Legislative Innovation in the Trade and Climate Regimes: Towards a Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Multilateral Lawmaking

Abstract

The conclusion of the Trade Facilitation Agreement in 2013 and the Paris Agreement in 2015 represent significant breakthroughs for the multilateral trade and climate regimes, respectively. The chapter explores the innovations in lawmaking principles and techniques that made the conclusion of these agreements possible. To this end, the chapter develops a framework for the comparative analysis of multilateral lawmaking along five dimensions: the principles pursuant to which the participants in lawmaking assume commitments, the techniques that the participants employ to generate legal obligations, the modalities that they use to establish the form and scope of each individual participant’s commitments, the legal form of these commitments, and their potential effects. The chapter discusses the recent experience of the trade and climate regimes to shed light on the benefits and drawbacks of competing approaches to multilateral lawmaking along each of these dimensions.

Keywords: Paris Agreement, Trade Facilitation Agreement, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, World Trade Organization, trade negotiations, climate negotiations, reciprocity, common but differentiated responsibilities, multilateral lawmaking