Research page

Timeline: 2016-2019
Keywords: Trade, Environment, Law, Innovation, Diffusion, Complex Adaptive Systems, Network Theory
Funding Organization: SSHRC (insight grant); Canada Foundation for Innovation; CIGI; CEPCI
Partners: Laval University (Prof Jean-Frederic Morin)

 

Short description:

This project aims to explore the emergence, diffusion, implementation and impact of environmental provisions in trade agreements and trade provisions in environmental agreements.

Jean Frédéric Morin, Joost Pauwelyn & James Hollway

Latest publication

The Trade Regime as a Complex Adaptive System: Exploration and Exploitation of Environmental Norms in Trade Agreements

[We] propose that the evolution of the trade regime and even the norms within it – we traced environmental norms – can be usefully understood as a complex adaptive system. Our analysis suggests that both exploratory and exploitative processes are at work over time.

Read the full interview  with James Hollway

 I got particularly interested in empirical research when more data became available in the fields I was working on (trade, investment) and machines could collect the data and give insights into them. [...] Law professors actually do not traditionally do this.

Read the full interview  with Joost Pauwelyn