How Cultural Cognition Informs Differential Treatment in WTO law and the Climate Regime

Abstract

Climate change is a core issue for sustainable development and exacerbates inequality. However, in both the WTO and the climate regime, disagreements over differential treatment have hampered efforts to address international inequalities in a way that facilitates effective responses to global issues. Sustainable globalization requires bridging the disparities between developed and developing countries in their capacities to address such matters of global concern. However, differential treatment now functions as a distraction from the global issues it was supposed to address. Cognitive biases distort perceptions regarding the climate crisis and the value of multilateralism. To what extent can cognitive science inform decision making by States? How do we change paradigms (cognitive background assumptions), which limit the options that decision-making elites in developed and developing countries perceive as useful and worth considering? To what extent do cognitive biases and cultural cognition create a barrier to multilateral cooperation on issues of global concern?

Keywords: cognition, cognitive science, differential treatment, climate change, WTO

JEL Classification: K32, K33