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This book considers the environmental policies that the EU employs outside its borders. Using a systematic and coherent approach to cover a range of EU activities, environmental issues, and geographical areas, it charts the EU’s attempts to shape environmental governance beyond its borders. Key questions addressed include: What environmental norms, rules and policies does the EU seek to promote outside its territory? What types of activities does the EU engage in to pursue these objectives? How successful is the EU in achieving its external environmental policy objectives? What factors explain the degree to which the EU attains its goals? The book will be of interest to students and academics as well as practitioners in governments (both inside and outside of the EU), the EU institutions, think tanks, and research institutes.

International relations. Foreign policy --- Politics --- Economic policy and planning (general) --- International law --- Public administration --- overheid --- politiek --- Europese instellingen --- Europese politiek --- internationale organisaties --- European Union --- Europe

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Executive Summary This thesis the effectiveness of the inclusion of environmental provisions in EU trade agreements. It examined the effectiveness in terms of output, focusing on the legal framework of domestic environmental standards, and on the outcome, concentrating on the institutionalization of environmental standards through public participation and the empowerment of civil society. These factors have been established by conducting of a literature review on EU’s external governance as well as on the conceptualizatoin of effectiveness with regard to environmental provisions. It analysis the outcome and output by conducting a summative content analysis based on the within-case study of the EU-Colombia and Peru trade agreement (2012). The thesis contributes to extant literature of EU’s external governance foreign policy tools and to the conceptualization of effectiveness with regard to environmental provisions. Additionally, the research provides some primitive policy recommendations with regard to the improvement of compliance of environmental standards commitments and the improvement of the institutionalization of environmental standards. The thesis finds that with its seven years of operating the environmental provisions included in the EU-COLPER trade agreement have not been effective. Key words: EU trade agreements, environmental provisions, effectiveness, output, outcome, external governance, Colombia, Peru, institutionalization, public participation, civil society dialogue.

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The thesis focuses on the question: How does the G20 influence the advancement of COP outputs? The research analyses global environmental governance by looking at the effectiveness of G20 forums’ influence on COP negotiations under the UNFCCC as a first step towards rising political willingness for adopting comprehensive commitments. It analysed the effectiveness of terms of overlap in the output between the G20 and the UNFCCC. The research objectives have been established after conducting a literature review on minilateralism in global environmental governance and on an analytical framework conceptualizing effectiveness with regard to institutional interaction. Analysis was conduced as deductive content analysis, based on within-case study of the G20 commitments and COP agreements. The thesis finds empirical evidence that the correlation between the G20 output and COP output exists, suggesting that G20 could influence COP agreements. The thesis contributed to the literature on minilateralism in global environmental governance, by analysing the effectiveness of the G20 as a complementary institution to the UNFCCC. The findings suggests that the G20 could be an appropriate minilateral initiative for improving global climate governance and further improve agreements made under the UNFCCC process and overcome the multilateral gridlock. Additionally, the research provides recommendations for further research.

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The thesis aims to explore the possible relationship between the composition of national delegations, in terms of what ministries are represented, and the ambition of the delegation’s positions at the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25). Inspired by assumptions of bureaucratic politics that different ministries approach the same issue with different sets of perspectives, tactics, expertise, and preferences, the study of these ministries allows us to understand where a delegation stands at the negotiation table. In particular, the thesis looks at the proportion of each ministry’s personnel relative to the delegation’s total number of negotiators. The thesis employs a mixed-method research design, with results of the quantitative cross-sectional study being explored by the qualitative case study. The cross-sectional study surveys the ministerial proportion and ambition of negotiating positions of 35 delegations at COP25. Correlational analysis through SPSS is performed to find any possible relationship. Two explanatory mechanisms are then formulated, one of which is tested by a case study on the Belize delegation. For the cross-sectional component, content analysis is the primary data collection method, because data related to country’s positions and delegation’s compositions can be found in official documents such as participants’ lists, reports of conference proceedings, and other submissions to UNFCCC bodies. Interview with a Belizean delegate, primary source documents, and academic articles provide information for the case study. Spearman’s rho is chosen to perform the correlational analysis because the presumed independent variables (proportions of each ministry’s personnel) have an interval value, while the dependent variables (ambitiousness of positions) have an ordinal, ranked value. Quantitative findings show that there is positive correlation between the presence of Environmental Ministry negotiators and ambition, (partially) negative correlation for the Foreign Ministry, and inconclusive evidence for the role of the Economic Ministry. Two causal mechanisms are proposed to explain how negotiators from these ministries may influence their delegation's ambition. For the Environmental Ministry, their officials are often tasked with issues deemed to be technical in nature. As Environmental Ministries are typically promoters of environmental regulation, the negotiators formulate a highly ambitious position for the issues under their jurisdiction. For the Foreign Ministry, diplomats tend to be entrusted with issues considered to have high political consequences. Due to their training which emphasizes pragmatism, these officials have a tendency to resort to bargaining behavior – which entails manipulative tactics, threats and rewards, may prompt them to arrive at the negotiating table with an unusually low ambition level. The case study of Belize gives weight to the causal mechanism for the Environmental Ministry above, which is especially applicable to developing countries which have high ambitions and are represented predominantly by this type of ministry. Further research could focus on longitudinal studies of many COPs so as to establish a strong causal mechanism, based on the framework suggested here. Another direction is to study how domestic actors develop, sustain and lose specific framings of international climatic issues, which could help use figure out a way to identity and support ambitious actors.