Reconfiguring the evolving legal interface of trade and sustainable development chapters of free trade agreements : substantive obligations, dispute settlement and compliance
(2025)
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- Abstract
- Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters in free trade agreements (FTAs) have become integral components of major contemporary trade deals. International trade is widely recognised as a driver of inclusive economic growth and as a means to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Within this context, TSD chapters constitute distinctive regulatory and governance instruments. They formulate substantive commitments on labour, environmental protection and other sustainability issues, and establish dispute settlement procedures and institutional mechanisms for cooperation and compliance. Yet in practice these chapters remain largely inactive. The thesis examines why TSD dispute settlement has been so limited in practice and asks how TSD chapters can be redesigned to function as operational devices within FTAs. It argues that the procedural and institutional design of TSD chapters should be reconfigured to align with the nature of TSD obligations. The analysis is based on an original, empirically grounded dataset built through systematic examination and coding of more than 100 FTAs and related agreements containing TSD chapters, as well as of existing TSD dispute settlement practice. The study proposes a model of enhanced management, dispute settlement and compliance that strengthens the operational capacity of TSD chapters within FTAs and clarifies their broader role in the international legal order.
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Melikyan, A. (2025). Reconfiguring the evolving legal interface of trade and sustainable development chapters of free trade agreements : substantive obligations, dispute settlement and compliance.