With the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals the international community has been shown to believe in an integrated approach to tackle the most pressing global challenges. Connecting issues, rather than addressing them individually is the chosen path forward. This trend is also represented by the growing number of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements, meant to encourage environmental improvements with the lure of trade access to a major market. As the two most eminent markets, it is no surprise that the most active trade nations to include environmental provisions to date are the EU and the US, with the consequence that research into the effect of environmental provisions has also revolved primarily around these two markets. This thesis recognizes and addresses the lack of research into the environmental provisions in the preferential trade agreements of emerging markets. To analyse whether environmental provisions influence the environment status of the trading partner country of an emerging market, the preferential trade agreements of China are taken as a point of reference. China is the most prominent emerging market, increasingly active on the global stage in both the environmental as well as in the climate regime and conducts an increasing number of trade agreements which include environmental provisions. This means that when these provisions prove to be effective, there is a promising alternative to multilateral negotiations for the combat of environmental degradation. The effectiveness of the environmental provisions of China’s trade agreements is researched by looking into the design of the agreements and into the response of the trading partner country. Respectively, diffusion theory and compliance theory are used to set a framework for the analysis and the cases of Chile and Pakistan are selected to perform qualitative research. The analysis shows that the design of the Chile-China preferential trade agreement hints at diffusion practices from the Chile-US trade agreement, which suggests a positive effect of the provisions. However, the environmental provisions in the China-Pakistan preferential trade agreement failed to bring about a change in the behaviour of Pakistan regarding the environment. Therefore, this thesis concludes that the environmental provisions in the preferential trade agreements of China are not effective.

Dr. M. Onderco, Prof.dr. A.G. Dijkstra
hdl.handle.net/2105/46522
Public Administration
Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Kool, Marloes. (2019, February 19). Linking the Issues: China, Trade and the Environment. Public Administration. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/46522