysis show that the combination of centrality, diversity, and age explain TMN novel instruments. A comparative case study of C40 and 100RC underline that, in the absence of high centrality, diversity, and age scores, the presence of a governance entrepreneur and high organisational resources might also explain the rise of novel governance instruments. This research contributes to studies on the influence of TMNs in environmental and climate governance by showing how novel governance instruments emerge. Accordingly, it answers wider concerns about the need for a diversification of tools in order to govern cities as well as other transnational actors of global climate governance.
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Tepper E and JF Morin, "The Mega Disruption: Satellite Constellations and Space-based Internet", CIGI Online, 2020
The new communication revolution is around the corner: space-based broadband internet will soon be available everywhere on Earth. SpaceX begun testing Starlink satellites this summer and is inviting users from the general public to participate. With four billion people around the world currently without any access to broadband internet, the potential market for these space-based internet services is huge, as is the potential effect of providing internet access in remote places. Yet, while the technical challenges to providing internet services through these satellites are fast being met, the governance and environmental challenges still need to be addressed.
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Morin, J-F and A. Orsini, eds.(2021), Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance (2nd edition), Routledge, 310 p.
Aligning global governance to the challenges of sustainability is one of the most urgent international issues to be addressed. This book is a timely and up-to-date compilation of the main pieces of the global environmental governance puzzle.
Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance synthesizes writing from an internationally diverse range of well-known experts. Each entry defines a central concept in global environmental governance, presents its historical evolution and related debates, and includes key bibliographical references. This new edition takes stock of several recent developments in global environmental politics including the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the UN Global Pact for the Environment attempt in 2017, and the 2018 Oceans Plastics Charter. More precisely, this book:
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offers cutting-edge analysis of the state of global environmental governance;
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presents an up-to-date debate on sustainable development at the global level;
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gives an in-depth exploration of current architecture of global environmental governance;
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examines the interaction between environmental politics and other policy fields such as trade, development, and security;
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provides a critical review of the recent global environmental governance literature.
Innovative thinking and high-profile expertise come together to create a volume that is accessible to students, scholars, and practitioners alike.
"Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance is an incredibly useful resource for students. It provides short introductory entries for students new to the field or from a related field. The authors compiled an impressive and cohesive list of entries that provides an excellent foundation for all students of global environmental governance." -- Gabriela Kuetting, Professor of Global Politics, Rutgers University, USA
"This volume provides an essential glossary of critical terms and concepts in the field of international environmental politics for diplomats, analysts and students. The interdisciplinary array of expert authors provides terse and authoritative overview of the key concepts and debates that have defined the field of international environmental governance over the years. The entries carefully survey the intellectual ecosystem of the concepts applied to understanding and managing our global environmental crisis." –Peter M. Haas, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
"This volume is an indispensable resource for distilling what is most important for understanding the vast terrain of global environmental policy. Written by leading scholars, this book offers an authoritative lexicon to which one can turn for a quick, in-depth, and reliable reference. I wish this book was around when I was a student. I’m glad it is around now that I’m a professor." – Paul Wapner, Professor of Global Environmental Politics, American University, USA
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Laurens, N et JF Morin, "Le véritables déficiences environnementales dans les accords commerciaux sont ailleurs",Le Monde, 28 juillet 2020.
Sur les enjeux du commerce et du climat, les deux politistes Noémie Laurens et Jean-Frédéric Morin invitent, dans une tribune au « Monde », à mieux choisir ses batailles, par exemple, à s’attaquer aux subventions octroyées aux énergies fossiles, plutôt qu’à remettre en cause le CETA.
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Papin, M. 2020. “Where Do Novelties Come from? A Social Network Analysis of Transnational Municipal Networks in Global Climate Governance”, Earth System Governance, 4: 100064.
Climate-related Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) have gained prominence. Scholars have discussed their effects, including their capacity to generate novelties. Yet, some confusion remains in this area. Focusing on the governance instruments generated by TMNs, this article asks: why do some TMNs generate more novelties than others? The research conducted for this article involved a social network analysis supported by qualitative data, using data compiled by the author on TMN memberships, partnerships and governance tools. Findings suggest that the most central TMNs, which also have diverse contacts, can draw on huge volumes of diverse information to generate novel governance instruments and evolve. Other variables, e.g. organisational age, are also involved. This article contributes to the literature by offering an explanation for the capacity of some actors to generate novelties in global climate governance. It also provides a better understanding of the ways in which TMNs seek to steer their numerous city members towards climate action.
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Bélanger, F et JF Morin, "SpaceX et la pollution de l’espace", Le Devoir, 7 juillet 2020
Les altitudes visées par les opérateurs de satellites sont déjà congestionnées par des débris.
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Beaumier, Guillaume. “Global Regulations for a Digital Economy: Between new and old challenges”, Global Policy, with Kevin Kalomeni, Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, Marc Lenglet, Serena Natile, Marielle Papin, Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Arthur Silve and Falin Zhang.
Digital technologies are often described as posing unique challenges for public regulators worldwide. Their fast-pace and technical nature is viewed as being incompatible with the relatively slow and territorially bounded public regulatory processes. In this paper, we argue that not all digital technologies pose the same challenges for public regulators. We more precisely maintain that the digital technologies’ label can be quite misleading as it actually represents a wide variety of technical artifacts. Based on two dimensions, the level of centralization and (im)material nature, we provide a typology of digital technologies that importantly highlights how different technical artifacts affect differently local, national, regional and global distributions of power. While some empower transnational businesses, others can notably reinforce states’ power. By emphasizing this, our typology contributes to ongoing discussions about the global regulation of a digital economy and helps us identify the various challenges that it might present for public regulators globally. At the same time, it allows us to reinforce previous claims that these are importantly not all new and that they often require to solve traditional cooperation problems.
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Beaumier, Guillaume. 2020. “Ruling in a Complex World : Private Regulatory Networks and the Export of European Data Protection Rules”, In Networks and the European Union: Threats and Opportunities of Complexity, eds. George Christou and Jacob Hasselbach, Routledge, submitted.
Who regulates the global economy? This fundamental question has been puzzling many authors for quite some time now. As national and international markets get more integrated than ever, regulators all around the world are under increasing pressure to harmonize their regulations. The choice of the regulations around which they will is however not without consequences as it can have important distributive effects. The literature thus far has in the main analyzed this question by looking at the role of public actors. While recent work on the “Brussels’ effect” have highlighted that private actors can play a role in the export of European rules, the main explanatory variables of this approach remain attributes of the European Union (i.e. market size and regulatory capacity). As such, it does not really explain when and why private actors actually decide to actively promote rules created in a foreign jurisdiction. In this chapter, I argue that adopting a network approach can help fill this gap by giving more attention to the interactions between private actors. Looking at the case of data protection, I more precisely maintain that private regulatory networks involving both European and non-European private associations helped the EU export its rules across the Atlantic. While supportive of a functionalist extension explanation of how rules travel, I show that the EU also acted as a ‘classical foreign policy’ actor when it used its legal authority to shape the structure of the private regulatory network here at play.
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Berger, A, C Brandi, JF Morin and J. Schwab, 2020 ,"The Trade Effects of Environmental Provisions in Preferential Trade Agreements", in International Trade, Investment, and the Sustainable Development Goals (edited by C. Beverelli; J. Kurtz and D. Raess) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The international community has acknowledged that international trade can be an effective means of helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Traditionally, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) ere designed to promote trade flows. PTAs have become more comprehensive and now also cover non-economic policy areas, such as the environment. This chapter examines whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in PTAs changes the observed overall positive contribution that PTAs make to economic outcomes and thereby to the economic objectives of the SDGs. Specifically, we ask whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in PTAs reduces export flows between PTA partner countries. Using a novel data set on environmental provisions in PTAs, we estimate gravity type panel regressions. We find that membership in PTAs including more environmental provisions is associated with less trade among trade partners compared to PTAs that include less or no environmental provisions. This negative effect of environmental provisions is fully driven by the negative effect on South-North trade flows, i.e. exports from developing to high-income countries.
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Morin, JF (2020) "Concentration Despite Competition: The Organizational Ecology of Technical Assistance Providers", Review of International Organizations 15(1): 75-107.
When international organizations expand and proliferate, why do they fail to spread more evenly in their policy sphere? To answer this question, this article builds on organizational ecology theory, which was recently introduced into the study of international organizations. However, rather than studying each population separately, as previous studies have done, this article investigates how distinct populations with overlapping niches shape each other’s evolution. It argues that when inter-population competition occurs, the first population to occupy its niche at a high density limits the long-term development of other populations. This is the case even if emerging populations may temporarily enjoy a higher growth rate. The argument is illustrated by a study of the relations between four populations of technical assistance providers in the field of intellectual property. By doing so, the article brings for the first time inter-population relations in the study of international organizations and provides an explanation for the persistent concentration of international organizations in specific areas of the governance space.
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Morin, JF and J Surbeck (2020) "Mapping the New Frontier of International IP Law: Introducing a TRIPs-plus Dataset" World Trade Review 19(1): 109-122.
This article introduces a new dataset on the intellectual property (IP) provisions included in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and makes it available for research and policy communities alike. Several PTAs include IP commitments that go well beyond the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). A sound knowledge of these TRIPs-plus commitments is essential in order to improve our understanding of what drives them and of their legal, social and economic consequences. Yet, until now, these provisions have not been mapped in a comprehensive and systematic way. The T+PTA dataset fills this gap by documenting the existence of 90 types of IP provisions in 126 agreements signed between 1991 and 2016. We show that, even for like-minded countries, significant variations exist in their reliance on TRIPs-plus provisions, their degree of consistency across PTAs, and their preferences for some IP rights. We also find that strong TRIPs-Plus provisions are correlated with the depth of PTAs, the asymmetry between trade partners, and the strength of their domestic IP law. By making the T+PTA dataset available, we hope to create the opportunity for a new generation of research on TRIPs-plus agreements.
2019
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Brandi, C, Schwab, J, Berger, A and JF Morin (2020) "Do Environmental Provisions in Trade Agreements Make Exports from Developing Countries Greener?" World Development. 129, 104899.
Environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are increasing in terms of their number and variety. The economic effects of these environmental provisions remain largely unclear. It is, therefore, necessary to determine whether the trend to incorporate environmental provisions in PTAs counteracts the goal to spur economic development through trade via these PTAs. This is the first article in which the trade effects of environmental provisions in PTAs are thoroughly investigated. The spotlight is put on developing countries for which the assumed trade-off between economic development and environmental protection is particularly acute. This article uses a new fine-grained dataset on a broad range of environmental provisions in 680 PTAs, combined with a panel of worldwide bilateral trade flows from 1984 to 2016. We show that environmental provisions can help reduce dirty exports and increase green exports from developing countries. This effect is particularly pronounced in developing countries with stringent environmental regulations. By investigating how environmental provisions in PTAs affect trade flows, this article contributes to the literature on the following topics: international trade and the environment; design and impacts of trade agreements; and greening the economy in developing countries. It also shows that the design of trade agreements matters. Environmental provisions can be used as targeted policy tools to promote the green transformation and to leverage synergies between the economic and environmental effects of including environmental provisions in trade agreements.
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Hollway, J, JF Morin and J Pauwelyn (2020) "Structural Conditions for Novelty: The Introduction of New Environmental Clauses to the Trade Regime Complex" International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 20(1): 61-83.
When do parties introduce novel clauses to a system of contracts or treaties? While important research has investigated how clauses diffuse once introduced, few empirical studies address their initial introduction. Drawing on network theory, this paper argues that novel clauses are introduced when agreements are concluded in certain structures of earlier agreements and the clauses they include. This paper demonstrates this argument using the example of 282 different environmental clauses introduced into the trade regime complex through 630 trade agreements concluded between 1945 and 2016. We find that trade agreements are more likely to introduce novelties when they involve parties with a diversity of experience with prior environmental clauses, and introduce more novelties when more parties are less constrained by prior trade agreements between them. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, power asymmetry between the negotiating parties is not statistically significant.
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Mitchell, R, L. Andonova, M. Axelrod, J. Balsiger, T. Bernauer, J. Green, J. Hollway, R. Kim and JF Morin (2020) "What We Know (And Could Know) About International Environmental Agreements", Global Environmental Politics. 20(1) : 103-121.
Initiated in 2002, the International Environmental Agreements Data Base (IEADB) currently contains information on over 3,000 multilateral and bilateral environmental agreements, including their full texts, membership actions, and design attributes. IEADB data allows us to produce a more detailed, comprehensive, and accurate description of the evolution of international environmental law than was previously possible, including the number, subjects, and memberships of IEAs that states have negotiated. The IEADB makes full texts of large numbers of IEAs available in ways that allow better typologies of how IEA designs vary and facilitates the coding of IEAs into those categories. We highlight the considerable scholarship that already has used the IEADB to contribute insights into international environmental governance and institutional design, including research on IEA membership, formation, and design as well as the structure of international environmental law generally. We briefly note the pedagogic value of the IEADB as a means to support both undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. We end by identifying broad research realms and specific research questions that are opened up by the particular structure and content of the IEADB, noting ways that scholars can use the IEADB to answer those questions of greatest interest to them.Initiated in 2002, the International Environmental Agreements Data Base (IEADB) currently contains information on over 3,000 multilateral and bilateral environmental agreements, including their full texts, membership actions, and design attributes. IEADB data allows us to produce a more detailed, comprehensive, and accurate description of the evolution of international environmental law than was previously possible, including the number, subjects, and memberships of IEAs that states have negotiated. The IEADB makes full texts of large numbers of IEAs available in ways that allow better typologies of how IEA designs vary and facilitates the coding of IEAs into those categories. We highlight the considerable scholarship that already has used the IEADB to contribute insights into international environmental governance and institutional design, including research on IEA membership, formation, and design as well as the structure of international environmental law generally. We briefly note the pedagogic value of the IEADB as a means to support both undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. We end by identifying broad research realms and specific research questions that are opened up by the particular structure and content of the IEADB, noting ways that scholars can use the IEADB to answer those questions of greatest interest to them.
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Cartwright, M. (2019). Preferential trade agreements and power asymmetries: the case of technological protection measures in Australia. The Pacific Review, 32(3), 313-335.
Since the 1980s states have sought to harmonise economic standards to aid the flow of goods, services and finance across borders. The founding agreements of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), for example, harmonised standards on services, intellectual property and investment. However, mutlilateral trade negotiations in the WTO have since stalled. In response, the United States (US) has engaged in forum shopping, using preferential trade agreements at the bilateral, regional and multinational level to harmonise international standards. This article argues that through forum shopping the US has been able to export standards that support the commercial interests of US-based industries more than they encourage economic exchange across borders. Furthermore, because power asymmetries are starker in preferential trade negotiations smaller and middle power states should not enter trade agreements, which include regulatory harmonisation. This is illustrated with the case of the US-Australia free trade agreement, looking specifically at a copyright standard known as technological protection measures (TPMs). It was clear before, during and after the agreement was signed that Australia’s existing standard on TPMs was more popular than the US-style standard. Nevertheless, a US-style standard is in effect domestically because of the trade agreement.
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Papin, M. 2019. Transnational municipal networks: Harbingers of innovation for global adaptation governance? International Environmental Agreements 19(4-5): 467-483.
Few studies have examined transnational actors involved in global adaptation governance, despite their growing influence. This paper focuses on 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), a transnational municipal network (TMN) that has created governance instruments with potential for contributing to global adaptation governance. Despite their different nature from international actors (states and intergovernmental organizations), the distinct practices of TMNs and how they might influence global adaptation governance are uncertain. Vague claims suggest that TMNs are innovative, but what this innovation consists of remains unclear. Therefore, the research question here is: how do TMNs innovate in global adaptation governance? This paper strives to answer this question, by building an analytical framework to identify types and features of governance instruments, based on the literature on policy instruments, global environmental governance and global climate governance. It presents a case study of 100RC, based on an in-depth documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that TMNs can be innovative, if they, like 100RC, create original governance instruments instead of using the existing tools of international or other transnational actors. While some of 100RC’s tools favour a more recent, soft and indirect approach, its considerable use of hard practices with significant obligation is particularly interesting considering the general characterization of TMNs as voluntary and soft. The governance practices of 100RC are thus not in stark contrast with those of international actors. Their diversity could provide inspiration for future action to improve the effectiveness of global climate adaptation governance, and the analytical framework developed here could be applied in further studies.
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Laurens, N and JF Morin (2019) "Negotiating Environmental Protection in Trade Agreements: A Regime Shift or a Tactical Linkage?" International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 19(6), 533-556.
The prolific literature on the relationship between the trade and environmental regimes suffers from three shortcomings. First, it myopically focuses on multilateral institutions while the vast majority of trade and environmental agreements are bilateral. Second, when studies consider preferential trade agreements’ (PTAs) environmental provisions, they are often limited to US and EU agreements. Third, it examines how the trade and environmental regimes negatively affect each other, leaving aside their potential synergies. Conversely, this article assesses the potential contribution of PTAs to international environmental law. Several PTAs include a full-fledged chapter devoted to environmental protection and contain detailed commitments on various environmental issue areas. One possible scenario is that countries that are dissatisfied with traditional settings for environmental lawmaking engage in a process of “regime shifting” toward PTAs to move forward on their environmental agenda. The alternative is that PTAs’ environmental provisions are the result of “tactical linkages” and merely duplicate extant obligations from international environmental law to serve political goals. We shed light on this question by building on two datasets of 690 PTAs and 2343 environmental treaties. We investigate four potential contributions of PTAs to environmental law: the diffusion of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), the diffusion of existing environmental rules, the design of new environmental rules, and the legal prevalence of MEAs. The article concludes that the contribution of PTAs to the strengthening of states’ commitments under international environmental law is very modest on the four dimensions examined.
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Peacock C., Dobson, H., Morin, J.F., and Prys-Hansen, M. “G7 Biarritz: Finding Agreement Amid Discord”. Future of Globalization, German Development Institute (2019).
It is a common practice today to speak about the demise of the liberal world order. Threats to multilateralism, free trade and democratic values seem to arise from everywhere; both through a growing assertiveness of authoritarian regimes, but also from within liberal democracies.This creates particular challenges for international cooperation at a time when the world is increasingly confronted with new or (re-)emerging and transversal issues such as digital privacy and inequality. These issues are insufficiently regulated within our existing system of institutions, necessitating new and renewed forms of multilateral cooperation.
In light of these challenges, on the occasion of the 2018 G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Canada and the accompanying Think 7 Summit (a meeting of researchers from G7 countries extended to include a number of outreach partners), we looked at the particular institutional characteristics of the G7 and how they impact its ability to tackle new and transversal issues in global governance. In an article that was the output of our involvement in the Think 7 Summit, we highlighted two important features of the G7 that make it better suited than other international institutions to address these issues: the informality and like-mindedness of G7 members when it comes to social, economic and political values. We argued the G7’s relatively high level of informality, along with its focus on shared values among members make it well adapted to address new and complex issues that have „no home”. At the same time, its members are frequently expected to share problem definitions that enable them to reach faster solutions. Both at the previous Charlevoix and the upcoming Biarritz Summits, leaders of the G7 have committed to dealing with increasingly complex threats to multilateralism and emerging problems such as growing inequality, green finance, and the taxation of the digital economy.
However, as the G7 Summit in Biarritz approaches, it has become clear that the likemindedness of G7 member states is in flux and what we are presented with is a “G6 plus one.” Given the current global context, reaching solutions on these issues has proven to be difficult in light of, in particular, domestic developments in the United States. Yet, with creative solutions building on the G7’s informality and the flexibility it provides, the current era of the G6 plus one will not necessarily relegate the G7 to a phase of decline and inactivity. Ahead of the upcoming summit, we call on leaders to make the most of the G7 by intensifying their debate on a long-term coherent vision strengthening common values and, where this proves to be impossible, to create mini-lateral solutions and long-term plans for particular problems at hand.
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Derome, Léonie. "Les critiques de l’accord Canada-Europe sont-elles justifiées?", dans Le Devoir - Opinion, 29 juillet 2019.
La ratification de l’Accord économique et commercial global (AECG ou CETA en anglais) par les députés de l’Assemblée nationale française a été précédée de débats houleux dans l’Hexagone, portés par les interventions fort médiatisées de Nicolas Hulot et de Greta Thunberg. Mais l’AECG omet-il réellement de dûment tenir compte de considérations environnementales, comme les débats entourant ces deux interventions pourraient le laisser croire ?
L’AECG s’illustre dans le palmarès des 10 accords commerciaux présentant la plus grande diversité de dispositions environnementales depuis 1947. Il contient 126 différents types d’engagements et traite donc d’une large variété de sujets liés à l’environnement. Par ailleurs, l’AECG prévoit un nombre considérable de 380 références à l’environnement, ce qui le place à la 13e position des accords abordant le plus fréquemment cette question. L’AECG s’inscrit ainsi dans la tendance globale de multiplication des engagements environnementaux dans les accords de commerce, et l'analyse comparative dans l’historique des accords commerciaux permet difficilement de conclure que l’environnement est insuffisamment pris en considération par le gouvernement canadien actuel lors de la négociation de traités de libre-échange.
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Cartwright, M. (2019). Historical institutionalism and technological change: the case of Uber. Business and Politics.
In recent years, jurisdictions have struggled to address the emergence of ‘sharing’ businesses, such as Uber. These businesses have used technology to avoid the regulations that usually apply to industries such as taxis. By applying a historical institutionalist analysis, this article explains how authorities have responded to these companies. Through a detailed case study of Uber the article makes an empirical contribution by illustrating how regulatory regimes have responded to ‘disruptive’ technology. Furthermore, by applying an exogenously induced and endogenously mitigated model of change the article addresses the bifurcation in historical institutionalist literature between exogenous and endogenous accounts of change. This helps develop historical institutionalism theoretically, responds to criticisms of agent-based approaches and advances a model that can be applied to the study of technological change more generally.
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Laurens, N, Z Dove, JF Morin and S. Jinnah (2019) "NAFTA 2.0: The Greenest Trade Agreement Ever?", World Trade Review 18(4) : 659-677.
The renegotiation of what US President Trump called “the worst trade deal ever” has resulted in the most detailed environmental chapter in any trade agreement in history. The USMCA mentions dozens of environmental issues that its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), overlooked, and in line with contemporary US practice, brings the vast majority of environmental provisions into the core of the agreement, and subjects these provisions to a sanction-based dispute settlement mechanism. It also jettisons two controversial NAFTA measures potentially harmful to the environment. However, this paper argues that the USMCA only makes limited contributions to environmental protection. It primarily replicates most of the environmental provisions included in prior agreements, and only introduces three new environmental provisions. Moreover, it avoids important issues such as climate change, it does not mention the precautionary principle, and it scales back some environmental provisions related to multilateral environmental agreements.
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Cartwright, M. (2019). Business conflict and international law: the political economy of copyright in the United States. Regulation & Governance.
The internet industry has emerged as an important economic and political actor, both within the United States and internationally. Internet companies depend on exceptions from copyright law in order to operate. As a result, internet companies have considerable incentive to try and influence international copyright law. However, the current literature has neglected the role of the internet industry, instead focusing on the influence of copyright owning media companies. By doing so the literature has largely homogenized the concerns of business interests, neglecting the interests of business actors which do not favor stricter copyright protection. By examining business conflict over recent copyright initiatives by the United States, this article criticizes the literature. It illustrates that the internet industry has been able to alter the negotiating preferences of the United States against the wishes of copyright owners. This argues against the homogenization of business interests regarding copyright whilst illustrating the importance of material over discursive factors in determining political outcomes.
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Morin, JF and C. Blouin (2019) 'How Environmental Treaties Contribute to Global Health Governance", Globalization and Health 15:47.
Background
Recent work in international relations theory argues that international regimes do not develop in isolation, as previously assumed, but evolve as open systems that interact with other regimes. The implications of this insight’s for sustainable development remains underexplored. Even thought environmental protection and health promotion are clearly interconnected at the impact level, it remains unclear how global environmental governance interacts with global health governance at the institutional level. In order to fill this gap, this article aims to assess how environmental treaties contribute to global health governance.
Methods and results
To assess how environmental treaties contribute to global health governance, we conducted a content analysis of 2280 international environmental treaties. For each of these treaties, we measure the type and number of health-related provisions in these treaties. The result is the Health and Environment Interplay Database (HEIDI), which we make public with the publication of this article. This new database reveals that more than 300 environmental treaties have health-related provisions.
Conclusions
We conclude that the global environmental regime contributes significantly to the institutionalization of the global health regime, considering that the health regime includes itself very few treaties focusing primarily on health. When reflecting on how global governance can improve population health, decision makers should not only consider the instruments available to them within the realm of global health institutions. They should broaden their perspectives to integrate the contribution of other global regimes, such as the global environmental regime.
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Brandi, C, D. Blümer and JF Morin (2019) "When Do International Treaties Matter for Domestic Environmental Legislation?" Global Environmental Politics 19(4): 14-44.
While thousands of environment-related treaties have been concluded, it remains unclear whether they have been implemented. This paper investigates the relationship between the conclusion of treaties, namely international environmental agreements (IEAs) and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that include environmental provisions, and the adoption of domestic environmental legislations. Thanks to datasets that are significantly more comprehensive and fine-grained than those previously used, we can focus on the direct link to environmental legislations rather than the less direct link to environmental outcomes. We are also able to study the relationship between international obligations on specific environmental issue areas and legislation in the same issue areas. As expected, we find a significant and positive relationship between both IEAs and PTAs with domestic legislation. Moreover, the link between treaties and domestic legislation is more pronounced in developing countries and, in these countries, more pronounced before rather than after entry into force. This relationship can be observed for many specific environmental issue areas, but not all of them. These findings contribute to the literature on environmental regime effectiveness and the domestic impact of treaties.
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Gomez, L, JF Morin and T Van de Graaf, 2020, "Regime Complexes" in Architectures of Earth System Governance (edited by F. Biermann and R Kim), Cambridge University Press
This chapter reviews this literature on environmental regime complexes. The first section clarifies the definition of regime complex and distinguishes it from similar concepts. The following three sections look respectively at the emergence, the development, and the consequences of regime complexes. The fifth section surveys the different methods used in the regime complex literature. Finally, the last section discusses future directions for research on environmental regime complexes.
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Mikler, J. and Madison Cartwright. (2019). “Global Corporations as Agents of Institutional Hybridization: Ford and Volkswagen’s Management-Labor Relations in South Africa”. In Corporate Actors in Global Governance: Business as Usual or New Deal, edited by Matthias Hofferberth. Lynne Rienner.
Comparativists have long demonstrated that corporations are ‘produced’ through a process of national institutional embedding. However, the globalisation of markets is said to be creating global corporations that no longer have allegiance to their home states. They become as global in their outlook as their interests, and take on an increasingly autonomous existence that is both institutionally as well as physically disembedded from their home states. In fact, they are seen as proactively attacking national institutional variations. A key reason for this is that most major industry sectors are oligopolistic. Therefore, global corporations have come to control, rather than compete in, global as well as national markets. Freed from the both the ‘shackles’ of market competition and their home states’ institutions, the result produced is said to be a convergence on neoliberal policies, and a ‘race to the bottom’ as states compete to bid down social and environmental protections to serve the interests of highly mobile capital. The impacts are said to be felt universally, though most acutely in the case of institutionally weaker developing states.
Are the interests of global corporations as homogeneous as often claimed, and is the result the neoliberalization of developing states’ political economies? To consider these questions we look at the case of investment in South Africa by Ford and Volkswagen, two of the world’s major automotive corporations. Using insights from the comparative capitalism literature, an analysis of South Africa’s political economy, and a content analysis of these corporations’ reporting, we demonstrate that rather than abandoning the management-labor relations of their home states, these corporations have instead sought to retain them. In fact, they have attempted to reproduce their home states’ institutions in their South African operations. From a corporate perspective, their manufacturing operations in South Africa thus represent a case of proactive rather than passive institutional path dependence. From a South African perspective, the management-labor relations they have sought to establish reflect a process of attempted neo-colonisation, and resistance to it, as much as globalisation. The result is that as global corporations become physically disembedded from their home states when they invest and operate abroad, it does not necessarily follow that they become institutionally disembedded as well. Nor does it follow that the states in which they invest ‘surrender’ their institutional differences. As such, foreign investment is a medium for institutional competition between states, rather than annihilation.
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Morin, JF and D. Thériault, 2019. Copyright Provisions in Trade Deals: A Bird's-eye View. CIGI Policy Brief no 149.
- No fewer than 107 preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include provisions on copyright protection.
- Some PTAs refer to multilateral copyright agreements or replicate their requirements, but an increasing share of them also provide obligations that go beyond multilateral requirements.
- The most active proponents of copyright provisions in PTAs are the United States, the European Union and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
- There is a strong correlation between the propensity to include copyright provisions in PTAs and a country’s interest in copyright protection.
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Peacock C., K. Milewicz, and D. Snidal, "Boilerplate in International Trade Agreements", International Studies Quarterly, Forthcoming.
New international agreements often recycle language from previous agreements, using boilerplate solutions alongside customized provisions. The presence of boilerplate in international agreements has important implications for understanding how international rules are made. The determinants behind boilerplate in interna- tional agreements have not previously been systematically evaluated. Using original data from a sample of 348 preferential trade agreements (PTAs) adopted between 1989 and 2009, we combine novel text analysis measures with Latent Order Logistic Graph (LOLOG) network techniques to assess the determinants behind boilerplate in labor and environmental provisions commonly found in PTAs. Our results indicate that whereas boilerplate can be used for both efficiency and distributive purposes, international boilerplate is used primarily for efficiency gains while power-distribution considerations are not systematically important.
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Morin, JF, D Blümer, C. Brandi, and A. Berger (2019) "Kick-starting diffusion:Explaining the varying frequency of PTAs’ environmental clauses by their initial conditions", World Economy 42(9): 2602-2628.
An increasingly comprehensive set of environmental provisions is being integrated in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Interestingly, while a number of these environmental provisions are included only rarely, others are duplicated in more than 100 PTAs. We still lack a convincing explanation for the conditions that fuel the uptake of specific provisions. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the design, interaction, and diffusion of international institutions and introduces two key innovations. First, our level of analysis is the provision level rather than the agreement level. Second, while the diffusion literature typically tries to explain how diffusion occurs, we investigate what makes diffusion more likely. We hypothesise that the initial conditions – relating both to agency and institutional factors – under which provisions first emerge determine the scope of their diffusion. Our results indicate that provisions originating from intercontinental agreements diffuse more often, and provisions first introduced by environmentally credible countries are more frequently duplicated than provisions introduced by economically powerful countries.
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Mathieu, J., Fighting unfair trade, leveling the playing field, enforcing trade rights. The construction of trade protection in the United States and the European Union. PhD thesis in Social and Political Sciences, Université libre de Bruxelles, March 2019.
The PhD dissertation studies the construction of trade protection in the United States and the European Union. It focuses in particular on measures of contingent protection, comprising anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguards. The dissertation adopts a constructivist approach based on narrative analysis: broadening the conventional scope of political economy research on trade, the analysis combines the study of narratives with the concept of ‘discourse coalition’. The period under investigation spans over the period 2010-2014, covering the Obama Administration and the mandate of European Commissioner for trade Karel De Gucht. Adopting a comparative approach of the US and EU trade policy, the dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the US administration’s and the European Commission’s discourses on trade protection, and includes an analysis of a large array of other actors’ alternative, or competing constructions of contingent protection. The dissertation demonstrates that a specific type of unilateral enforcement plays an underestimated role in the construction of contingent protection. It also emphasizes that policy actors consider contingent protection as necessary to convince people that the trading system is fair; the research proposes the concept of ‘discursive embedded liberalism’ to account for this specific construction of trade protection. The research underlines elements of continuity and change, showing that many elements of the current crisis within the international trade regime were already in the making in the period under investigation.
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Morin, JF and L. Gomez-Mera (2019) "The Evolution of Governance Systems: the Case of the Trade Regime" International Studies Review, 22(4):15-20.
This collection of essays brings together scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds, based on three continents, with different theoretical and methodological interests but all active on the topic of complex systems as applied to international relations. They investigate how complex systems have been and can be applied in practice and what differences it makes for the study of international affairs. Two important threads link all the contributions: (i) To which extent is this approach promising to understand global governance dynamics? (ii) How can this be implemented in practice?
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Morin, JF, H Dobson, C. Peacock, M. Prys-Hansen, A. Anne, L. Belanger, P. Dietsch, J. Fabian, J. Kirton, R. Marchetti, S. Romano, M. Schreurs, A. Silve et E. Vallet (2019), "How Informality Can Address Emerging Issues: Making the Most of the G7", Global Policy, vol. 10(2): 267-273.
The Group of Seven (G7) leaders met for their 44th annual summit in Charlevoix, Canada in June 2018. Although the G7 has outlived many institutions of global governance, perennial doubts are cast upon it, particularly regarding its legitimacy and achievements. The Think 7/Idées 7 is a group of 35 scholars from all over the world who met from 21 to 23 May, 2018 at Laval University, Quebec City to identify key themes to be addressed at the Charlevoix Summit, communicating its findings to the G7 leaders’ personal representatives. This Policy Insights paper builds on these discussions and looks ahead to the 2019 Biarritz Summit by making recommendations of how the G7 can play a leadership role. We argue that it should address new, unprecedented and highly disruptive issues that characterise our complex world, rather than well-understood international problems that fit into existing categories. We argue that the G7 can do this by playing to its strengths – informality and like-mindedness in particular – in addressing emerging and transversal issues such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies.
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Morin, JF, C Brandi and A Berger. 2019. "The Multilateralization of PTA Environmental Clauses - Scenarios for the Future?" in Shifting Landscape of Global Trade Governance (edited by M. Elsig, M. Hahn, and G. Spilker). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press : 207-231.
Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) cover a much wider diversity of environmental clauses than World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. Which PTA environmental clauses could be multilateralized and included in the WTO rulebook? This chapter compares five different scenarios for the potential multilateralization of PTA environmental clauses: 1) The “routine scenario” combines the most frequent clauses; 2) Tthe “consensual scenario” includes the clauses accepted by a high number of WTO members; 3) the “trendy scenario” includes the most popular clauses in recent times; 4) “the power-game scenario” combines the clauses that are jointly supported by the US and the EU; 5) the “appropriate scenario” is a compilation of the clauses typically included in large membership agreements. This chapter compares and contrasts the scenarios’ implications and identifies their common ground. Although each scenario represents an ideal type unlikely to materialize, the comparison offers insights into how the multilateral trade system could be developed to improve the integration of environmental concerns.
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Gold, R., J-F Morin and E. Shadeed (2019) "Does Intellectual Property Lead to Economic Growth? Insights from an Improved IP Dataset" Regulation & Governance, vol. 13(1): 107-124.
While policymakers often make bold claims on the positive impact of intellectual property (IP) rights on both developed and developing country economies, the empirical literature is more ambiguous. IP rights have both incentive and inhibitory effects that are difficult to isolate in the abstract and dependent on economic context. To unravel these contradictory effects, this article introduces an index that evaluates the strength of IP protection in 124 developing countries for the years 1995 to 2011. We illustrate the value of this index to economics study and show evidence that is consistent with IP leading to increased growth. Our results are further consistent with two causal pathways highlighted in the literature: that IP leads to greater levels of technology transfer and increased domestic inventive activity. Yet, other aspects of our study fit uneasily with this simple story. We find, for example, evidence suggesting that increased levels of growth lead to greater levels of IP protection, contradictory evidence in the literature linking IP with growth, a lack of evidence that increased levels of IP protection lead to actual use of the IP system and problems with what IP indexes measure. Because of this, we suggest another – and so far undertheorized – explanation of the links between IP and growth: that IP may have few direct effects on growth and that any causality is due to belief rather than actual deployment of IP.
2018
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Morin, JF and D. Thériault, 2018, How Trade Deals Extend the Frontiers of International Patent Law, CIGI Papers no 199.
Bilateral and regional trade deals frequently include patent provisions that go beyond the minimum requirement of the multilateral Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). They extend the scope of patentability and provide additional rights to patent holders. This paper systematically maps these “TRIPs-plus” agreements. Exploiting a new dataset, 52 TRIPs-plus agreements are found to have been concluded between 1990 and 2017. The major proponents of these TRIPs-plus agreements on patents are the United States, followed by the European Union and the European Free Trade Association. Other technology-rich countries, such as Japan and Korea, have surprisingly few TRIPs-plus provisions on patent protection in their trade agreements. Few South-South trade agreements include TRIPs-plus provisions, but some include TRIPs-extra provisions on genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Having a clear picture of these TRIPs-plus agreements is essential as they can have important social and economic consequences, including for the development of innovations and access to technologies.
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Thériault, Dimitri. 2018. "Et si Machiavel avait été banquier ? : Une étude sur l’allocation des prêts de la Banque mondiale". Université Laval. 139 p.
This research studies the allocation of World Bank loans with panel data covering up to 115 countries over three time periods: Cold War (1973-1990), post-Cold War (1991-2000), and post-September 11 (2001-2013). Among our findings, we show that the more a state receives a large amount of loans by the World Bank, the more it supports the US foreign policy. At the same time, our data reveals that recipients of World Bank loans are on average closer to Russian foreign policy than American foreign policy for all periods under consideration. We argue that these results provide evidence that World Bank’s loans are used to buy and reward supports or abstentions for specific resolutions in the United Nations rather than for all the ones adopted in a session. Our study furthermore indicates that after September 11 terrorist attacks, World Bank recipient countries receiving the greatest amount of US military assistance were also the ones receiving the largest loans by the Bank. Although this supports the thesis that the events of 9/11 led the United States to use the World Bank in their national interests as during the Cold War, we find that the Bank appears to have limited political considerations in the allocation of its loans after the collapse of the USSR and especially between 2001 and 2013.
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Morin, J-F et J. Paquin, 2018. "Politique étrangère et relations internationales: liaisons dangereuses ou mariage de raison?", La politique étrangère: approches disciplinaires, sous la direction de Christian Lequesne et Hugo Meijer, Presses de l'Université de Montréal.
Ce chapitre porte sur les liens entre l’analyse de la politique étrangère (APÉ) et les théories des relations internationales (RI). À travers une synthèse historique des moments forts qui ont animé ces champs d’études, ce chapitre fait la démonstration que si l’APÉ et les RI ont évolué en vase clos pendant quelques décennies, elles se sont considérablement rapprochées au cours des dernières années pour devenir des vases communiquants. Alors que la frontière entre ce qui est interne et externe à l’État est remise en question, il en va de même pour celle qui sépare l’APÉ des RI. Même si ces champs d’études ont longtemps entretenu une relation complexe due à l’absence de consensus sur leur démarcation, les échanges entre eux sont maintenant plus fructueux que jamais. C’est en combinant les théories de l’APÉ et celles des RI dans un bricolage théorique original que les chercheurs contemporains peuvent s’attaquer de la façon la plus fructueuse possible aux questions de notre époque.
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Thériault, Dimitri. 2018. "Political Affinity and Multilateral Aid : A Study Putting in Perspective the Political Affinity of World Bank Recipient Countries with the United States". Centre d'études pluridisciplinaires en commerce et investissement internationaux (CEPCI). 6 p.
This research studies the allocation of World Bank loans with panel data covering up to 115 countries over three time periods: Cold War (1973-1990), post-Cold War (1991-2000), and post-September 11 (2001-2013). Among our findings, we show that the more a state receives a large amount of loans by the World Bank, the more it supports the US foreign policy. At the same time, our data reveals that recipients of World Bank loans are on average closer to Russian foreign policy than American foreign policy for all periods under consideration. We argue that these results provide evidence that World Bank's loans are used to buy and reward support or abstention for specific resolutions at the United Nations rather than for all the ones adopted in a session.
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Cartwright, M. (2018). Who cares about Reddit? Historical institutionalism and the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act. Policy Studies, 39(4), 383-401.
In May 2011, the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) was introduced to the United States Senate boasting 31 sponsors from both the Democratic and Republican Party. By January 2012 PIPA, along with counterpart in the House of Representatives known as
the Stop Online Piracy Act was indefinitely shelved. Many have attributed this dramatic shift to the widespread backlash against the bills from online activists. The case thus suggests that the Internet has emerged as a powerful tool in allowing ordinary citizens to displace the entrenched power of special interests groups. However, given the role of activists and their rhetorical framing strategies in the defeat of the bills, the case also has theoretical implications for historical institutionalism. Namely, how can historical institutionalism, which favours institutions over agency, especially when explaining continuity, account for this? Can historical institutionalism account for agency, institutions, continuity and change in a unified way? This article responds in two ways. First, it argues that internet companies, not activists, were crucial in explaining the defeat of the bills. Second, it proposes a unified historical institutionalist approach to research, capable of explaining agency within institutions in institutional continuity and change.
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Morin, JF, V Chaudhuri, and M. Gauquelin, 2018, "Do Trade Deals Encourage Environmental Cooperation?" DIE Briefing Paper 8
This briefing paper discusses how provisions on environmental cooperation in trade agreements can contribute to better environmental outcomes. It is frequently assumed that the more enforceable environmental commitments are, the more likely governments are to take action to protect the environment. This assumption leads several experts to argue in favour of strong sanction-based mechanisms of dispute settlement in order to ensure the implementation of trade agreements’ environmental provisions. Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that softer provisions can result in increased environmental cooperation, which can in turn favour domestic environmental protection. To shed light on this debate, this paper examines the design and the implementation of cooperative environmental provisions of trade agreements.
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Thériault, Dimitri. 2018. « L'affinité politique et l'aide multilatérale : Une étude relativisant l'affinité politique des États récipiendaires des prêts de la Banque mondiale avec les États-Unis ». Centre d'études pluridisciplinaires en commerce et investissement internationaux (CEPCI). 7 p.
Cette recherche étudie l’allocation des prêts de la Banque mondiale à l’aide de données de panel couvrant 115 États au maximum et trois périodes : guerre froide (1973-1990), post-guerre froide (1991-2000) et post-11 septembre (2001-2013). Parmi nos découvertes, nous trouvons que plus un État reçoit un montant élevé de prêts, plus il se rapproche de la politique étrangère des États-Unis. Cependant, peu importe la période, les récipiendaires des prêts de la Banque mondiale sont en moyenne plus près de la politique étrangère de la Russie que de la politique étrangère des États-Unis. Nous soutenons que ces résultats impliquent que les prêts de la Banque sont utilisés pour acheter et récompenser des appuis ou des abstentions aux Nations unies pour quelques résolutions seulement et non pas pour l’ensemble des résolutions votées au cours d’une session.
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Papin-Manjarrez, M., et G. Cloutier, "L’expérimentation locale, nouvelle voie de l’adaptation en milieu urbain ?", Urbanité, Hiver 2018, 11-12.
Du fait de la difficulté à mettre en place des initiatives ordinaires d’adaptation aux changements climatiques en milieu urbain, nombreux sont les citoyens et organismes qui préfèrent sortir des sentiers battus pour expérimenter de nouvelles façons d’agir directement sur le territoire. Opérations de verdissement, compostage collectif, agriculture urbaine sont quelques déclinaisons de ces expérimentations locales d’adaptation du milieu. Quels sont les effets de telles expérimentations ? Comment les microactions contribuent-elles à l’adaptation aux changements climatiques plus largement ?
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Morin, JF and N Bialais, 2018, Strengthening Multilateral Environmental Governance through Bilateral Trade Deals, CIGI Policy Brief 123
- Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are increasingly referred to within trade agreements. The range of MEAs cited in trade agreements is also expanding.
- MEAs within trade agreements are referred to for different reasons, including to provide contextual information for interpretative purposes, to determine hierarchy between agreements, to promote the ratification of MEAs or to demand their implementation
- Using data obtained from the Trade and Environment Database (TREND), this policy brief shows that the practice of referencing MEAs in trade agreements creates significant political and legal opportunities for enhanced MEA effectiveness.
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Morin, JF, A Dür, L. Lechner (2018) "Mapping the Trade and Environment Nexus: Insights from a New Dataset", Global Environmental Politics, vol. 18(1).
Environment and trade are increasingly linked through preferential trade agreements. Despite the encompassing nature of environmental provisions in trade agreements, studies on causes and consequences of the trade and environment linkage are scarce. A main cause hindering research in this area is the lack of data. By dint of this research note we introduce an original dataset on environmental provisions found in 630 trade agreements signed between 1947 and 2016 – that is the most comprehensive in terms of both variables coded and agreements covered. We illustrate the dataset’s usefulness by assessing the question of why countries include environmental provisions in trade agreements. Are trade negotiations opportunities to promote stringent environmental standards? Or are environmental provisions window-dressing covering protectionist interests? We find evidence that democracies, countries that face import competition, and countries that care about the environment are more likely to include environmental provisions in trade agreements. The database is of particular relevance for research on international institutional design, policy innovation, regime complexity, policy diffusion, and regime effectiveness.
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Cloutier, G., M. Papin et C. Bizier, "Do-it-yourself (DIY) adaptation: Civic initiatives as drivers to address climate change at the urban scale", Cities, publié en ligne le 4 janvier 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.12.018
Greening projects lead by civic actors at the urban scale spur transformation through example and through gradual adjustment of processes. Questions remain on how such projects are put into action and on what make them work. How do civic experiments reflect the ongoing change in urban governance and practices? We focus on a qualitative study of two greening initiatives lead by civic groups in Quebec City (Quebec, Canada). The case studies are analysed through the lens of theories that approach civic action and climate experiments as new modes of urban governance. We conclude that civil society groups have the capacity to intervene directly on the urban environment in order to enhance its quality. Findings reveal that informal greening initiatives contribute to a civic narrative in favour of adaptation to climate change at the local scale.
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Morin, JF, O. Serrano, M. Burri, and S. Bannerman (2018) "Rising Economies in the International Patent Regime: From Rule-Breakers to Rule-Changers and Rule-Makers", New Political Economy, 23(3): 255-273.
Rising economies face a crucial dilemma when establishing their position on international patent law. Should they translate their increasing economic strength into political power to further developing countries’ interests in lower levels of international patent protection? Or, anticipating a rising domestic interest in stronger international patent protection, should they adopt a position that favors maximal patent protection? Drawing on multiple case studies using a most similar system design, we argue that rising economies, after having been coerced into adopting more stringent patent standards, tend to display ambivalent positions, trapped in bureaucratic politics and caught between conflicting domestic constituencies. We find that the recent proliferation of international institutions and the expansion of transnational networks have contributed to fragmentation and polarization in domestic patent politics. As a result, today’s emerging economies experience a more tortuous transformative process than did yesterday’s. This finding is of particular relevance for scholars studying rising powers, as well as for those working on policy diffusion, regulatory regimes, transnational networks and regime complexes.
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Morin, J-F and J. Paquin (2018) Foreign Policy Analysis: A Toolbox, Palgrave.
This book presents the evolution of the field of foreign policy analysis and explains the theories that have structured research in this area over the last 50 years. It provides the essentials of emerging theoretical trends, data and methodological pitfalls and major case-studies and is designed to be a key entry point for graduate students, upper-level undergraduates and scholars into the discipline. The volume features an eclectic panorama of different conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches to foreign political analysis, focusing on different models of analysis such as two-level game analysis, bureaucratic politics, strategic culture, cybernetics, poliheuristic analysis, cognitive mapping, gender studies, groupthink and the systemic sources of foreign policy. The authors also clarify conceptual notions such as doctrines, ideologies and national interest, through the lenses of foreign policy analysis.
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Morin, JF and S. Jinnah (2018) "The Untapped Potential of Preferential Trade Agreements for Climate Governance", Environmental Politics, vol. 27(3): 541-565.
The regulatory contribution that Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) make to global climate governance is assessed through an analysis of climate-related provisions found in 688 PTAs signed between 1947 and 2016. Provisions are analyzed along four dimensions: innovation, legalization, replication, and distribution. Innovative climate provisions are found in several PTAs that are in some cases more specific and enforceable than the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Nonetheless, these climate provisions offer limited progress because they remain weakly ‘legalized’, fail to replicate broadly in the global trade system, and were not adopted by the largest greenhouse gas emitters. Despite the inclusion of innovative climate provisions in a number of PTAs, their poor design and weak replication position them as some of the weakest environmental provisions within PTAs.
2017
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Morin, J-F and R. Gauthier Nadeau (2017) "Environmental Gems in Trade Agreements: Little-known Clauses for Progressive Trade Agreements", CIGI Papers no 148.
Trade agreements contain an increasing number of environmental provisions. Some of these provisions now relate to precise environmental issues, such as biodiversity or hazardous waste management. Certain trade agreements even devote entire chapters to environmental protection. However, the rate of innovative environmental clauses per agreement has declined over the years. This paper draws attention to some of the lesser-known provisions encountered in five agreements or fewer. These “legal one-hit wonders” do not often reach the billboard, despite their uniqueness and creativity. The objective of this paper is to put the spotlight on them in the hope of contributing to the diffusion of best practices, providing negotiators with ideas to emulate in future trade agreements. It also reveals some of the weak spots in the interplay between trade and environment.
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Meunier, S. and JF Morin (2017) "The European Union and the Space-Time Continuum of Investment Agreements", Journal of European Integration, vol. 39(7): 891-907.
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty transferred the competence over Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy from the national to the supranational level. This article analyses the impact of this transfer on the content of international investment agreements and, more broadly, the shape of the investment regime complex. Is the competence shift expected to have an independent impact or simply reproduce and continue existing trends? Exploring these two conjectures through a combination of text analysis, primary materials, and interviews, we are making a Historical Institutionalist argument focusing on the timing and sequencing of international investment negotiations. While the competence shift has allowed the EU to innovate in developing its own approach to negotiating international investment agreements, notably with the proposal to create an Investment Court System, the novelty may be only at the surface as the constraints of past, current, and future negotiations restrict the options available to EU actors- we call this the space-time continuum. The result of this learning-and-reacting process is a new European approach which simultaneously duplicates and innovates and could eventually favour greater centralization within the investment regime complex.
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Morin, JF and M. Rochette (2017) "Transatlantic Convergence of PTAs’ Environmental Clauses" Business and Politics, vol. 19(4): 621-658.
The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) include several environmental clauses in their respective preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Building on an exhaustive and fine-grained dataset of PTAs environmental clauses, this article makes two contributions. First, it show that the US and the EU have initially favored different approaches to environmental protection in their PTAs. US concerns over regulatory sovereignty and level playing field have conducted to a legalistic and adversarial approach, while EU concerns for policy coherence have led to a more procedural and cooperative approach. Second, this article provides evidence that European and American trade negotiators have gradually converged on a shared set of environmental norms. Although the US and the EU initially pursued different objectives, they learned from each other and drew similar lessons. As a result, recent American agreements have become more European-like, and European agreements have become more Americanized. This article concludes that US and EU approaches, far from being incompatible, can usefully be combined and reinforce each other.
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Morin, JF, J. Pauwelyn, and J. Hollway (2017) "The Trade Regime as a Complex Adaptive System: Exploration and Exploitation of Environmental Norms in Trade Agreements", Journal of International Economic Law, vol. 20(2): 365-390.
While the trade regime is often analyzed under the metaphoric assumptions of Newtonian mechanics, we propose an alternative, more organic representation. We argue that the trade regime seems to evolve as a complex adaptive system, at the edge of order and chaos. Drawing from a dataset of 280 different types of environmental provisions found in 680 trade agreements, we show how both the trade regime and the norms contained therein unfold by remaining stable (but not static) and dynamic (but not chaotic). Trade negotiators simultaneously explore new grounds by introducing legal innovations and exploiting known territories by adopting existing norms. Our analysis suggests that, even as the regime grows in the number and length of agreements, there are exploratory and exploitative processes at work. These twin processes can explain that the trade regime appears neither more fragmented/heterogeneous nor more centralized/homogenous than it was fifty years ago, despite its substantial expansion. This hypothesis is at the core of the research agenda that this paper lays out.
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De Pryck & Wanneau K. (2017). “(Anti)-boundary work in global environmental change research and assessment,” Environmental Science & Policy (forthcoming)
In the 1990s, a discourse emerged within global environmental change research underlining the need to go beyond previously held boundaries between science and society. While not entirely new, this discourse has however reached the highest levels of scientific cooperation embodied among others in the Future Earth (FE) platform and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using the concept of (anti)-boundary work developed in Science and Technology Studies (STS), we trace shifts in discourses about the boundaries between social and natural disciplines; between scientists and societal actors; and finally, between the definition of problems and the provision of solutions. We do so analyzing the emergence of global sustainability and solution-oriented science in the discourses of scientific and political actors involved in FE and the IPCC. We conclude with a discussion of challenges connected to the implementation of solution-oriented research and assessment. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented GEAs.
Highlights
• Solution-oriented research and assessment are transforming the role of science in society.
• It challenges boundaries between social and natural disciplines; experts and social actors; problems and solutions.
• Illustrations of anti-boundary discourses are given in Future Earth and IPCC.
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Papin, M., 2017, "Global Cities and Climate Change: The Translocal Relations of Environmental Governance, by Lee Taedong Routledge, 2015, 160 pp, £95 hb, ISBN 9780415737371 An Urban Politics of Climate Change: Experimentation and the Governing of Socio-Technical Transitions, by Bulkeley Harriet A. , Castán Broto Vanesa & Edwards Gareth A.S. Routledge, 2015, 270 pp, £90 hb, ISBN 9781138791091 The Urban Climate Challenge: Rethinking the Role of Cities in the Global Climate Regime, by Johnson Craig , Toly Noah & Schroeder Heike (eds) Routledge, 2015, 258 pp, £100 hb, ISBN 9781138776883", Transnational Environmental Law, 6:1, 184-187. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102517000048
Cette recension croisée porte sur trois ouvrages publiés en 2015 sur la question des villes et de l'action climatique. Il met en avant le nouveau rôle des villes, tant au niveau local que transnational ou mondial, dans la lutte aux changements climatiques et évoque les perspectives pour le droit transnational de l'environnement.
2016
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Morin, J-F and M. Gauquelin, 2016, "Trade Agreements as Vectors for the Nagoya Protocol's Implementation", CIGI Papers no 115.
A growing number of trade agreements include provisions related to access to genetic resources and the sharing of the benefits that arise out of their utilization. This paper maps the distribution and the diversity of these provisions. It identifies a great variety of provisions regarding sovereignty over genetic resources, the protection of traditional knowledge, prior informed consent, the disclosure of origin in patent applications and conditions for bioprospecting activities. It also finds that some recent trade agreements provide specific measures designed to facilitate the implementation of access and benefit-sharing (ABS) provisions, including measures related to technical assistance, transparency and dispute settlements. Thus, it appears that trade negotiations can become vectors for the implementation of ABS obligations stemming from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization. The integration of ABS commitments into trade agreements, however, varies greatly, depending on the countries involved. While Latin American countries have played a pioneering role, Canada and the United States still lag behind. The most exemplary ABS standards are not yet widely used, perhaps because they remain little known. These provisions deserve greater attention and should be integrated more widely into international trade agreements.
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Morin, J-F, N. Michaud and C. Bialais, 2016, "Trade Negotiations and Climate Governance: The EU as a pioneer, but not (yet) a leader", IDDRI Issue Brief, no 10/16, 4 p.
The European Union is a pioneer in terms of integrating climate issues into trade negotiations. It is the actor that includes the greatest number and range of provisions related climate change in its trade agreements.However, the EU model does not seem to be inspiring other actors in the trade system. Despite the recent proliferation of trade agreements and the exponential increase in provisions relating to the environment in these agreements, few countries are taking inspiration from EU standards.In order to foster an integrated approach to climate change, it would be useful to reproduce on a broader scale the small number of existing climate provisions, and to innovate based on progress made for other environmental issues.
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Guillaume Beaumier, « Le Traité de Lisbonne et le droit international de l’investissement : L’évolution d’un nouveau modèle européen », Études internationales 47(4) : 365-86.
Le droit international des investissements a connu une évolution exponentielle au cours des deux dernières décennies. Avec plus de 3 000 accords et une vaste jurisprudence, certains qualifient ce système de chaotique et instable. Les divergences entre traités bilatéraux d’investissement et les décisions contraires de tribunaux arbitraux donnent certes cette impression. Le présent article sur le développement du modèle de négociation de la Commission européenne, après l’entrée en vigueur du Traité de Lisbonne, démontre néanmoins que tout en étant un système décentralisé et flexible, le régime des investissements est en réalité dynamiquement stable et favorise une répétition des normes préexistantes. Le chapitre sur l’investissement du récent accord économique et commercial global (AECG) illustre en effet que tout en ayant eu l’occasion d’innover, la Commission européenne s’est largement inspirée du complexe institutionnel en place incluant notamment, mais pas uniquement, le modèle d’accord des États-Unis.
Mots clés : Droit international des investissements, Union européenne, Institutions, Évolution juridique, systèmes complexes
Foreign investment law (FIL) went through a tremendous evolution in the past two decades. With more than 3 000 agreements and a large corpus of case-law, some would qualify it as a chaotic and unstable system. Divergences between agreements and past arbitral decisions undoubtedly strengthen this perception. Nonetheless, this article on the development of the new European model for negotiating investment agreements following the Lisbon Treaty outlines that FIL is dynamically stable over time. In other words, while being flexible and opened for incremental changes, the investment regime also fosters a repetition of pre-existing norms. In fact, the recent text of the investment chapter of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) shows that even though the European Commission had the opportunity to innovate, the existing institutional complex surrounding FIL including, but not solely the American treaty model, largely inspired it.
Keywords : Foreign investment law, European Union, Institutions, Legal evolution, Complex system
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Morin, J-F, N. Michaud et C. Bialais, 2016, "Les négociations commerciales et la gouvernance climatique: l'UE comme précurseur mais pas (encore) meneur", IDDRI Issue Brief, no 10/16, 4 p.
L’analyse détaillée de 660 accords commerciaux conclus depuis 19471 permet de relever des dispositions particulièrement novatrices sur une série d’enjeux environnementaux. La question plus spécifique des changements climatiques, en revanche, apparaît encore sous-développée. Cet Issue Brief présente la portée et les limites de l’action européenne sur le climat dans les négociations commerciales.
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Coman, R. and J-F Morin, eds.(2015), Political Science in Motion: The Evolution of a Discipline Through its Journals, Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles.
This book examines recent developments in political science research. What are the new influences to which the discipline opens itself up? Is political science research converging towards a single model or splitting into different streams? What are the new challenges at the beginning of the 21st century? By addressing these questions, this collection of essays discusses three interrelated topics: the relationship between political science and the problems of politics, the relationship between political science and other fields of research, and the transformation of the profession. In so doing, this volume traces the major trends in contemporary political science research since the end of the Cold War.
As part of this approach, the authors rely on the academic journals as a field of investigation. Each of the eight chapters focuses on a different journal, including the American Political Science Review,West European Politics, the British Political Science Review, Security Dialogue, the Journal of Common Market Studies, International Security, Electoral Studies and the Revue française de science politique.
The book is intended to scholars with an interest in the historiography of political science, the epistemology of knowledge, the sociology of the profession as well as the evolution of the field in terms of research agendas, theoretical approaches and methodological debates.
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Morin, J-F et M. Rochette. 2016. "Les dispositions environnementales des accords commerciaux: entre innovation et diffusion", dans Circulations de normes et réseaux d’acteurs dans la gouvernance internationale de l'environnement, sous la direction de Sandrine Maljean Dubois, DICE editions: 37-60
Au cours des dernières décennies, les interactions entre les enjeux commerciaux et environnementaux n’ont cessé de croître et de se densifier, créant un véritable complexe institutionnel. Les accords commerciaux, en particulier, incluent un nombre croissant de normes environnementales. Loin de favoriser une uniformisation de ces accords, cette multiplication a plutôt contribué au développement de différentes approches. Les États-Unis et l’Union européenne, en particulier, ont développé des approches très différentes dans leurs accords commerciaux. Il est néanmoins possible d’observer une certaine convergence dans les plus récents accords américains et européens. Le complexe institutionnel du commerce et de l’environnement progresse ainsi dans cette dynamique évolutive, entre l’innovation et la diffusion.
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Papin, M., 2016, « Les réseaux transnationaux de villes, acteur de la gouvernance climatique mondiale », L’IntErDiSciplinaire, 11, p. 6.
Dans cet article, je présente le rôle que peuvent avoir les villes, au travers des réseaux transnationaux de villes en puissance, dans la gouvernance climatique mondiale. J'affirme que, si ces réseaux de villes peuvent apporter au système complexe de gouvernance climatique, ils ne peuvent avoir un impact réel sans l'aide conjointe des Etats.
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Richard Ouellet « L’activité du Québec en matière de commerce international: de l’énonciation de la doctrine Gérin-Lajoie à la négociation de L’AECG », Revue québécoise de droit international, Hors-série Juin 2016 La doctrine Gérin-Lajoie : 50 ans d’actions internationales du Québec, 31 août 2016.
La doctrine énoncée par Paul Gérin-Lajoie en avril 1965 n’a pas vocation à s’étendre au commerce international ni à la protection des investissements. En effet, la seule lecture de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867 suffit pour convaincre qu’il est difficile de prétendre que ces deux domaines d’activité relèvent des compétences internes ou externes des provinces canadiennes. Pourtant, force est de constater que l’expansion qu’a connue l’activité internationale du Québec ces cinquante dernières années, conjuguée à l’élargissement des thèmes couverts par les accords d’intégration économique, a amené le Québec à jouer un rôle significatif dans les arènes économiques et commerciales internationales. Par le pouvoir de mise en œuvre du contenu des accords internationaux qui découle des compétences législatives qui lui appartiennent, le Québec a pu être impliqué à divers titres dans la négociation d’importants accords de partenariat économique tel que l’Accord économique et commercial global (AECG) signé entre le Canada et l’Union européenne. Le Québec fut aussi associé de près au règlement d’importants différends commerciaux auxquels le Canada était partie devant l’Organe de règlement des différends de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce ou devant des instances créées par l’ALENA. De la même façon, il fut consulté au premier chef dans le règlement de plaintes portées par des investisseurs étrangers dans le cadre d’arbitrages investisseur-État. L’activité internationale du Québec en matières économique et commerciale s’est aussi manifestée par la signature d’ententes intergouvernementales en matière de marchés publics ou pour la création d’un marché nord-américain du carbone. Le Québec a pu, au fil du temps, développer puis augmenter son influence sur l’élaboration et l’application des accords de commerce. Il est à souhaiter que les négociations du Partenariat transpacifique, pendant lesquelles les provinces canadiennes ont été largement reléguées aux coulisses, ne sont pas annonciatrices d’un recul à cet égard.
The doctrine Paul Gérin-Lajoie launched in April 1965 is not intended to extend to international trade nor to the protection of investments. Indeed, the reading of the 1867 Constitutional Act convinces its readers that it is difficult to claim that these two fields fall under the internal or external jurisdiction of the Canadian provinces. However, it must be recognized that the expansion of Quebec’s international activity during the past 50 years, combined with the broadening of the themes covered by economic integration agreements, have brought Quebec to play a significant role within the international economic and commercial arenas. Through its implementation powers for the contents of international agreements, derived from the legislative jurisdiction it holds, Quebec has been involved in numerous manners in the negotiation of important economic partnership agreements, such as theComprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) signed between Canada and the European Union. Quebec was also closely involved in the resolution of important commercial disputes to which Canada was a party before the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization or before bodies created under NAFTA. Similarly, the province was consulted for the resolution of complaints brought by foreign investors in the framework of investor-state arbitrations. Quebec’s international activity in economic and commercial matters has also manifested itself through the signature of intergovernmental agreements on public markets or the creation of a North American carbon market. Quebec has progressively developed and increased its influence on the elaboration and implementation of commercial agreements. Hopefully, the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, during which Canadian provinces were largely relegated to the sidelines, do not herald a setback in this respect.
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Morin, JF and R. Gold (2016) "International Socialization at the State and Individual Levels: Mixed Evidence from Intellectual Property", Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol 29(4): 1375-1395.
This article synthesizes the results of two analyses, one at a macro and the second at the micro level, to shed new light on the process of international socialization. More particularly, the first analysis examines the seeming adoption of intellectual property norms at the state-level while the second looks at the internalization of similar norms at the individual decision-maker level. Both pay special attention to foreign education and capacity building courses as carriers of US norms to developing countries. By triangulating the results of these analyses, we gain a more precise picture of international socialization processes than analyses centered at only one level. It becomes possible to distinguish between socialization types (acculturation or persuasion) and idea types (causal or normative beliefs).
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Coman, R., A. Crespy, F. Louault, J-F Morin, J-B Pilet and Emilie, van Haute (2016), Méthodes de la science politique: De la question de départ à l'analyse des données, de Boeck.
Manuel mettant en évidence les méthodes et méthodologies propres à la science politique, avec des conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherche.
Une initiation à la recherche en science politique à travers :
- des conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherche
- une présentation pédagogique des méthodes de collecte et d’analyse des données
- des exemples concrets extraits de la littérature récente
- des tableaux de synthèse, des mises en situation et des définitions des termes clés
Pour apprendre à :
- élaborer une stratégie de recherche
- choisir et collecter les données pertinentes
- analyser et interpréter les résultats
- identifier les forces et les faiblesses de chaque méthode
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Morin, JF and G. Beaumier, 2016, "TPP Environmental Commitments: Combining the US Legalistic and the EU Sectoral Approaches" ICTSD BioRes, April 2016.
The US government argues that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), concluded last October with 11 other Pacific Rim countries, “includes the most robust enforceable environment commitments of any trade agreement in history.” But is this really the case? The TPP undoubtedly goes well beyond multilateral trade rules found in the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT-1994) that treats environmental protection merely as legitimate grounds for exceptions to trade liberalisation. In the last decade, however, several other bilateral and regional trade agreements have been signed containing stringent and comprehensive environmental commitments. To what extent is the TPP really ground breaking when compared with these?
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2015
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Morin, JF, S. Louafi, A. Orsini and M. Oubenal (2017) "Boundary Organizations in Regime Complexes: A Social Network Profil of IPBES", Journal of International Relations and Development, 20(3): 543-577. x
Regime complexes are arrays of institutions with partially overlapping mandates and memberships. As tensions frequently arise among these institutions, there is a growing interest geared to finding strategies to reduce them. Insights from regime theory, science and technology studies, and social network analysis support the claim that “boundary organizations” – a type of organization until now overlooked in International Relations – can reduce tensions within regime complexes by generating credible, legitimate and salient knowledge, provided that their internal networks balance multiple knowledge dimensions. Building on this argument, this article offers an ex ante assessment of the recently created International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Results from our network analysis of IPBES point to clear improvements compared with similar organizations, although major deficiencies remain. The contribution of this article is threefold. Methodologically, it introduces new conceptual and technical tools to assess the “social representativeness” of international organizations. Theoretically, it supports the claim that international organizations are penetrated by transnational networks and, consequently, that the proliferation of institutions tends to reproduce structural imbalances. Normatively, it argues that a revision of nomination processes could improve the ability of boundary organizations to generate salient, credible and legitimate knowledge.
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Wanneau K. & La Branche S. (2015), Les défis de l'adaptation locale au changement climatique à la croisée de la science et de la société, in Beringuier P., Blot F., Desailly B. et Saqalli M., Environnement, politiques publiques et pratiques locales, L'Harmattan, pp.259-286
Longtemps enfant oublié de la gouvernance climatique, les efforts d’adaptation se sont ancrés à l’échelle territoriale en France en 2010. L’obligation légale des Plans climat–énergie territoriaux (PCET) a en effet confronté les acteurs locaux aux complexités de l’adaptation et aux blocages émanant du développement de leur stratégie puis de sa mise en œuvre. L’exercice est avant tout marqué par une incertitude ontologique qui oblige les acteurs à réinventer leur perception du territoire. L’étude analyse comment l’architecture du territoire, au sens des compétences institutionnelles et des connaissances du territoire disponibles, structure en grande partie l’outillage de ces PCET. Elle identifie les leviers d’action, marges de manœuvre mais aussi les barrières sociales et institutionnelles qui l’accompagnent. En conclusion, des régularités s’observent malgré la singularité de chaque mobilisation des acteurs pour leur PCET : soit l’adaptation est réduite à minima, soit elle embarque la collectivité dans un chantier territorial transversal difficile à mener jusqu’au bout. Par ailleurs, la combinaison de savoirs profanes et experts affirme le souhait de mieux connaître son territoire. Cette ambition dépasse le décalage entre les intentions et les ressources affectées aux PCET dans certains cas.
Mots clés: Gouvernance climatique; adaptation locale; incertitude; barrières socio-institutionnelles ; savoir ; PCET ; territoire.
Abstract:
For a long time forgotten from climate governance, local adaptation efforts have emerged in France in 2010. Territorial actors have a legal obligation to implement Climate-energy territorial Plans (PCET). These PCET have confronted them to complex adaptation challenges including locking effects during their strategic elaboration and implementation. An ontological uncertainty marks this exercise, and therefore pushes actors to reinvent their perception of territory. The study analyses how the territorial architecture, understood as the available institutional competence and knowledge of the territory, structures PCET’s adaptation approaches. It identifies leverages, room for manoeuvre as well as social and institutional barriers. As a conclusion, regularities are observed, in spite of the singularity of each actors’ mobilisation during the PCET: either adaptation is reduced to the legal minimum, or it embarks the actors in a transversal project difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, the process combines expert and non-expert knowledge along with the intention to assess the territory. To some extent, this ambition is more important than the lack of resources affected to PCETs.
Key words: Climate governance; local adaptation; uncertainty; social and institutional barriers; knowledge; PCET; territory
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Morin, J-F et A. Orsini (2015) Politique internationale de l'environnement, Presses de Sciences Po.
Controverses scientifiques, sommets mondiaux, débats Nord/Sud, mouvements sociaux, équité intergénérationnelle, efficacité de la coopération, etc. La politique internationale de l'environnement constitue un domaine foisonnant qui ne cesse de s'enrichir depuis la fin du XXe siècle. Ce manuel permet de s’initier et de mieux comprendre les débats qui animent les spécialistes de la gouvernance internationale de l’environnement. Les changements climatiques sont-ils des facteurs de déclenchement de conflits armés ? La coopération multilatérale doit-elle être considérée comme un échec ? Les firmes transnationales peuvent-elles devenir les alliées des ONG ? La souveraineté nationale est-elle un obstacle à la coopération internationale dans le domaine de l’environnement ? Résolument pédagogique, il favorise la compréhension de concepts et de réalités complexes en proposant des tableaux, des cartes, des diagrammes, des repères chronologiques, des encadrés, un lexique et des liens vers des ressources spécialisées.
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Morin, JF, T. Novotna, F. Ponjaert and M. Telò, eds.(2015), The Politics of Transatlantic Trade Negotiations, Routledge.
By focusing on the wider process of negotiations, this novel volume presents the first systematic analysis of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The authors include scholars and practitioners from across disciplines and various academic institutions around Europe and North America, but also from outside of the transatlantic basin. While presenting a thorough examination of the process of TTIP negotiations, the volume is divided into four parts with each part examining a broader theme and offering three or four shorter exploratory chapters that are accessible to academics, students, policy-makers and a wider audience.
The volume explores historical and theoretical aspects of TTIP (with chapters by Gamble, Keohane and Morse, Telò), the beginnings of the TTIP talks and the role of individual actors (Mayer, Novotná, Dür and Lechner, Strange), TTIP’s possible knock-on effects and consequences for third parties (Aggarwal and Evenett, Duchesne and Ouellet, Zhang, Ponjaert) as well as impact on multilateral institutions and regimes complexes (Mavroidis, Mortensen, Meunier and Morin, Pauwelyn).
Endorsement:
"This volume addresses a crucial issue of global and interregional trade governance by including an international team of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints. Collectively the authors identify the major stakes and provide a comprehensive and highly competent overview of the main political implications of the ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’ negotiations from both sides (North America and Europe), while keeping in mind the controversial interplay with global governance and emergent economies. Highly recommended for students, scholars, practitioners and informed citizens looking for critical and solid orientation in a very sensitive and uncertain matter."
- Pascal Lamy, Honorary President of Notre Europe, former Director general of the WTO and European Commissioner for Trade
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Morin, J-F. and S. Bannerman. 2015. “Tigers and Dragons at WIPO” in Rising Powers and Multilateral Institutions (edited by D. Lesage and T. Van De Graaf), Palgrave.
How did Japan and Korea, as the rising powers of their day, transform from being “free-riders” on foreign intellectual property (IP) to being innovation-exporters and proponents of strong protection of foreign IP at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The growing literature of global IP politics has paid little attention to countries in the midst of becoming knowledge economies.Susan Sell describes the history of international IP politics as an “elaborate cat and mouse game” (2009: 2), in which developed countries chase developing countries from one institutional venue to the next in pursuit of stronger IP. We ask what would happen if, in the course of this pursuit, one of the mice progressively transformed into a cat? More specifically, in this chapter we address two questions. First, where do rising IP powers sit in multilateral negotiations? Second, what are the causal dynamics at play from the time a country resists foreign IP standards to the time it promotes strong international IP protection. The experience of Japan in the 1970–1980 and Korea in the 1980–1990 might be indicative of the direction China might take in the years to come.
2014
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Morin, JF and R. Gold, “An Integrated Model for Legal Transplantation : The Diffusion of Intellectual Property Law in Developing Countries”, International Studies Quarterly, vol. 58(4), 2014, p. 781-792.
Why do some countries adopt exogenous rules into their domestic law when those lawsdo not align with the country’s specific interests? This article draws on the policydiffusion literature to identify four causal mechanisms that are hypothesized to give riseto those transplants in the case of asymmetric interests. While the literature presents thesemechanisms independently, this article argues that each works in combination with theothers to facilitate legal transplantation. The empirical demonstration is based on aquantitative analysis of legal transplants in the field of intellectual property (IP), andincorporates an original index of IP protection in 121 developing countries over 14 years. Our results suggest that, while one mechanism – coercion – is instrumental in initiatingthe transplantation process, it fades over time and is largely supplanted by three others:contractualization, socialization and regulatory competition acting in a mutuallysupportive manner. This article concludes with a plea for theoretical eclecticism,acknowledging multi-causality and context-conditionality. Any comprehensiveexplanation of legal transplantation must include the identification of mutualreinforcement between causal mechanisms, rather than simply ranking their relative contributions.
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Carta, C. and JF Morin, “Struggling over Meanings: Discourses on EU’s International Presence”, Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 49(3), 2014, p. 295-314.
The first section of this introduction arranges the four theoretical approaches and methods presented in the special issues – namely interpretative constructivism, post-structuralism, discursive institutionalism (DI) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) – along two dimensions: a) the role of discourse in the constitution of the world, depending on whether approaches perceive social structure as being constitutive of or constituted by discourse; and b) interpretation of the weight of material and ideational elements in discourses. This model helps us make sense of the profound theoretical diversity that characterises analytical approaches to International Relations discourse. The second section tackles the question of ‘who does the speaking.’ It identifies the different voices that converge in the EU's international choir and problematises the discursive environment that forges international discourses through the theoretical lenses of selected approaches. In the last section, the contributions to this special issue are presented
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Morin, JF. “Paradigm Shift in the Global IP Regime: The Agency of Academics”, Review of International Political Economy, vol. 21(2), 2014, p. 275-309.
The global intellectual property (IP) regime is in the midst of a paradigm shift in favor of greater access to protected work. Current explanations of this paradigm shift emphasize the agency of transnational advocacy networks, but ignore the role of academics. Scholars interested by global IP politics have failed to engage in reflexive thinking. Building on the results from a survey of 1,679 IP experts, this article argues that a community of academics successfully broke the policy monopoly of practitioners over IP expertise. They instilled some skepticism concerning the social and economic impacts of IP among their students as well as in the broader community of IP experts. They also provided expert knowledge that was widely amplified by NGOs and some intergovernmental organizations, acting as echo chambers to reach national decision makers. By making these claims, this article illustrates how epistemic communities actively collaborate with other transnational networks rather than competing with them, and how they can promote a paradigm change by generating rather than reducing uncertainty.
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Morin, JF. and C. Carta, "Overlapping and Evolving European Discourses on Market Liberalization", British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 16(1), 2014 p. 117- 132.
This introduction to the special section on European liberal discourses discusses three themescovered by all contributions: (i) the co-existence of several market liberal discourses in the European public sphere; (ii) interactions among these various discourses; (iii) and discursive changes resulting from these interactions.
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Morin, JF and A. Orsini, “Policy Coherency and Regime Complexes: the Case of Genetic Resources”, Review of International Studies, vol. 40(2), 2014, p.303-324.
This study argues that ‘regime complexes’ and ‘policy coherence’ are two faces of thesame integrative process. The development of regime complexes co-evolves with the pressureson decision makers to coordinate their policies in various issue-areas. Conceptually, we intro-duce a typology of policy coherency (erratic, strategic, functionalistic, and systemic) accordingto its procedural and substantive components. Empirically, by triangulating quantitative andqualitative data, we use this typology for the case of the genetic resources’ regime complex toillustrate the links between regime complexes and policy coherency. Our results suggest that acoherent policymaking process favours integrated regime complexes, while greater exposure toa regime complex increases the pressure to have a coherent policymaking. This study fills a gapin the literature on regime complexes by providing a micro-macro model linking structure toagency.
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Morin, J-F and A. Orsini, eds.(2014), Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance (1st edition), Routledge, 252 p.
"This volume provides an essential glossary of critical terms and concepts in the field of international environmental politics for diplomats, analysts and students. The interdisciplinary array of expert authors provide terse and authoritative overview of the key concepts and debates that have defined the field of international environmental governance over the years. The entries carefully survey the intellectual ecosystem of the concepts applied to understanding and managing our global environmental crisis."
– Peter M. Haas, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
"In a truly unique way, this book helps to connect the dots and navigate between the concepts, ideas and schools of thought in global environmental policy today. As environmental issues climb higher on the global agenda, I would highly recommend this book to all who wish to better understand the insights of sustainable global governance."
– Connie Hedegaard, European Union Commissioner for Climate Action
"The global community is at a crossroads in respect to addressing climate change. A solid understanding of global environmental governance empowers people to better shape positive democracy that determines a safer future. This book makes a valuable contribution to societal understanding and societal change. Those who care about the world we leave to our children should take inspiration from its many and varied contributors drawn from so many disparate but interlocking disciplines."
– Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
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Carta, C. and J-F Morin, eds. (2014), Making Sense of Diversity: EU’s Foreign Policy through the Lenses of Discourse Analysis, Ashgate, 272 p
"Honouring both the plurality and fecundity that characterises discursive approaches, this book demonstrates the pertinence of focussing on discourses, in their many different hues, for understanding one of the most salient developments of the contemporary international system: the production, reproduction and transformation of Europe." - Charlotte Epstein, University of Sydney
‘"With its unique collection of essays, this book celebrates two kinds of diversity: the highly diverse discursive environment that constitutes the EU's multifaceted identities, and the many academic approaches to analysing these multiple intersecting narratives." - Kalypso Nicolaïdis, University of Oxford
‘"his book represents an excellent contribution to the literature. First, it unpacks discourse analysis and demonstrates the diversity of the various discursive approaches. Second, it uses these discourse analytical lenses to shed new light on EU foreign policy" - Thomas Risse, Freie Universität Berlin
"EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis is the most comprehensive collection to date covering the broad array of discourse analytic approaches to the study of international relations and foreign policy" - Roxanne Lynn Doty, Arizona State University
2013
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Morin, JF and S. Oberthür, “The Scientist, the Diplomat and You”, International Studies Review, vol. 15(4), 2013, p. 577- 579.
The study of GEG can contribute toward debunking a persistent – but rarely explicit – myth, sometimes called the “linear model” or the “rational instrumental approach”. According to this myth, expert knowledge – that encompasses but is not limited to scientific knowledge – should precede politics. As such, GEG has significant theoretical and policy contributions to offer to other subfields of IR, such as international political economy. Constructivist scholarship so rarely claims policy-relevance that it would be unfortunate not to pay attention.
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Morin, JF and A.Orsini, “Insights from Global Environmental Governance”, International Studies Review, vol. 15(4), 2013, p. 562- 566.
This forum presents innovative concepts and insights emanating from Global Environmental Governance (GEG) that could be enlightening for IR in general. It brings together scholars from various disciplines, based on three continents, with different theoretical and methodological orientation, but all active in the subfield of GEG. Together, they review recent conceptual innovations from GEG, hypothesize on the reasons why GEG played a pioneer role for them, and assess their external validity for other IR subfields. They successively discuss (1) law making techniques, (2) institutional interactions, (3) scaling and vertical linkages, (4 )private authority, (5) boundary organizations at the interface of science and politics, (6) openness and disclosure, (7) and regime effectiveness.
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Duchesne, E. and J-F Morin, 2013, “Revisiting Structural Variables of Trade Negotiations: The Case of the Canada EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement”, International Negotiation, vol. 18, p. 5-24
This paper offers a conceptual analysis of the negotiation of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union. It argues that traditional accounts of the structure of trade negotiations must be tailored for their novel nature, especially their wider scope on various regulatory issues and the relative economic weight symmetry of trading partners. To build our argument, we revisit traditional structural factors such as economic interdependence, non-agreement alternatives (NAA), institutional constraints, outcome valuations, and domestic support. We conclude that current and future bilateral trade negotiations will likely last longer, deadlocks will likely become more frequent, and that variations in scope will likely increase.
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Morin, JF and A. Orsini, “Regime Complexity and Policy Coherency: Introducing a Coadjustments Model”, Global Governance, vol. 19, 2013, p. 41-51.
This article looks at regime complexes from a state policymaking perspective. It develops a theoretical model in which regime complexes become denser over time while governmental policymaking becomes more coherent. Under this model, interactions between global regime complexes and national policymaking are twofold. On the one hand, greater policy coherence generates negotiated mandates asking for regime connections and complex density. On the other hand, regime-complex density creates more cohesive audiences, which increase incentives for national policy coherence. This coadjustments model brings states into the discussion of institutional interactions and critically questions the desirability and feasibility of recent calls for joined-up government and whole-of-government approaches. KEYWORDS: regime, complexity, policy coherency, substantive coherence, procedural coherence, political audience, life cycle.
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Orsini, A, JF Morin and O.R. Young, “Regime Complexes: A Buzz, A Boom or a Boost for Global Governance?” Global Governance, vol. 19, 2013, p. 27-39.
Understanding the impact of regime complexes on global governance calls for creative policy thinking. This introduction provides a new and more precise definition of the concept of regime complex. It also suggests specific tools to characterize regime complexes and analyze their impacts on global governance. The articles in this issue deepen the analytical understanding of complexes by examining concrete examples in various domains of global governance such as piracy, taxation, energy, food security, emissions reduction, carbon sinks, biosafety, and refugee governance. In addition to providing an in-depth description of a variety of different regime complexes, this issue is innovative on three accounts: (1) it presents complexes as both barriers and opportunities for global governance and gives explanations for these diverse outcomes; (2) it shows how a broad spectrum of actors is necessary for understanding the creation and evolution of complexes; and (3) it qualifies former claims to the effect that only powerful actors can impact regime complexes. Keywords: regime complexes,networks, institutional centralization, institutional fragmentation, institutional density.
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Morin, J-F, “Global Environmental Governance”, in Globalization, Europe, Multilateralism (edited by M. Telò), Ashgate, 2013, p. 227-246.
In the last thirty years, the study of international environmental politics has grownamongst a vast array of debates, and its theoretical innovations have matured. Theseinnovations are rooted in more general international relations theories but areespecially designed for the understanding and explanation of global environmentalgovernance. This chapter presents some of them, with a special focus on collectiveaction problems, the design of international institutions, interactions among variousinternational actors, and the evolution of prevalent discourses. Substantial work has been conducted in global environmental politics on the concept of ecologicalinterdependence, the analysis of regimes complexes, the effectiveness of public- private partnerships, and the hegemony of the liberal paradigm. In turn, thesetheoretical developments from global environmental politics can contribute to otherstreams of literature in international relations.
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Morin, J-F., Mapping Prevailing Ideas on Intellectual Property, ICTSD, 2013, 59 p.
This paper examines an overlooked yet critical dimension of global IP governance: where do IP ideas and beliefs originate and how are they transmitted? This is the first empirical study that seeks to answer these questions presenting the findings of a survey completed by more than 1600 IP professionals, and drawing some policyrelevant implications. In this regard, the study shows that IP debates, often pictured as opposing those holding anti-IP views in the South to those supporting pro-IP maximalist views in the North, are in reality more complex and nuanced. IP professionals appear loosely organized in transnational networks where professional affiliation is more important in shaping views on IP than country of birth. The study also emphasizes the important role of higher education and capacity building in the transmission of IP ideas and beliefs. It finds that university education in a developed country is more likely to result in stronger support for a more balanced approach to IP protection and it suggests that capacity building programs might be more effective if they are supported by empirical evidence.
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Morin, J-F, 2013, The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Between Ambition and Uncertainty, Brussels, IEE.
To what extent does the imbrication of TTIP in the existing trade and investment complex shape the negotiations? In turn, does TTIP have the potential to shape the rest of the complex moving forward? Our central argument is that TTIP negotiators face both learning constraints and learning opportunities as a result of the trade and investment complex, which will not only influence the current negation process but also the potential outcome of negotiations. The first section of this chapter portrays the ever growing trade and investment complex in which TTIP is being negotiated. The second section analyzes the constraints and opportunities faced by TTIP negotiators. The third section explores some of the negotiators’ strategic calculations as they internalize the impact of the dense regime complex. The conclusion suggests implications of TTIP on the rest of the trade and investment complex.
2012
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Gold, R. and J-F Morin, “Promising Trends in Access to Medicines”, Global Policy, vol. 3(2), 2012, p. 231-237.
It is a vast understatement to say that the problem of access to medicines in developing countries is complex. Access is limited by a range of factors including inability to pay, a lack of infrastructure, and corruption in some countries. Surrounding and exacerbating these structural and technological problems is the layer of legal rights created by patents and their licensing that complicate and render more expensive the preparation and delivery of needed medicines, particularly those that need to be adapted to the social, health and cultural environment of developing countries. This article provides a survey of innovative strategies that aim at maximizing the potential of patents to facilitate the development and delivery of medicines against diseases, the burden of which falls principally on developing country populations. To understand the context in which these strategies are being proposed and implemented, the article reviews the battles over access to medicines beginning in the late 1980s. It then surveys some of the principal suggestions put forward to better direct innovation systems in addressing the critical health needs of the world’s majority including advance market commitments, patent buy-outs, prize funds, public–private partnerships and patent pools.
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Morin, J-F (2012) Politique étrangère : Théories, méthodes et références. Armand Colin. 315 p.
Pourquoi les pays occidentaux versent-ils davantage d’aide au développement aux autocraties qu’aux démocraties ? Pourquoi le Danemark réussit-il à exercer une influence disproportionnée au sein de l’Union européenne ? Pourquoi le Canada a-t-il fait du maintien de la paix la pierre angulaire de sa politique étrangère ? Ce manuel propose une introduction aux théories et aux méthodes de l’analyse de la politique étrangère. Il passe en revue les principales approches, des classiques aux plus récentes. Plus qu’une simple synthèse, il identifie les courants émergents, les lacunes qui doivent être comblées, les données qui peuvent être mobilisées, les pièges à éviter et les références bibliographiques à creuser. C’est le point d’entrée incontournable pour tous les étudiants, les doctorants et les chercheurs qui entament un projet de recherche sur la politique étrangère.
2011
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Morin, JF, R. Gold and K. Daley, “Having Faith in IP: Empirical Evidence of IP Conversion”, WIPO Journal, vol. 3(2), 2011, p. 93- 102.
Why some developing countries adopt US-style IP rules that go beyond those required by the TRIPs agreement.? With this paper, we contribute to the disentanglement of this puzzling situation in two manners. First, we explore one often neglected reason for the adoption of US-style rules, i.e. the socialization of decision-makers in the adopting country through interaction with experts in US IP law. Second, we rely on a more systematic conceptualization and measurement of variables than has been adopted in many previous studies. Overall, we bring forward strong quantitative evidence that socialization is a significant force in the export and import of IP rules.
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Morin, JF, “The Life-Cycle of an Issue: Lessons from the Access to Medicines Controversy”, Global Society, vol. 25(2), 2011, p. 227- 247.
Why and how do issues expire? This paper applies the concept of path dependency to issuelife cycle and argues that the manner in which an issue dies is closely associated with how it comes to life. This paper argues that, on the access to medicines issue, the first actors (1) to have called attention to a legal problem, (2) to have capitalised on the HIV/AIDs crisis, and (3) to have used the example of Africa, were also the first to have felt constrained by their own frame in their attempt to (1) look for economical rather than legal solutions, (2) expand the list of medicines covered beyond anti-AIDs drugs, and (3) allow large emerging economies to benefit from a scheme designed by countries without manufacturing capacities. In order to escape an issue in which they felt entrapped, issue entrepreneurs worked strategically to close the debate in order to better reframe it in other forums.
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Gold, R., T. Bubela and JF Morin, “Wicked Issues at the Intersection of Intellectual Property and Public Health”, McGill Journal of Law and Health vol. 4(2), 2011, p. 3-41.
This article focuses on the intersection of health and one of the main drivers of the global economy, intellectual property. It is widely recognized that IP is an inter-sectoral issue with linkages to many other important public policy areas, such as health, agriculture, the environment, and education. In inter-sectoral issues such as IP, there is discussion on the need for governments around the world to achieve policy coherence not only across their various departments, but also between their domestic and international positions in important fora. To appreciate better the complexity of achieving policy coherence, this article first gives a multidisciplinary view of policy coherence and then provides the Canadian context for the debate. Next, it describes three examples at the border of public health and intellectual property in Canada and internationally: (1) health innovation and access to medicines in developing countries; (2) traditional knowledge (medicinal); and (3) pandemic influenza preparedness. Finally, the article discuses international experiences with a variety of mechanisms for achieving policy coherence in IP and health, including the practice of advisory groups, multi-stakeholder dialogue, inter-departmental coordination mechanisms, broad delegations for international meetings, and white papers. From this review, a few observations can be made. First, effective coordination requires two main factors: leadership and a permanent institution that can build trust. While inter-ministerial coordination is a widely used process for policy coherence, it is not always successful. Indeed, the lack of leadership in inter-ministerial coordination has strongly constrained policy coherence.
2010
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Morin, JF, “The Two-Level Game of Transnational Network: The Case of Access to Medicines Campaign”, International Interactions, vol. 36(4), 2010, p. 309-334.
The rapid emergence of transnational networks in world politics calls for an analysis of their power dynamics. By combining the advocacy network literature and the two-level game theory in an innovative manner, this paper provides a theoretical conceptualization of the interplay between intra- and inter-network interactions. It argues that the strength of networks as agent springs from their force as a structure. A network win-set is determined by its internal games, thereby affecting both its bargaining power and its chance to reach a consensual agreement with other networks. The issue of access to medicines is used as a factual background to illustrate how the flow of influence within networks affects influence among networks.
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Morin, JF and R. Gold, “Consensus-Seeking, Distrust, and Rhetorical Entrapment: The WTO Decision on Access to Medicines”, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 16(4), 2010, p. 563-587.
While the WTO secretariat, key delegations, several NGOs, and industry publicly present the 30 August 2003 WTO Decision as an attempt to reconcile intellectual property with access to medicines, our research shows otherwise. We draw on qualitative analyses of 54 interviews and a lexicometric analysis of press releases to show that their enthusiastic public statements contrast deeply with their internal, cynical beliefs. Most of these actors not only consider the WTO Decision to be fundamentally flawed but claim to have known this prior to its adoption. We argue that a procedural norm of consensus-seeking impeded traditional bargaining over this sensitive issue and that distrust among participants hindered truthseeking deliberation. Caught between strategic and communicative actions, state and non state actors found themselves trapped in their own rhetoric of reconciling intellectual property with access to medicines. They realized that the appearance of a solution, rather than a functional solution, provided the only realistic outcome to a fruitless and publicly damaging continuation of debate. From a theoretical perspective, this case study sheds a new light on the gray zone between rational choice theory and constructivism, where both discourse and strategies matter. From an empirical perspective, it illustrates the risk of seeking consensus within international regimes when the procedural norm of consensus coexists with a high level of distrust.
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Bubela, T and JF Morin, “Lost in Translation: The Canadian Access to Medicines Regime From Transnational Activism to Domestic Implementation”, Health Law Journal, vol. 19, 2010, p. 113-157.
Canada was the first country to implement the WTO Decision of August 30, 2003, authorizing the export of generic drugs manufactured under a compulsory license to developing countries in response to a proposal brought forward by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that now claim dissatisfaction with the Canadian legislation. This empirical case study examines what success means for an NGO campaign. It contrasts interviews, documents, media coverage, and public statements of stakeholders, using quantitative and qualitative analyses. It concludes the NGO network experienced a shift from a mobilizer of public sentiment at the international level to a policy adviser at the domestic level. This shift crystallized a change in leadership toward local, rather than transnational NGOs, and a shift in strategy from being radical to more reformist. While this process of institutionalizing the outcomes of international campaigns is necessary for the implementation of international norms into domestic policy, it required NGOs to compromise their ideal positions, producing some objective successes in legislative reform but subjective dissatisfaction of the NGOs in the failure of Canada’s domestic regime to enhance access to medicines on the ground in developing countries.
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Morin, JF, “L’ahésion des pays en développement au droit de la propriété intellectuelle : Entre maréchaux, marchands et missionnaires”, Recherches internationales, 2010, p. 155-178
Alors que les pays importateurs de technologie auraient intérêt à n’offrir qu’une protection minimale aux brevets et droits d’auteur étrangers, certains reproduisent dans leur droit national les normes les plus élevées des économies les plus avancées. Comment expliquer ce phénomène qui va à l’encontre des prédictions économiques classiques? Cet article passe en revue cinq processus politiques : l’émulation, la compétition, la coercition, la contractualisation et la socialisation. Après avoir comparé leur pouvoir explicatif respectif, il conclut que c’est dans leur interaction particulière que se trouve une clé essentielle d’explication.
2009
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Morin, JF, “Multilateralising TRIPs-Plus Agreements: Is the US Strategy a Failure?', World Journal of World Intellectual Property, vol. 12(3), 2009, p. 175-197.
This paper examines the current wave of US bilateral agreements with respect to their strategic and political value at the plurilateral level. The US government has explicitly recognized its objective of leveraging bilateral agreements in order to influence regional and multilateral negotiations. Although it may be too early to assess the full effectiveness of this US strategy, the paper argues that there are clear signs that the exploitation of bilateral agreements will not independently achieve the goal of strengthening plurilateral patent norms. This finding is supported by an assessment of six potential roads from bilateralism to plurilateralism: chain reaction, pressure for inclusion, coalition building, emulation, legal interpretation, and adherence. The assertion that bilateral trade deals have a great impact on international patent lawmaking, made both by proponents and critics of TRIPs-Plus agreements, is unsubstantiated. The author concludes that the US Government Accountability Office and Congress are justified in questioning whether the negotiation of these bilateral agreements, at least in the realm of IP law, is a wise investment of US Trade Representative’s resources.
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Gold, R. et JF Morin “Beyond Access to Drugs is Access to Knowledge”, The Hill Times, June 22, 2009, p. 16
CAMR has failed to live up to its promise and is essentially a nightmare of red tape, political pandering and missed opportunities, putting lives and Canada’s international reputation on the line.
2008
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Morin, JF, “The Strategic Use of Ethical Arguments in International Patent Lawmaking”, Asian Journal of WTO and International Health Law and Policy, vol. 3(2) 2008, p. 505-537.
Due to scientific uncertainties and political problems, policymakers rely on socially constructed norms when drafting what they hope to be an efficient patent system. At the international level, ethical discourse is often used by stakeholders to promote their favoured norms and thus causing a “rhetorical war” in the international patent regime. This article introduces the evolution of key discourses in the history of the international patent regime, especially in regard to the biodiversity and the access to medicines debates. It leads to concluding remarks on the effectiveness of some discourses over others in framing international patent debates.
2007
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Morin, J-F. and G. Gagné, "What Can Best Explain the Prevalence of Bilateralism in the Investment Regime", International Journal of Political Economy, vol. 36(1), 2007, p. 53-74.
Most efforts to negotiate a multilateral agreement on the liberalization and protection of investment have failed despite the fact that there are more than 2,400 bilateral investment treaties in existence. We have coined this phenomenon the “lateralism paradox.” Within this article, we consider five hypotheses that focus respectively on power asymmetries, incentives for defection, strategic linkages, domestic constraints, and ongoing adaptation. We found that the first four explanations are not supported by empirical evidence from the post-NAFTA period. We conclude that bilateralism appears to be the only feasible approach for negotiating investment rules, as well as the most sensible process to ensure continuous and dynamic adaptation.
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Morin, J-F (2007) Le bilateralisme américain: la nouvelle frontière du droit des brevets, Larcier, 577 p.
À l’ère de l’économie du savoir, le contrôle sur les richesses immatérielles est devenu un enjeu central des relations internationales. Le droit international des brevets soulève les controverses et les passions. Alors que de vifs débats animent les négociations multilatérales de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce, les États-Unis court-circuitent ces antagonismes et recourent à la voie, plus discrète mais redoutablement efficace, du bilatéralisme. Bien que les traités bilatéraux américains soient encore méconnus, ils se multiplient à tout azimut et se répercutent sur les politiques nationales de développement économique, d’accès aux médicaments, de protection des savoirs autochtones, d’agriculture traditionnelle et de transferts technologiques. Jean-Frédéric Morin dresse un nouveau portait du droit international des brevets en analysant ce bilatéralisme en émergence. Cette étude détaillée arrive à point, à l’heure où de nombreux pays s’apprêtent à lancer à leur tour des négociations bilatérales avec les États-Unis
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2006
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Morin, J-F., "Tripping up TRIPs Debate: IP and Health ", International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, vol. 1, no1/2, 2006, p. 37-53.
Access to medicine is at the forefront of multilateral debates surrounding the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). This paper argues that bilateralism allows the United States to circumvent these debates and to set standards that serve and protect the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to the TRIPs requirements, recentlyconcluded US Free Trade Agreements (FTA) prescribe the patentability of new uses of known medicines, strengthen the protection of undisclosed data, extend the term of protection to compensate administrative procedures, prohibit some exceptions to the conferred rights, define circumstances for compulsory licensing, proscribe the doctrine of international exhaustion, and restrict the grounds for revocation. Although these “TRIPs-plus provisions” are not incompatible with the Doha Declaration on Public Health, they are additional barriers for the entry of generic medicines.
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Gagné, G. and Morin, J-F., "The Evolving American Policy on Investment Protection: Evidence from Recent FTAs and the 2004 Model BIT", Journal of International Economic Law, vol. 9(2), 2006, p. 357-382
Twelve years after the inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the US policy on the protection of foreign investment is evolving. This article compares the provisions on investment in the recent US free trade agreements (FTAs) and the 2004 model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with NAFTA’s. While most of the provisions are similar, some differences can be identified, both in substantive and procedural forms. We explain this evolution by a learning process of the US administration from the NAFTA experience. We argue that the new features of the FTAs and of the revised model BIT result from the US interest in reaching a better balance between the protection of investment and the protection of state sovereignty. This American concern stems from a reaction to the claims filed by foreign investors under NAFTA Chapter 11, at least some of which were perceived as ‘frivolous’ by the US government. However, the recent US FTAs and model BIT do not reveal a thorough policy reorientation but rather adjustments to the policy at the basis of NAFTA’s investment chapter.
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2005
2004
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Morin, J-F., "Une réplique du Sud à l’extension du droit des brevets par les États-Unis ", Droit et société, vol. 58, 2004, p. 633-653.
Le droit international de la propriété intellectuelle impose de plus en plus la brevetabilité du matériel génétique. Plusieurs organisations non gouvernemen-tales et pays en développement s’opposent à cette extension du droit des brevetsen réclamant de nouveaux droits de propriété sur les ressources génétiques etles connaissances traditionnelles. La dernière version du projet de Zone de li- bre-échange des Amériques reflète cette polarisation et contient, à côté des dis-positions sur la brevetabilité des végétaux, des propositions sur la protection dela diversité biologique. Cette opposition démontre que les pays latino-américains ont appris à jouer un rôle proactif dans le régime international des brevets et tentent d’orienter les débats vers leurs préoccupations.
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Morin, J-F., "La brevetabilité dans les récents traités de libre-échange américains", Revue internationale de droit économique, no 4, 2004,p. 483-501
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is no longer the «new frontier» of theinternational patent regime. Indeed, the United States and other developed countriesnegotiate bilateral «TRIPs-plus» treaties with developing countries. Arguably,bilateralism allows to bypass the dead-end debates at the TRIPs Council and to build alliances for upcoming multilateral negotiations at the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization. This article compares patentability provisions of the recently-concluded U.S. Free Trade Agreements with the TRIPs Agreement. Although most of the provisions of the TRIPs Agreement are integrated in bilateraltreaties, we identify five significant changes: 1) bilateral treaties provide a 12 months grace period to inventors; 2) the industrial application requirement isdefined has a «specific, substantial, and credible utility»; 3) a ceiling to thedisclosure requirement is introduced; 4) the plant protection regime is reinforced; 5) the non-discrimination rule is omitted.Our comparative analysis shows that bilateralism allows the US to consolidateexisting multilateral treaties, such as the TRIPs Agreement and the UPOV Conven-tion, and to fortify its negotiating position for future multilateral treaties, such as theWIPO Substantive Patent Law Treaty. The new features of bilateral treaties indicatethat the international patent regime is still oriented through the US patent law model.
2003
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Morin, J-F., "Les accords de bioprospection répondent-ils aux objectifs de la Convention sur la biodiversité ", Revue de droit de l’Université de Sherbrooke, vol 34, no 1, 2003.
La Convention sur la diversité biologique vise, entre autres, à favoriser le partage des avantages découlant de l’utilisation des ressources génétiques. L’application du principe de partage des avantages doit notamment contribuer à la conservation de la biodiversité. Toutefois, l’analyse de quelques contrats de bioprospection permet de croire que le partage des avantages, tel que mise en oeuvre jusqu’à présent, ne contribue généralement pas à l’atteinte de cet objectif. En effet, les avantages monétaires et technologiques qui sont partagés ne sont que rarement réinvestis dans la conservation de la biodiversité. Ils sont davantage utilisés pour le développement économique local, pour mousser les relations publiques des utilisateurs ou pour mieux intégrer les fournisseurs aux industries biotechnologiques. Afin d’améliorer la portée environnementale du partage des avantages, il faudrait influencer les modalités négociées entre les fournisseurs et les utilisateurs. Les Lignes Directrices de Bonn sur le partage des avantages représentent un premier pas en ce sens.
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Morin, J-F., "Le droit international des brevets : entre le multilatéralisme et le bilatéralisme américain", Études internationales, vol. 34(3), 2003, p. 537-562.
Cet article présente 39 accords bilatéraux de propriété intellectuelle conclus entre les États-Unis et des pays importateurs de technologie. Ces accords permettent au gouvernement américain de contourner les négociations multilatérales de l’OMC. En utilisant une approche coercitive, le gouvernement américain est parvenu à tisser une toile d’accords bilatéraux qui va bien au-delà de l’Accord sur les ADPIC. D’abord, sur le plan géographique, plusieurs pays qui ont signé ces accords ne sont pas membres de l’OMC, ou alors ils profitent des périodes transitoires. Ensuite, sur le plan juridique, plusieurs normes prévues dans ces accords sont plus élevées que celles de l’Accord sur les ADPIC, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la brevetabilité des inventions. Par conséquent, les gains que peuvent faire les pays importateurs de technologie, lors du présent cycle de négociation à l’OMC, doivent être relativisés par un analyse des accords bilatéraux.
2002
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Mayrand, K, J-F Morin et M Paquin, 2002, L’exportation d’eau en vrac : Survol des enjeux juridiques, socioéconomiques et environnementaux, Centre Unisfera.
Les enjeux reliés à l’exportation de l’eau font depuis longtemps partie du paysage canadien et québécois. En effet, plusieurs grands travaux de détournements de cours d’eau ont été amorcés dans les années trente pour l’approvisionnement en eau potable, l’irrigation et le développement hydro- électrique. Bien que ces projets se soient rapidement infiltrés dans l’imaginaire collectif et qu’ils continuent d’alimenter la controverse de façon périodique, ils n’ont fait l’objet que de peu d’analyses sérieuses. En fait, les projets d’exportation d’eau en vrac soulèvent des enjeux juridiques, économiques et environnementaux majeurs. Nous mettrons en relief l’importance de ces trois éléments dans la présente étude. La première section abordera le cadre juridique de l’exportation de l’eau, la seconde analysera la nature des marchés visés, et la troisième et dernière section soulèvera les principaux enjeux sociaux et environnementaux soulevés par une telle activité.