Publications by Linda Botterill

 ‘Ethical food standard schemes and global trade: Paralleling the WTO?’ (2012) Policy and Society31(4) 307-317 (with Carsten Daugbjerg)

Global food trade embodies a range of different interpretations of the nature of food and its role in society. On the one hand, the WTO food regulation regime, in particular the SPS agreement, is based upon a somewhat instrumental value of food consumption in which food is seen as a commodity to be traded in accordance with international trade rules. At the same time, a number of private standards, such as GlobalG.A.P and various organic standards, are emerging which embody broadly postmaterialist values that suggest that food purchasing and consumption are also social, ethical and perhaps even political activities. This paper analyses the relationship between the WTO food trade regime on the one hand and the GlobalG.A.P and organic food trade regimes on the other. We suggest that competing values can co-exist in parallel institutions and in a commensalistic relationship which protects the values base of each institution while giving expression to both materialist and postmaterialist understandings of the nature of food.

 ‘Private food standards in international trade’ (2012) New Zealand Law Journal March 2012: 44-46

One of the ironic outcomes of trade liberalisation in agriculture has been the rise of private standards which impose increasingly onerous requirements on suppliers into the agri-food chain. These standards frequently embody concerns not covered by the WTO trade regime, such as animal welfare, human rights, environmental management and labour standards. The signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade sought, through the Agriculture Agreement negotiated during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, to reduce barriers to free trade in agriculture. An important goal was ensuring that food regulations and standards did not constitute non-tariff barriers and were only applied in accordance with scientific evidence to protect plant, animal and human health and safety. However, trade liberalisation also facilitated the consolidation of large supermarket chains which increased their market power and allowed them greater leverage over their suppliers, and this included the imposition of standards throughout the agri-food production chain.

 'Engaging with Private Sector Standards: A case study of GLOBALG.A.P ' (2012) Australian Journal of International Affairs 65(4): 485-501 (with Carsten Daugbjerg)

There is now a fairly substantial literature on private global business regulation which focuses on the rise of non-governmental and private regulatory systems alongside traditional state-based systems. These private systems cross national borders and impact on international trade which, in the intergovernmental realm, is governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this article, the authors argue that while in principle private global regulatory trade regimes do not fall under WTO jurisdiction, in practice they are difficult to keep separate. They therefore have the potential to become a concern within the WTO, not only in legal terms, but also from a political perspective because private global regulatory schemes may (re)introduce the distortions into international trade that WTO rules sought to remove. In some cases, a hybridisation of standards occurs as private standards are recognised by public regulatory structures. National governments may find themselves squeezed between their international obligations and the pressures of their citizens, either to respond to consumer concerns themselves and risk being in conflict with their international obligations or to respond to producers seeking action against ‘private red tape’ which is nominally beyond the scope of the WTO. The article takes as its case study an international business-to-business agri-food standards body, GLOBALG.A.P., and explores the issues that arise for global trade governance from the growth in private regulation.

‘Institutions and Value Conflicts: The World Trade Organization and the Rise of Global private Food Standards’ (2012) Paper presented at the International Political Science Association’s XXII World Congress of Political Science, Madrid 8 – 12 July 2012 (with Carsten Daugbjerg)

One of the outcomes of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations was the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) which was set up as an attempt to discipline the use of national food safety and animal and plant health regulations and to prevent their emergence as technical barriers to trade. The Agreement is based on a set of values which privilege free trade and scientific evidence, thus excluding many ethical considerations from the regulations that national governments can enact in relation to production methods in the agri-food chain. Separate from the SPS Agreement, a number of global private standard-setting institutions has developed which have incorporated values rejected by the SPS Agreement. This paper examines the relationship between these two institutions and argues that this case highlights a gap in the institutional literature with respect to a relationship between primary and secondary institutions which co-exist in a commensalistic arrangement.

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