For the last decade, the EU has been shaping the model of the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapter, which enshrined environmental and social provisions, it includes in its Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The inclusion of such TSD chapters has different aims such as preventing disputes before the World Trade Organisation or reaching for a level-playing field between the parties. As a value-driven external actor, the EU also has a political goal for the inclusion of sustainable development in its trade agreements. The EU’s approach to reaching this political goal is, among other things, based on the enhancement of the effectiveness of already existing environmental rules. To this end, EU TSD chapters enshrine provisions mentioning multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) or even repeating full MEA articles. Furthermore, TSD chapters include legalistic and managerial mechanisms such as third-party adjudication and organise close dialogues between the parties. Focusing on biodiversity, the proposed paper presents, first, how the EU and its partners in Central and South America are incorporating MEAs in TSD chapters and, second, discusses the theoretical capacity of these chapters for enhancing the effective implementation of MEAs. Using the legalization theory, the paper proposes a textual analysis of the relevant TSD provisions in addition to other documents such as ex-post evaluations of EU FTAs and minutes from TSD sub-committees. This, in turn, will indicate how the EU’s value-driven strategy might enhance the effective implementation of MEAs by the EU and its trade partners.

Green Power Europe? The European Union and the Implementation of the Aarhus Convention - Nathalie Berny, Sciences Po Rennes

This paper traces the difficult implementation of the Aarhus convention by the EU regarding the art. 9(3) on access to justice. The consensus around the Convention norms and functioning was put to the test by the reluctance of the EU to comply with its obligations regarding access to justice at the level of the EU institutions. Indeed, the EU delegation which de facto dominates the debates with its 28, then 27 votes succeeded twice (2017 and 2021) in postponing proposed decisions of the MOP regarding its non-compliance with the treaty provisions on this topic. The EU position contrasted with the usual characteristic of its green diplomacy: a commitment to multilateralism, respect for international obligations and consensus-building with third parties countries (Delreux 2018).

Combining a constructivist approach on norms with an ethnographic observation aims at solving the puzzle of this empirical case where the EU position was dissonant with its green diplomacy; and analyses how the Aarhus norms mattered in the end. The ethnographic observation of actors (diplomats, members of the secretariat, representatives of the NGOs or the public) shed light on both strategic and constrained interactions around the definition of norms, proving useful to reveal how they adjust their discourses to each other and over time (Eastwood 2018). The advocates of the Aarhus norms, both several parties and NGOs, repeatedly contested the legal and normative value of the EU position and found supporters both at the Convention level and in Brussels to try and shift the EU position.

For several decades, the EU has been a leading user of restrictive measures, also referred to as sanctions. Recent developments include the introduction of an EU global human rights sanction regime and imposition of sweeping sanctions on Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Nonetheless, sanctions remain a legally and politically contentious tool of foreign policy. This paper proposes to engage with the debates about sanctions use by examining the legitimacy of EU sanctions as tools to promote or protect values. To undertake this examination, this paper proposes to analyse the EU’s approach to imposing sanctions through the lens of coherence in EU external relations, as coherence may contribute to EU sanctions’ legitimacy. In particular, this paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of EU sanctions by undertaking an empirical analysis of the legal instruments used to establish sanctions regimes to evaluate whether the values or norms, their sources (e.g., international conventions), and thresholds for application are invoked or applied consistently. Although sanctions regimes vary geographically and in intensity to reflect the circumstances of each case, consistency in the content of the norms promoted as well as the threshold for their application across sanctions regimes may promote coherence and thereby enhance the legitimacy of the use of sanctions to promote certain values. Conversely, inconsistencies may hinder coherence and undermine EU sanctions’ legitimacy, although the paper will examine the reasons for any inconsistencies as there may be reasonable rationales for divergences.