Papers by Matias E Margulis
Review of International Political Economy, 2023
The conventional wisdom is that human rights have long been off the negotiating agenda at the WTO... more The conventional wisdom is that human rights have long been off the negotiating agenda at the WTO. The failed attempt by Northern states to include a 'social clause' in WTO rules during the late 1990s and early 2000s is often cited as having foreclosed bringing human rights to bear in multilateral trade negotiations. This article challenges this traditional view, by demonstrating that states are mobilizing human rights at the WTO to shape current global trade rulemaking. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the prevailing assumption that developed countries are the primary champions of human rights in the trade regime and developing countries the opponents, I show that developing countries have in fact become key protagonists in marshalling human rights at the WTO. To illustrate these claims, I examine how developing countries have been mobilizing human rights norms, principles and discourse to shape global trade rulemaking in two of the most contentious issues in recent WTO negotiations: the use of public food stockholding for food security purposes and a TRIPS waiver to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Scholars have long observed that states play off overlapping international institutions against o... more Scholars have long observed that states play off overlapping international institutions against one another in an effort to advance their policy objectives. This article identifies a strategy utilized by the EU in response to regime complexity that I term "backdoor bargaining." Unlike forum-shopping, regime-shifting, and competitive-regime creation strategies, which states use to move multilateral negotiations to an institution that they expect will produce a more favorable outcome, backdoor bargaining involves a state using negotiations within one institution to gain an advantage in negotiations taking place at another distinct institution in a regime complex. I demonstrate the plausibility of backdoor bargaining by showing that the EU used the renegotiation of the Food Aid Convention as a strategy to gain bargaining leverage in the agriculture negotiations at the World Trade Organization. The article also offers insights into the potential consequences of international regime complexity for the EU as a global actor and the coherence of its foreign policies.
Agricultural & Natural Resource Economics, 2008
The majority of governments, the UN, World Bank, IMF, and NGOs agree that putting an end to rich ... more The majority of governments, the UN, World Bank, IMF, and NGOs agree that putting an end to rich countries' farm subsidies is what is required to make global agricultural trade fair and help lift developing countries out of poverty. How did this consensus of opinion come to be and what does it means for a future agricultural agreement at WTO?
Rising levels of food insecurity is currently one of the most pressing issues in global politics.... more Rising levels of food insecurity is currently one of the most pressing issues in global politics. While the United Nations (UN) system has traditionally been responsible for addressing world hunger, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has emerged as a major site of global food security governance. As a result, the UN system and WTO now share authority over the global governance of food security. There are major tensions between these two regimes, with WTO trade rules making agriculture and food increasingly subject to market forces, while, in sharp contrast, the UN advances a human rights approach to food and a greater role for states and deeper constraints on the market. The WTO's expanding authority over food security has prompted a counter-movement by the UN system, with UN institutions actively seeking to shape WTO trade rules in an attempt to limit the negative impacts of trade liberalization on world food security. This study develops a theory of international organizations as semi-autonomous actors that influence outcomes at competing institutional sites of global governance. This theoretical model, and its supporting empirical investigation, provide a novel contribution to the International Relations and International Political Economy literatures on the role of state and non-state actors in contesting global governance. In particular, this study demonstrates that international organizations: act behind the scenes and in hidden ways in interstate negotiations; perceive and adapt to new hierarchical configurations of power at the global level; and, engage in transnational political action that is motivated by moral and ethical concerns. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the considerable support, encouragement, and many intellectual exchanges I have had the privilege to enjoy during my doctoral studies. First, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. William Coleman. He has been an exemplary mentor and has taught me a lot about how to be a good scholar and a better human being. I am also indebted to Dr. Coleman for his generous support in undertaking my field research. I look forward to continuing our friendship and collaborating as colleagues. I want to thank the members of my doctoral committee, Drs. Tony Porter and Robert O'Brien. Both of them have taught me to refine and better articulate my ideas. They have also provided me with sound advice as a graduate student and in my transition to a scholarly career.
The conversation, 2016
Why UK could be doomed to years without proper access to world trade Foundation and The Alliance ... more Why UK could be doomed to years without proper access to world trade Foundation and The Alliance for Useful Evidence, as well as sixty five university members. View the full list While most discussion since the Brexit vote has focused on how the UK will negotiate the terms of its new trading relationship with the EU, much less has been said about the rest of the world. Brexiters have tended to believe that the UK could continue to enjoy the access to foreign markets that it currently receives through the EU's trade agreements with over 50 countries; and that for other markets it would simply resume independent membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the body through which 162 states set the rules for world trade. In fact, this is highly uncertain. It will require a long and complex process of negotiation, for which the UK is underprepared and has little leverage.
Peasants are in the process of being constructed as new types of subjects for global policy inter... more Peasants are in the process of being constructed as new types of subjects for global policy interventions at various multilateral institutions. Whereas the current literature focuses on bottom-up approaches of transnational peasant advocacy as self-creating their subjectivity – through peasants’ activity in contesting global economic governance, advancing their interests in new global policy spaces and constructing new rights – we flip the lens in order to examine when other actor engage in the process of constructing peasants as subjects for global policy intervention from the top-down. We examine two cases where the construction of peasants as global subjects from the top-down (i.e., global governance institutions at which peasants do not participate) is most evident: 1) post-global food crisis development policy where peasants are categorized as smallholders and targets of new ‘development’ interventions, such as the emphasis on new risk/ investment/productivity technologies, par...
The Global Political Economy of Raúl Prebisch offers an original analysis of global political eco... more The Global Political Economy of Raúl Prebisch offers an original analysis of global political economy by examining it through the ideas, agency and influence of one of its most important thinkers, leaders and personalities. Prebisch’s ground-breaking ideas as an economist – the terms-of-trade thesis and the economic case for state-led industrialization – changed the world and guided economic policy across the global South. As the head of two UN bodies – the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and later the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – he was at the frontline of key North–South political struggles for a fairer global distribution of wealth and the regulation of transnational corporations. Prebisch increasingly came to view political power, not just economic capabilities, as pivotal to shaping the institutions and rules of the world economy. This book contextualizes his ideas, exploring how they were used and their relevance...
This article examines new multilateral food and agriculture development programs implemented in r... more This article examines new multilateral food and agriculture development programs implemented in response to the 2008 Global Food Crisis. These programs, which seek to increase agricultural investment and production in developing countries, have gained wide currency among donors, recipient governments and multilateral organizations. Given the significant financial and political resources committed to their success, these new multilateral food and agriculture programs point to a new global food security policy consensus. By examining two of the key World Bank and EU programs prioritizing the integration of small-scale and peasant farmers into commodity chains, we argue that they fail to adequately address the obstacles poor farmers themselves have identified as critical to improving their food security and livelihoods.
Food Politics & Sociology eJournal, 2015
Following the 2007-2008 Global Food Crisis, the Government of Canada doubled its aid spending on ... more Following the 2007-2008 Global Food Crisis, the Government of Canada doubled its aid spending on food security and made fighting world food insecurity a key foreign policy objective. The Government of Canada positioned itself for, and claims to enjoy, global leadership in global food security governance. This article examines the Government of Canada's behavior at two leading institutions for global food security governance, the Group of Eight (G8) and the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). I argue that the government has engaged in a forum-shifting strategy between these two institutions that has enhanced its reputation among a small group of peer states at the G8 but diminished its reputation and influence at the CFS. With the CFS emerging as a key institution for agenda-setting, norm-building and rule-making in global food security governance, Canada's marginal influence and peripheral status at this body undermines the government's claims of globa...
European Journal of Risk Regulation
to an eclectic approach, and in yet further cases it will require a balancing of different types ... more to an eclectic approach, and in yet further cases it will require a balancing of different types of input. For the moment it remains under-theorised. In this light, it becomes apparent that the challenge for risk regulation studies is really to identify patterns, sideeffects and to fix scope conditions in order to help develop a ‘third way’ that neither relies exclusively on scientific evidence nor proclaims public participation to be the holy grail. Accordingly, a true ‘comparison of various models of risk regulation’ would have required an operationalisation that could have served as guidance to the authors of individual chapters. The diverse backgrounds of the contributors is certainly an advantage, but one that could have been exploited further had the national and case study chapters followed more of a template. After the wealth of material presented in these chapters (in parts II and III of the book), we would have liked to see the conceptual chapters in part IV draw on that rather more. Or perhaps a concluding chapter by the editors, which is now missing, could have tied the loose elements together. This would have been especially interesting given the high ambitions and relevant dilemmas formulated by the editors in the introduction. At the end of the book there are several blank pages – undoubtedly for production reasons. A contribution along the lines of ‘lessons learned’ or ‘outline of a future research agenda’ would have been very fitting to fill them. As risk regulation attempts to unite science, law and politics more and more, the mutual level of understanding between the actors from those different spheres is still lagging behind. The urgency of this communicative need is illustrated by the European Commission’s intention to appoint a ‘chief scientific adviser’.3 Uncertain Risks Regulated makes a useful contribution on this front, even if not explicitly so. The book is not a handbook on risk regulation, but it is a useful read for people looking for some background analysis concerning the myriad of complexities of the role of science in law, or for an entry point into certain regulatory regimes featured in the book. The intended audience remains somewhat unclear, but that is not necessarily a disadvantage as it keeps the debate open and perhaps emphasises the pluralistic nature of the risk regulation community. The practising lawyer who takes an interest in risk regulation and is confronted with a limited amount of legal literature on the subject (compared to the amount of political science literature) will find this 3 Speech by European Commission President Barroso, European Parliament, Strasbourg, 15 September 2009. book a helpful addition. There are two pitfalls here. First, the amount of reading he or she will have to do even to begin to get a grip on the material. Second, the absence of a chapter on how the European courts deal with risk regulation, science-driven arguments of parties, fact finding, evidence and expert opinion. Indeed, the contributions by Scott, Everson and Joerges relating to the case law on the precautionary principle and by Walker on the US approach to judicial review of ‘administrative proceedings’ leave us wanting for more. The book undoubtedly provides a challenging opening to the next step in the interdisciplinary debate, namely the development of a blueprint for global risk governance. This brings us back to the curse that comes with a pluralistic approach: to move from ‘stories’, ‘paradigms’ and ‘tensions’ to a ‘future Constitution’ – as called for in the introduction (and spelled with a capital ‘C’) – would go against the essence of that approach. However, perhaps a midpoint in between eclectic story telling and constitutional principles is indeed possible. In line with the aforementioned comment on the desirability of a ‘wrap up’ chapter, a tentative set of ‘terms of reference’ for such a ‘Constitution’ would have made the book even more interesting. Peter Kugel Attorney at law, Brussels & Anne Meuwese University of Antwerp
Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, 2016
1. Land Grabbing and Global Governance: Critical Perspectives Section One: Theorizing Land Grabbi... more 1. Land Grabbing and Global Governance: Critical Perspectives Section One: Theorizing Land Grabbing, Globalization and Governance 2. Land Grabs Today: Feeding the Disassembling of National Territory 3. Land Grabbing as Security Mercantilism in International Relations 4. Governing the Global Land Grab: Multipolarity, Ideas, and Complexity in Transnational Governance Section Two: Transnational Actors and Emerging Global Land Governance 5. The Governance of Gulf Agro-Investments 6. 'One Does Not Sell the Land Upon Which the People Walk': Land Grabbing, Transnational Rural Social Movements, and Global Governance 7. International Human Rights and Governing Land Grabbing: A View from Global Civil Society 8. Certification Schemes and the Governance of Land: Enforcing Standards or Enabling Scrutiny? 9. The Challenge of Global Governance of Land Grabbing: Changing International Agricultural Context and Competing Political Views and Strategies Section Three: Review of Recent Global Land Governance Instruments 10. The FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests 11. The Principles of Responsible Agricultural Investment 12. The Minimum Human Rights Principles Applicable to Large-Scale Land Acquisitions or Leases 13. Private Governance and Land Grabbing: The Equator Principles and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels 14. Restrictions to Foreign Acquisitions of Agricultural Land in Argentina and Brazil
The Review of International Organizations, 2020
This article identifies the existence of a previously unknown but important type of self-directed... more This article identifies the existence of a previously unknown but important type of self-directed political behavior by International Organizations (IOs) that I term intervention. Intervention occurs when an IO secretariat acts with the intention of altering an anticipated decision at a partially-overlapping IO in a regime complex. Intervention is a distinct type of behavior by IOs that differs from either bureaucratic competition among IOs for mandates, resources and policy influence, or cooperation to achieve joint regulatory goals and enhance performance. I probe the plausibility of intervention through an analysis of three illustrative case studies in the regime complex for food security showing self-directed political actions by the secretariats of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) directed at altering decision-making by states at the World Trade Organization (WTO). I identify three distinct intervention strategies-mobilizing states, public shaming and invoking alternative legal frameworks in which IOs utilize their material, ideational and symbolic capabilities to influence decision-making not within their own institutions, but at other, overlapping organizations in a regime complex over which they have no direct control.
Transnational Legal Theory, 2018
This article examines efforts by member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to modify in... more This article examines efforts by member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to modify international trade laws to further accommodate public food stockholding for food security programmes operated by developing countries. While WTO members have negotiated a temporary Peace Clause to minimise the threat of a trade dispute for countries whose public food stockholding violates their international trade commitments, negotiations to modify existing WTO law have been fraught with political discord. I argue that states are using the WTO's negotiating function to address perceived conflicts between international trade law and national food security goals rather than pursuing a solution through legal adjudication. The case of public food stockholding reveals important dynamics about the WTO-food relationship security that are overlooked by approaches primarily concerned with supra-national constraints on national policy and the fragmentation of international law.
Review of International Political Economy, 2018
World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on agriculture are among the most contentious issues in the ... more World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on agriculture are among the most contentious issues in the international political economy due to agriculture's importance in the production of tradable commodities as well as economic development and food security in developing countries. In this article, I analyse a surprising and unexpected actor playing an important role in shaping WTO rules on agriculture – the United Nations (UN). While UN actors do not have a seat at the bargaining table, I argue that they invoke their delegated and moral authority and initiate actions to shape global trade rule-making. I demonstrate that UN actors have influenced the discourse, agenda and outcomes of trade negotiations by analysing three cases: 1) the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) orchestrating a Uruguay Round agreement in favour of food insecure developing countries; 2) the World Food Programme's (WFP) blocking of trade rules on international food aid during the Doha Round negotiations; 3) a proposal by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food for a legal waiver to protect public food stockholding that was taken up by WTO member states in 2013.
This report analyzes Canada’s global food and nutrition security policies and domestic agricultur... more This report analyzes Canada’s global food and nutrition security policies and domestic agriculture and biofuel policies from 2009 to 2014.
Humanity & Society, 2015
This essay examines an innovative approach to teaching across international and cultural boundari... more This essay examines an innovative approach to teaching across international and cultural boundaries and evaluates the experience in a course on Globalization, Social Justice, and Human Rights, co-taught collaboratively by faculty from different campuses and countries since 2011. This course was created to address unmet needs in the traditional higher educational systems. These include, but are not limited to, lack of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaboration among students, faculty, and institutions. Although economies, polities, environments, and human societies are experiencing great connections across the globe, educational systems continue to be modeled on nineteenth century assumptions and structures. In this course, faculty teach at their respective universities but use an online platform to allow for cross-
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Papers by Matias E Margulis
By identifying several novel intervention strategies used by UN actors to shape the rules of global trade, this book shows that UN organizations chose to intervene in trade lawmaking not out of competition with the WTO or ideological resistance to trade liberalization, but out of concerns that specific trade rules could have negative consequences for world food security—an outcome these organizations viewed as undermining their social purpose to reduce world hunger and protect the human right to food.
Prebisch increasingly came to view political power, not just economic capabilities, as pivotal to shaping the institutions and rules of the world economy. This book contextualizes his ideas, exploring how they were used and their relevance to contemporary issues. The neoliberal turn in economics in North America, Western Europe and across the global South led to an active discrediting of Prebisch’s theories and this volume offers an important corrective, reintroducing current and future generations of scholars and students to this important body of work and allowing a richer understanding of past and ongoing political struggles.