Research projects

EDIT
The Electronic Database of Investment Treaties (EDIT), is a new systematic and comprehensive database on international investment agreements, including available texts in one single language (English) and format (XML). During the implementation of the SNIS-funded project “Diffusion of International Law: A Textual Analysis of International Investment Agreements” (2015–2017), treaty texts were collected, digitised and non-English texts translated through machine translation software. Articles and paragraphs of the agreements were categorised using different techniques (automated labelling and based on a keyword dictionary, as well as on manual annotation).

Project leaders: Manfred Elsig, Rodrigo Polanco, Wolfgang Alschner, University of Ottawa
Team:  Valentino Desilvestro, Azernoosh Bazrafkan, Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, (European University, St Petersburg)

Project website: https://edit.wti.org/document/investment-treaty/search

DESTA
An off-shoot of the NCCR, the Design of Trade Agreements collaborative research project collected systematic data on the design of preferential trade agreements signed since 1945. More information can be found on the DESTA website.

RESPECT - Realising Europe's soft power in external cooperation and trade
The WTI has been a partner in the EU’s Horizon 2020 project RESPECT from 2018 to 2021. The WTI team has focused on the development and analysis of measurements (indicators) of non-trade policy objectives (NTPOs), as well as data on the provisions in trade agreements related to NTPOs. The project databases developed by the WTI team are available here. The dataset “Non-trade Issues in EU Preferential Trade Agreements” covers non-trade issues (NTIs), such as civil and political rights (CPR), economic and social rights (ESR), environmental protection (EP), and security issues in 665 preferential trade agreements (PTAs) signed between 1945 and 2018.  The database “non-trade policy outcome indicators” covers an extensive range of non-trade policy outcomes grouped along four main categories: (1) economics and social rights, (2) political and civil rights, (3) environmental issues, and (4) security issues. The data covers the period from 1960 to 2018 for 217 countries.

WTI project leader: Joseph Francois
Coordinator: Miriam Manchin
Researchers: Lisa Lechner, Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, Achim Vogt, Patrick Tomberger
Project website: http://respect.eui.eu/data/ 

The TAPED (Trade Agreements Provisions on Electronic-commerce and Data) dataset
The TAPED dataset seeks to comprehensively map and code all preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that directly or indirectly regulate digital trade and related areas. TAPED covers more than 370 PTAs concluded since 2000. A total of 110+ different items have been coded, including provisions on digital trade, intellectual property, key services sectors, government procurement, trade in goods, as well as general and specific exceptions. The TAPED dataset was initiated under the National Research Programme (NRP) 75 Big Data (2017-2020); it was undertaken in collaboration with the World Trade Institute. TAPED now falls under the project ‘Trade Law 4.0: Trade Law for the Data-Driven Economy’, hosted at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lucerne and funded under the European Research Council’s (ERC) European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The Trade Law 4.0 project is scheduled to run from 2021 to 2026. The team is led by Prof. Mira Burri, who is supported by María Vázquez Callo-Müller (Post-doctoral researcher) and Kholofelo Kugler (PhD fellow). The team members of the Trade Law 4.0 project have a long-standing affiliation with the WTI.

Project leader: Mira Burri
Team: María Vázquez Callo-Müller, Kholofelo Kugler
Project website: TAPED’s website and Trade Law 4.0’s website

BATMODEL - Better Agri-food Trade Modelling for Policy Analysis
The BATmodel project (Better Agri-food Trade Modelling for Policy Analysis) aims to create better cross-border agricultural trade models, thus helping decision-makers to achieve better outcomes in multilateral and regional agreements. The project aims in particular to address shortcomings of current modelling tools with better treatment of non-tariff measures. The project includes 15 organizations and research institutes from 10 European countries. The WTI team is focused on:

• quantifying the impact of regulatory divergence on agri-food trade;
• estimating cost and demand-side effects of non-discriminatory, quality-increasing technical measures;
• introducing different impact channels of non-tariff measures to CGE-based scenarios. 

The project is funded by the European Commission, runs for 4 years from 2020-2024, with a budget for the WTI of €290.000.

WTI project leader: Joseph Francois
Team: Octavio Fernandez, Achim Vogt
Project website: https://batmodel.org/ 

Complexity - Complexity and the structure and regulation of trade and investment
The main objective of the project is to better understand the interaction between the geographic disintegration of production (the emergence of international production networks) on the one hand, and changes in the institutional architecture governing related trade and investment flows since the early 1990s. The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). It ran from 2017 to 2021 with a budget envelope of 465,220 Swiss francs. The data developed in the project are feeding into ongoing PhD research projects at the WTI.

WTI project leader: Joseph Francois
Team: Valentino Desilvestro, Patrick Tomberger

Global Value Chains and Provisions in PTAs
The project builds on the existing Design of Trade Agreements dataset and uses inputs from the EDIT dataset on bilateral investment treaties (see above) and the Big Data project. It codes over 180 variables on areas such as GVCs, investment, market access for goods and services e-commerce and data flow in over 600 PTAs. The project partner is the OECD.

Project leader: Manfred Elsig
Research coordinator: Rodrigo Polanco, Jenny Surbeck
Research assistants: Julina Canga, Martina Pons, Livia Tomas, Selina Hauser

Heterogeneity - Regulatory heterogeneity in international trade: from measures to systems
The past 50 years have seen unparalleled reductions in tariff barriers to international trade. As a result, we have seen a shift in attention to so-called non-tariff measures (NTMs). This research project studies heterogeneity and system aspects of NTMs and their impact on international trade flows. Overall, the project participants aim to make contributions to the trade cost literature and advance relatively scarce findings on regulatory heterogeneity and its impact on trade policy outcomes. The work can help inform the debate around 21st century trade agreements.

This project runs from 2018-2022 and has funding of 636,238 Swiss francs.

WTI project leader: Joseph Francois
Team: Irene Garcés Iriarte, Achim Vogt, Karima Tawfik

Trade and Democracy (TRADEM)
The project’s main objective is to develop new and test existing arguments related to the types of outside-in effects through trade agreements that lead to positive or negative effects for various types of democracy parameters. We aim to study the conditions under which treaties are democracy-enhancing and compare these to conditions that are democracy-hindering. Providing better data and exploring and testing more nuanced causal relationships will help policy-makers better understand the observable democratization effects of trade agreements.

WTI project leader: Manfred Elsig
Team: Kirthana Ganeson, Andrew Lugg, Marine Roux

Labor Standards Compliance and Buyer-Supplier Relations in Global Supply Chains
This project focuses on the private regulation of labor standards in global supply chains. Specifically, it analyzes the effects of private regulation by firms in developed countries on social compliance of labor standards in supplier firms located in developing countries. The analysis utilizes advanced statistical methods and draws on proprietary data on buyer-supplier relations, training activities, and social audits obtained from a large social compliance initiative. This project seeks to understand the various options firms have regarding handling non-compliance in supplying firms, including ignoring the non-compliance, working with suppliers to improve compliance, and dropping firms who are non-compliant. This project analyzes the conditions under which firms might choose one of these options over the others. Finally, this project seeks to understand the effects these regulation decisions have on compliance with social standards in supply firms and the likelihood of improving poor labor standards

WTI project leader: Damian Raess
Co-Leader: Matthew Amengual (Uni. Oxford)
Team members: Joseph Bommarito, Alessandro Guasti (Uni. Oxford), Alexandra Eugster
Project website: https://www.tradelaborgvc.com/

BRICS - Globalisation and Labour Protections in Advanced and Emerging Economics
The recent incorporation of the emerging market countries of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in the world economy has important and uncertain implications for labour protections in advanced and emerging economies. This project investigates if and under what conditions outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from the BRICS leads to 1) a “race to the top” in labor standards in the investing countries and 2) a “race to the bottom” in labor standards in the invested countries. It furthers investigates responses in countries that are engaging China economically, including government reactions and attitudes of private citizens. The project is funded by the SNSF for the period 2017–2022.

Project leader: Damian Raess
Team members: Patrick Wagner, Alexandra Eugster
Former team members: Wanlin Ren, Patrick Bigler, Yell Leutenegger
Project website: https://bricsglobalization.weebly.com/

NRP 73 - Switzerland’s Sustainability Footprint: Economic and Legal Challenges

The project focuses on a number of complex, contemporary policy problems and tackles these using an interdisciplinary approach. The research team will develop new measures of sustainability footprints for the Swiss economy, extend the literature on the effectiveness of alternative tax-based and voluntary instruments in meeting sustainability targets, and address treaty-based constraints on the use of alternative instruments. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the project runs from 2017 through 2022 and has base funding of 863,950 Swiss francs

Project leader: Joseph Francois
Team members: Eddy Bekkers, Octavio Fernandez, Doris Oberdaberning, Ilaria Espa, Patrick Tomberger, Brigitta Imeli

Framing Environmental Degradation, Human Mobility and Human Development as a Matter of Common Concern (CLI_M_CO2)

Our growing exposure to catastrophic natural disasters worldwide has paved the way for an increased awareness of the effects of environmental changes. The project aims to go one step further, and inquire about the often overlooked consequence of environmental degradation: human mobility. CLI_M_CO2 aims to approach environmental migration from a fresh perspective, regarding the issue as a 'common concern of humankind'. The project involves a case study in the South Pacific region that focuses on the 'sinking islands' in order to propose a novel approach to migration governance and state responsibility. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the project runs from 2017 to 2022.

Project leader: Prof. Elisa Fornalé
Team members: Tamara Köhler

Project website: www.climco2.org

Gender Equality in the Mirror (GEM): Clothing the Invisibility of Women’s Participation at International Level

The pandemic has made it clear how current structures of power risk perpetuating gender inequality and that the underrepresentation of women is no longer sustainable. Instead, it is imperative to understand the normative implications of participatory rights, how affirmative actions can foster and/or undermine participation, and how institutional practices still prevent equal participation by creating de facto inequality between men and women.

The GEM project’s overall aim is to put forward a two-dimensional approach (internalization/externalization) to investigate potential “building blocks of women’s participation” at domestic and international level by making plain the need to strengthen their complementarity.

GEM has the following objectives:

• understanding the roots of participatory rights in human rights law;
• investigating the role of affirmative actions in accelerating participatory equality by providing the first comprehensive analysis of measures adopted by Member States of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
• conducting in-depth empirical case studies in international domains (international organizations, international jurisdictions and diplomacy) selected for their exposure to women’s underrepresentation.

Project Leader: Prof. Elisa Fornalé
Team members: Tamara Koehler

Project Website: www.womenandparticipation.org

PROSPER - Politics of Rule-making, Orchestration of Standards and Private Economic Regulations (2020-2022)
PROSPER is a 2-year project funded by the European Commission under the European Union Horizon2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship programme. The project is run by Aydin Yildirim and hosted by the WTI and Manfred Elsig. The main objective of the project is to examine the role of multinational companies (MNCs) and their value chains across trade networks. It seeks to understand how and under which conditions MNCs can influence rules and standards in the global trade regime.

The Governance of Big Data in Trade Agreements: Design, Diffusion and Implications (2017-2020)
This research project is part of the National Research Programme (NRP) 75 Big Data. It brings together a small interdisciplinary research team, which will, in cooperation with the University of Lucerne, and under the leadership of Mira Burri, examine the pertinent trade rules that impinge on Big Data. The 3-year project started in May 2017 and seeks to achieve not only cutting-edge basic research results but also to have palpable policy impact.

Big Data website.

Common Concern (2015 - 2019)
Towards a Principle of Common Concern in Global Law: Foundations and Case Studies
The project explores the legal potential of the emerging doctrine of Common Concern of Humankind (‘Common Concern’) in responding to collective action problems due to the lack of appropriate institutions on the global and the European levels. It consists of a theoretical part and a series of in-depth case studies exploring the potential of the principle in different areas of public international law. The four case studies envisaged will analyse existing governance arrangements in the fields of: climate change; biodiversity, with a particular focus on the law of the sea; monetary affairs, and corporate responsibility and human rights. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) the project runs for three years from October 2015. The project is set to conclude in June 2019 and a book containing the research outcomes is planned to be published the same year.

CLISEL - Climate Security with local authorities (2016 - 2019)
CLISEL is a coordination and support action (CSA) funded under the Horizon 2020 Programme, which explores the climate-security nexus from the perspective of local administrations and communities. CLISEL proposed an innovative approach to the question of how Europe can be secured from the impacts of climate change in third countries. The aim is to understand the extent to which migrants are perceived as a security issue, as well as the policies and actions through which local administrators can ward off the emergence of a security crisis within their territory, with a special focus on the Italian region of Sardinia, taken as a pilot case study. The 36-month project, which started in May 2016, involves five institutions from around Europe, including the World Trade Institute (WTI). CLISEL is mainly involved in accompanying measures like dissemination, networking, coordination or support activities, policy dialogues and mutual learning exercises and studies in different countries.

CLISEL project website.

NCCR Trade Regulation (2005 - 2017)
The project aimed to clarify how the world trading system functions and to explore the drivers of fragmentation and coherence. It aims to offer policy recommendations based on the disciplines of law, economics and political science through its six thematic research areas: trade governance; new preferentialism in trade; innovation and creativity in international trade; trade, development and migration; trade and climate change; and impact assessment in international trade regulation.

DESTA
An off-shoot of the NCCR, the Design of Trade Agreements collaborative research project collected systematic data on the design of preferential trade agreements signed since 1945. More information can be found on the DESTA website.

SECO
The SECO/WTI Academic Cooperation Project was a comprehensive six-year capacity building project aimed at academic training in trade regulation and building regional research capacities. It was initiated and funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the World Trade Institute was its implementing agency.

SNIS
Diffusion of International Law: A Textual Analysis of International Investment Agreements
This collaborative project examined the question, 'What are the design, evolution and effects of the international investment agreements currently in practice?' Led by the WTI, it involved universities in Switzerland and abroad as well as the World Bank Group.

r4d Employment
The aim of this project that ran from 2014 to 2017 was to reveal the impact of various development policy instruments on the quality and quantity of employment in six developing countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, South Africa and Vietnam.

For a full list of r4d working papers and policy briefs, visit our r4d publications archive. The r4d brochure can be found here.

PRONTO - Productivity, non-tariff barriers and openness
A collaborative research project on regulatory barriers to trade, supported by the European Commission, PRONTO aimed to build a network across the research and stakeholder communities working on a better understanding of non-tariff measures affecting international trade and investment. The first phase ended in 2017. The second phase involves cooperation with UN agencies. Partial funding was provided through the SNSF. More information can be found on the project website.