Suchergebnisse

AbstractPreferential trade agreements (PTAs) have proliferated rapidly since the early 1990s. The ratification of these agreements matters both economically by rendering commitments legally enforceable for outward‐oriented industries and politically by revealing the domestic‐ and international‐level factors which delay or accelerate the entry into force of a PTA. This research note investigates the institutional design and domestic political determinants of the ratification duration for 270 PTAs concluded in the post‐1990 period. The Weibull survival analysis yields two main results: First, neither domestic political constraints measured through veto players nor PTA depth affect ratification spells. Second, ratification processes become more protracted in the presence of stringent formal domestic ratification requirements as well as with a higher number of partner states. These findings suggest that trade negotiators factor in the shadow of ratification in the bargaining phase but still remain subject to formal ratification hurdles and PTA membership dynamics.

AbstractWhat explains the design of international institutions? Existing research has largely neglected how experience in cooperation in one set of international institutions impacts on design choices made by states in other globally-oriented institutions. We contribute to this evolving debate by analyzing spillovers in experience in international trade. We argue that countries' track record of interaction in multilateral trade disputes affects the design of their preferential trade agreements (PTAs). If a country participates in a complaint against a prospective PTA partner at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the challenge in Geneva alerts the defendant's import-competing industries with respect to potential challenges under the planned PTA. As a result, these industries exert pressure on their government to preserve leeway under the future treaty, leading to increased flexibility and a lower level of enforcement in the PTA. We find support for our hypotheses in an empirical analysis of 347 PTAs concluded post 1990.

Multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization have stalled. This has contributed to a steep rise in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). At the same time, negotiations for PTAs have not always proven quick and painless: While some treaties are sealed within a few months or days only, other agreements are preceded by protracted bargaining processes in trade and trade-related issue areas. In this article, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical variation. More specifically, we argue that PTA negotiations take longer the greater the distance between the prospective partners initial bargaining positions. Moreover, we contend that negotiation processes become more protracted the higher the relative ambition of the prospective PTA. Due to the limited links to the domestic political arena in autocracies, we expect this latter effect to play out for groups of democratic bargaining partners only. We test these two hypotheses for 198 preferential trade negotiations using novel measures for bargaining templates and the ambition of PTA clauses. In our two-stage survival models, we find support for our argument. In line with qualitative evidence from recent preferential trade initiatives, our models indicate that services, investment and intellectual property rights are particularly sticky agenda items for democratic leaders at the international bargaining table. ; (VLID)2843859

ABSTRACT
Scholars and negotiators often assert that model treaty texts published by international institutions (IIs) shape investment treaty design. This paper empirically investigates the reuse of international institutions' treaty templates. It tracks the imprint of six international institution templates on the text of negotiated international investment agreements (IIAs) using the Electronic Database of Investment Treaties. We find that the overall impact of international institution models has been low. No international investment agreement in our dataset was copied from an international institution's model wholesale. On average, annual similarity between model texts and negotiated investment treaties is lower than 40% and significantly lower than the influence of international institutions' models in the structurally similar international tax treaty regime. However, we do find evidence of an impact of international institutions' language on specific salient clauses. For example, the text of key investment protection clauses in the 1967 Draft Convention of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development was reproduced in hundreds of international investment agreements and novel clauses on investor responsibility first introduced in the 2006 International Institute for Sustainable Development model have subsequently been copied verbatim into negotiated international investment agreements. Our work concludes by discussing explanations for the comparatively low imprint of international institutions, notes other pathways for these institutions to influence treaty design, and sketches out an agenda for future research.