The integration of biodiversity into EU free trade agreements

Abstract

Biodiversity is crucial to life on Earth, including the survival and well-being of humanity. Human beings use and benefit from biodiversity daily. As such, it is not surprising that biodiversity-derived products are amongst the commodities the most actively traded internationally. International trade, however, causes negative impacts on biodiversity both directly and indirectly. This thesis explores some of the many and yet complex connections between international trade and biological diversity. It concentrates on the European Union (EU) and the way in which it deals with these connections in its free trade agreements with non-EU/third countries. By focusing on biodiversity and drawing from legal, ecological, and social science literature as well as trade agreement’s implementation documents, this thesis provides an innovative contribution to the trade and environment nexus debate. The thesis looks into the way in which biodiversity is integrated into EU free trade agreements. To do so, the thesis investigates why and how biodiversity is integrated into EU trade agreements before considering whether this integration is linked to the objective of biodiversity conservation. The thesis provides two complementary points of view. First, the integration is seen from above. A bird’s eye view offers a systematic analysis of this integration by investigating a relatively large number of agreements simultaneously. On the one hand, through a linguistic method, text mining, and, on the other, by creating a biodiversity-based taxonomy of EU trade agreements. Together, the outcomes of both methods show that biodiversity is only shallowly integrated into EU trade agreements. Second, the integration of biodiversity is seen from close. An ant’s eye view provides a doctrinal analysis of the biodiversity-relevant provisions of two case studies: the EU-Central America and EU-Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru free trade agreements. This in-depth analysis indicates that there are reasons to doubt that biodiversity integration, as currently practised, has the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation meaningfully.