Constitutional Limits on Greening EU External Trade Agreements
(2026)
Files
20251120PhDthesissubmitted.pdf
Closed Access - Adobe PDF
- 3.79 MB
Details
- Authors
- Supervisors
- Abstract
- While never universally accepted, free trade has shaped thousands of bilateral and regional agreements and the creation of the WTO. It has, however, faced growing criticism including in Europe, driven in part by concerns over the environmental sustainability of trade. Against this backdrop, this study examines whether the EU’s legal framework for concluding preferential trade agreements (PTAs) reflects the normative foundations of free trade, focusing on ordoliberalism, often seen as its guiding ideology. It asks whether EU and WTO rules governing PTAs align with ordoliberal principles and how adaptable they are to environmentally driven demands. Part I outlines ordoliberal theory, including its views on economic constitutionalism, non-market policy objectives, and international economic integration. Ordoliberalism generally expects environmental protection to emerge alongside, but not interfere with, market processes—suggesting limited space for trade-based environmental intervention. Part II assesses how closely EU and WTO legal rules on PTAs adhere to ordoliberal principles and whether this helps explain the EU’s restrained integration of environmental provisions in trade agreements. It analyses EU primary law and relevant WTO disciplines, highlighting tensions between environmental ambitions and frameworks prioritising liberalisation. The study concludes that ordoliberal economic constitutionalism remains deeply embedded in EU and WTO PTA rules, and creates structural frictions with efforts to align trade agreements more closely with environmental sustainability objectives.
- Affiliations
Citations
Henet, C. (2026). Constitutional Limits on Greening EU External Trade Agreements. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/270847