New Research: Measuring the Depth of Forest-Related Provisions in Trade Agreements

We are excited to announce the publication of a new open-access article in World Development titled “Measuring Forest-Related Depth in Preferential Trade Agreements,” authored by project investigators Michelle Márcia Viana Martins, Alan Leal and Rodrigo Cezar.

As global efforts to combat deforestation intensify—marked by initiatives like the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)—the role of trade policy has never been more critical.While many modern Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) now include environmental clauses, the degree to which these clauses entail forest-related commitments varies significantly. Still, current research evaluating the interplay between PTAs and forest protection relies on simple binary coding, focusing only the existence or not of such clauses.

To address this, the authors developed the Forest Provision Depth Index (FPDI), measuring forest-related depth in 778 trade agreements across 213 countries (1947-2021). The index contributes to research on treaty design by evaluating agreements based on five critical dimensions: legalization, institutionalization, monitoring, cooperation, and implementation.

By using this new measurement, we can begin to answer pressing questions:

• Do "deeper" forest provisions actually lead to reduced deforestation on the ground?

• Which countries are the champions of strong forest clauses, and which ones resist them?

• Are we seeing a trend toward more legalized and enforceable forest commitments over time?

• How do trade agreements interact with instruments such as the EUDR?

• Do environmental provisions diffuse across negotiation networks? If so, do some types of provision diffuse more easily than others?

• Are forest-related commitments associated with trade flows, investment, or certification schemes?

To build the FPDI, the researchers utilized the TREND database (developed by Jean-Frederic Morin, Andreas Dür, and Lisa Lechner), applying it to explore how environmental norms diffuse across global trade networks. This approach opens a new frontier for AI-assisted text analysis in international political economy, allowing for a more granular understanding of how "green" our trade policies truly are.

This publication is a key output of our project, “Making Autonomous Sustainable Trade Policies Work for Everyone,” funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS). This collaborative effort brings together the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) at the Geneva Graduate Institute and FGV RI.

Read the full open-access article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106571