WP1

Trade Governance

This work package studies challenges to governing the international trading system, both in the public and private realm. Research addresses governance issues in a multi-layered system. The sub-projects build upon and complement findings of the research conducted in Phase I of the NCCR trade regulation. Phase II focuses on two major areas of research not explicitly addressed so far: judicial governance and the role of private actors in international trade disputes, in law-making and standard setting, in particular with regard to human rights and responsible governance. The WP tackles the traditional conceptual dichotomy of state-led and private-led governance and works within a framework that bridges both public and private elements of trade governance.

Leadership:

kaufmann_c

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Cluster 1

Research on the WTO dispute settlement system has made substantial progress in recent years. This cluster attempts to address some of the remaining research gaps by means of three inter-related projects. All the subprojects focus empirically on the WTO dispute settlement system, but they also link to a larger body of work that focuses on legalization through international courts and the effects thereof.

Leadership:

elsig_m

1.1.1

Delegation theory, rules of interpretation (...)

A recent debate in IR has centered on the (...)

1.1.2

Legalization, contractual incompleteness and (...)

How does the WTO DSM address incomplete contracts? (...)

1.1.3

Compliance with WTO Dispute Rulings

The quantitative literature on WTO disputes has (...)

Cluster 2

Existing research has come to different conclusions as to whether individuals’ trade preferences depend on their skills (i.e. education), their income or their sector of employment. This lack of coherent findings make new insights on trade policy preferences ever more important. Using experiments, we evaluate why some individuals have negative attitudes towards globalization and which possible options governments could choose to increase support for globalization.

Leadership:

spilker_g

1.2.1

Who is in favour of international trade (...)

This project relies on survey experiments to better (...)

1.2.2

How to increase support for international (...)

This project analyses what options governments have to (...)

Cluster 3

A new body of business regulation is emerging, in which states, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and business firms are creating a ‘plethora of innovative institutions’. However, the interrelations between the actors and the resulting institutional dynamics are barely understood owing to the lack of a consistent analytical framework for a systematic analysis of this ‘new global governance’. Also lacking are legal instruments to establish coherence between different legal regimes, especially in public procurement.

Leadership:

kaufmann_c

1.3.1