Walking the Talk? Assessing EU-Latin America FTA Trade Committees as Drivers of Sustainability Action

The Climate Crisis fixes our attention on a hurdle at the heart of the European Union’s (EU) trade policy agenda. While striving for deeper trade liberalization commitments with its trading partners, the European Commission recognized the need for ‘proactive’ cooperation and ‘mainstreaming’ sustainability in its 2022 Trade and Sustainable Development review. To achieve these strategic objectives, the EU must ensure effective and lasting cooperation with its trade partners, and Latin American States in particular owing to the latter’s pivotal role within the global value chains that shape the global green transition. Adopting an institutionalist perspective, the present article examines the powers and limits of trade committees in EU-Latin America free trade agreements as drivers for sustainability action. Designed as the main channels for engagement between free trade agreement parties, trade committees are treaty bodies typically exercising broadly-defined powers. This article makes three contributions to the analysis of trade committees. First, it examines the circumstances under which EU-Latin America trade committees generate regulatory cooperation and the types of sustainability action they are empowered to take. Second, the specific role of EU-Latin America trade committees in shaping the scope and interpretation of treaty obligations and monitoring treaty implementation, is explored. Finally, the article considers the likely place of trade committees within ‘next generation’ EU-Latin America free trade agreements and the EU’s broader ‘trade and sustainable development’ policy shift.