European Union and Global Governance
The EU has and continues to increasingly be called upon by various states, civil society and other stakeholders to play a leadership role in multilateral arrangements. In its efforts to address and resolve contemporary global challenges, the EU has chosen the path of multilateralism. This is explicitly confirmed by the Treaty of Lisbon, according to which the EU shall “promote multilateral solutions to common problems, in particular in the framework of the United Nations” and shall “promote an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance”. Against this background the Centre conducts interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional research on the actual role the EU can play and is playing in global multilateral arrangements.
The research theme of EU and Global Governance is divided into five sub-themes.
The first sub-theme revolves around theory development on the basis of a comparative analysis of definitions and assumptions about key concepts such as multilateralism. The interdisciplinary framework thereby generated allows for studying the EU in global multilateral arrangements. It has served as the basis for two case studies, one on the role of the EU in global human rights bodies, and one on its implication in global climate change policy. The latter research has meanwhile generated a PhD thesis European Union Foreign Policy and Its Effects – A Longitudinal Study of the EU’s Influence on the United Nations Climate Change Regime (1991-2009) successfully defended by Simon Schunz on 22 October 2010.
A second and related sub-theme focuses on the EU’s role in global governance. In the framework of its Centre of Excellence Research Programme Global Governance and Democratic Government (section 4.1), the Centre will address the role of the EU in global multilateral organizations and international negotiations, in particular in the area of environmental, peace and security, economic, and human rights governance. In addition, the Centre is a key founding member of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on ‘The European Union, Foreign Policy and Global Governance’, and the Director, Professor Jan Wouters, holds a Jean Monnet Chair ad Personam on ‘European Union and Global Governance’. With its EU-China Chair, India Focus and research projects on transatlantic relations, the Centre is increasingly focusing on the relations of the EU with major world powers.
The third sub-theme concerns the role of the EU in international economic and financial governance. On the one hand, projects falling under this sub-theme analyze the role of the EU in international financial policy-making and in the international architecture of financial services regulation and control. On the other hand, special attention is paid to the relationship between the EU and a number of important actors in this area, such as the G20, the IMF, the WTO and regulatory bodies such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Under this heading, Bart De Meester successfully defended his PhD thesis on The Interaction between European and International Liberalisation of International Trade in Banking Services on 22 December 2010, which he prepared with a scholarship funded by Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). The G20, IMF and WTO will also be a special focus under the Centre of Excellence Research Programme Global Governance and Democratic Government (section 4.1).
The fourth sub-theme addresses the institutional and operational relationship between the EU and global multilateral bodies including, but not limited to, the UN system. Two book projects are in preparation: The EU and Multilateral Security Governance, to be published with Routhledge in 2011 (section 4.3), and The European Union and Multilateral Governance: Assessing EU Participation in United Nations Human Rights and Environmental Fora, to be published with Palgrave in 2011.
The fifth sub-theme investigates the interrelationship between the EU legal order and international law. Partly due to the EU’s desire for stronger international involvement, as emphasized by the Lisbon Treaty, this interrelationship is becoming increasingly complex. The aim of this research theme is to identify and analyze the processes of ‘internationalisation of European law’ and ‘europeanisation of international law’, in order to better understand the dynamics of multi-level rule-making and rule-implementation.
