JIANG Xiaohong：Sustainable Development Chapters in the EU’s New-Generation Free Trade Agreements and Investment Agreements——Towards a Trend of Hard Implementation of Soft Clauses
ARTICLES
The EU ’s new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) concluded since 2010 contained the “Trade and Sustainable Development” Chapter, mainly dealing with trade-related environment and labor issues. This article analyses the main driving force for incorporating the sustainable development chapter into the FTAs, their substantive provisions and implementation systems and the effects thereof. So far, the EU’s efforts to insert sustainable development provisions have not brought about obvious positive effects in practice. However, it can be seen that the EU pays close attention to the implementation system by progressively introducing necessary changes. The soft clauses, which are regarded as the obligation of means in legal nature, are presenting an increasingly trend of hard implementation. Concerning the Sustainable Development Chapter, the disputes settlement system based on cooperation is welcomed, however we have to acknowledge that the trade and investment policy driven by values has opened the door to various political concerns. It will bring much uncertainty to the future implementation of EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.