I analyse smallholder tea producer experiences of dual-certification to Fairtrade and Organic Voluntary Private Standards (VPSs). Dual-certification represented a gold-standard in pro-development certifications, implying alignment between the standards and producer priorities. Yet certification required smallholders to implement two different and challenging standards simultaneously, and the smallholder category was heterogeneous. Gaps in knowledge persisted regarding smallholder implementation of dual-certification in South Indian tea. The main contribution of this research was empirical, investigating 1) reasons for the extension of dual-certification, 2) implications for export-market access and 3) conflicts of practice with norms among tea farmers. I adopted an agricultural marketing network scope to tether Global Value Chain analytical tools into producer contexts. This maintained the connection of producers with global tea buyers and global standards, contributing to understanding the exercises of power by institutions. This research examined the context of South Indian tea, identifying tea production and marketing networks of industry actors, local institutions, industry conventions and Fairtrade-Organic governance. The use of secondary data was complimented by qualitative techniques. I used a case study approach, recruiting one Fairtrade-Organic, dual-certified producer group and one non-certified producer group of smallholders. I sampled key power nodes in networks to generate interview data with key agents including farmers, producer group managers, tea buyers, standard setters and background institution informants. I held 40 interviews with 60 participants during 7 months in South India and the UK.Global Value Chain analysis represented the founding framework that considered standards as governing production and trade in certified commodities. GVC approaches analysed the distribution of benefits and market access between actors in GVCs. Powerful lead firms controlled chain coordination, shaped competition, market access and costs of compliance. The sociological redefinition of power led to standards theorised as legitimated conceptions of the good, the fair and the environmental, with attention turning to producer accounts of governance and standards. The thesis contributes to a growing literature highlighting agency, governmentality, and powers of institutions, in GVCs. Global standards were expressions of fragmented power in governmentality. I analysed accounts of the extension of dual-certification, attendant changes to market access and performances of implementation, seeing through farmers‘ eyes. I derived from data 3 empirical contributions. Firstly, producer institutions and gatekeepers exercised power by affecting smallholder certifications. Yet smallholders were purposeful agents who drove their certification statuses. Secondly, certification did not define market access; quality remained paramount. Fairtrade-Organic standards carried definitions of quality that were intangible, taking the ascertainment of leaf quality from the hands of farmers. Finally, smallholder agent behaviours were analysed as negotiations of Fairtrade-Organic and tea industry valuations of good tea practices. Standards were not pre-defined, bringing compliance costs; rather, Fairtrade-Organic existed in, was constituted by, smallholder performances. Attempts to enhance the legitimacy of FLO governance by aligning standards with producer priorities involved producer regional forums. Alignment was skewed by FLO‘s failure to distinguish smallholder from plantation priorities. This parallels a pro-market pragmatism about the future of Fairtrade.

Over the past two decades, transnational private standards such as “dolphin-safe,” “fair-trade,” and “sustainably produced timber,” have become ubiquitous. The regulatory landscape of many issue areas includes a mix of these private standards and government regulation. This is puzzling as firms adopting these standards voluntarily commit to exceeding government regulation, yet may not recoup the additional costs related to production changes and certification of their processes. To understand why firms adopt transnational private standards and how these standards affect government policies, this dissertation examines how the adoption of sustainable forestry standards changed the regulatory dynamics between firms and governments between 1997 and 2016. The dissertation consists of three analyses of the interaction between standards’ adoption and government regulation. The first study quantitatively evaluates forest sector policies in 38 countries, and demonstrates that whether industries use their adoption of transnational private standards to gain competitive advantages over foreign rivals, or alternatively, to avert further government regulation depends on market conditions and the willingness of consumers to pay a premium for certification. The second study investigates the extent to which to which governments in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have included transnational private standards in regulation to provide producers in import-competing industries competitive benefits over foreign producers. It establishes that in most cases, governments calibrated forest sector policies to increase trade benefits in response to the trade orientation of sectors and their level of transnational private standards adoption. The third study examines lobbying across industries and finds that industries adopted lobbying strategies on different forest sector policies based on whether those policies would improve their competitiveness and the extent to which to which they believed they could influence government policy. In aggregate, these studies demonstrate that governments of more-developed countries incorporated transnational private standards into their forest sector policies to the extent that doing so would provide economic benefits to their industries, and that they did so due to corporate lobbying. / 10000-01-01

The proliferation of private voluntary standards (private standards) in international food trade has precipitated a surge of inter-disciplinary discourse on the topic. Conceptual premises have been diverse, but a common thread through the discourse has been their practical impact on developing-country producers (particularly small to medium scale ones). The present paper contributes to legal analyses of private standards. It builds upon existing discourse on rules-based responses to private standards, from the conceptual premise of the rule of law. The perspective of the paper is that private standards are creating conditions wherein the rule of law in international food trade is being placed under strain. With that, the utility of the rules-based system of international food governance has begun to diminish. The viewpoint in this paper is that, from the perspective of the WTO, responses to private standards should be underlain by considerations of safeguarding the rule of law. Underscoring this is that a rule of law approach is the most ideal, in the long-term, for the WTO system and for low income Members themselves. The paper concludes that this will entail a necessarily multipronged strategy towards the challenges presented by private standards – one which incorporates rules-based responses, other interventions from within the WTO, and responses from outside of the WTO. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Les normes privées intéressent le droit international à un double titre : se développant en marge du système interétatique classique, elles constituent l’un des visages d’une régulation privée transnationale émergente et soulèvent la question théorique de leur statut en droit international. Par ailleurs, leurs effets sur le commerce international (et particulièrement le fait qu’elles constituent un obstacle aux exportations des PED vers les marchés occidentaux), conduisent à s’interroger sur l’opportunité et les modalités de leur réglementation par le droit international des échanges. En dépit de leur diversité empirique qui rend difficile toute tentative de systématisation et de qualification juridique, nous considérons que la qualité des produits, qui constitue le fondement téléologique commun des normes privées, permet d’en justifier l’unité théorique et de les considérer comme un phénomène juridique à part entière. Nous démontrerons que les normes privées sont l’une des manifestations d’un droit transnational se développant en parallèle du droit interétatique « classique » et qu’elles jouissent par conséquent d’un statut juridique propre. De ce fait, leurs rapports avec la branche du droit international qu’elles intéressent le plus directement, le droit international des échanges, ne peuvent se limiter à l’approche classique de réglementation (ou approche « répressive », en ce qu’elle a pour seul but d’en limiter les effets restrictifs pour le commerce) mais doivent se concevoir dans une optique de coordination. / The recent proliferation of private standards is not only of growing interest to economists who seek to evaluate its impact on trade flows; it is also relevant to international law, particularly to international economic law, in a double perspective. First, from the perspective of legal theory, the legal status of private standards has still to be determined. Second, from an empirical standpoint, private standards have the potential to negatively impact the access of developing countries to the markets of developed countries. This raises the question of the opportunity and modalities of submitting them to the disciplines of the WTO Agreements. This study demonstrates that private standards are one of the expressions of broader ‘transnational law’, a body of law that has been developing in parallel to ‘traditional’ state-centered international law. This implies that international law cannot merely consider private standards as an object to be disciplined; rather, the traditional ‘repressive’ approach should be rejected in favor of a more collaborative approach stressing the interrelations between the two bodies of norms as well as possible forms of coordination.

D.Cur. / With the current expanding privatisation of health services in South Africa, the establishing of quality assurance mechanisms is not only essential but is becoming a prerequisite for further privatisation. Privatisation of health care services, together with economical problems, are causing the role fulfilment and accountability structure of the nurse administrator to become much more complex and greater demands are continually made. A profile of the nurse administrator in private hospitals in South Africa, was compiled by means of an explorative descriptive study. This was done to ascertain their preparedness for the formalisation of quality assurance in nursing. The conclusion which was ultimately reached conceded that the nurse administrator in South African private hospitals, is not adequately prepared for her managerial responsibilities. She is, however, according to the registered qualifications, adequately qualified;.. to exercise effective quality control and assurance in the various nursing disciplines. Consequently national nursing service standards for private hospitals were formulated. These standards were validated bya representative group of national experts. The validation process consisted of a two-stage research technique. The statistical validity was calculated by means of a content validity index for each standard. Fourteen (N=275) of these standards (5%) were rejected by the whole group and 25 (9%) require reformulation. The respondents from the private sector rejected three more standards. Standards form the basis of the quality assurance process. These standards should equip the nurse administrator with valuable guidelines to promote a high standard of nursing service management in private hospitals. It is recommended that these standards should serve as optimum standards for nurse administrators in private hospitals.

O comércio internacional contemporâneo caracteriza-se pela perda de importância relativa das medidas de natureza tarifária e pela crescente relevância simultaneamente assumida por exigências regulatórias (técnicas, sanitárias e fitossanitárias) de caráter não tarifário. A profusão dessas medidas, destinadas a estabelecer características de produtos ou processos e métodos de produção, é beneficiada pelo protagonismo assumido pelos agentes de mercado, empenhados em impor, à revelia do sistema multilateral de comércio, um arcabouço regulatório distinto, tematicamente mais amplo e geograficamente mais fragmentado. A emergência de uma governança, promovida por uma constelação de agentes privados interessados na determinação dessas medidas, rivaliza, portanto, com a tradicional liderança exercida pelos Estados, cuja atuação está circunscrita aos limites impostos pelos acordos da Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC). Nesse contexto, o presente trabalho sustenta que a transferência gradual de responsabilidade pelo controle do espaço regulatório a fontes não tradicionais de poder, tais como os agentes de mercado, representa uma escolha voluntária e refletida dos Estados, ainda que sob pena de esvaziamento da arena multilateral como espaço exclusivo de construção de regras. Embora esta calibrada fragilização da organização aparente representar um risco ao próprio sistema internacional de comércio, tal deflexão acaba por assegurar aos Estados o espaço político requerido para acomodações de poder, com simultânea preservação dos ganhos auferidos em outras esferas da agenda multilateral. / Contemporary international trade is characterized by the loss of relative importance of tariff measures and the growing relevance of non-tariff regulatory requirements (technical, sanitary and phytosanitary). The profusion of these measures, designed to establish characteristics of products or processes and production methods, benefits from the leading role played by market players, who are committed to impose, in default of the multilateral trading system, a distinct, thematically broader and geographically more fragmented regulatory framework. The emergence of a new governance, led by a constellation of private agents interested in the creation of these measures, therefore rivals the traditional leadership exercised by States, whose performance is limited to the limits imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. In this context, the present paper argues that the gradual transfer of responsibility for the control of the regulatory space to non-traditional sources of power, such as market agents, represents a voluntary and reflected choice of States, although it may happen under penalty of emptying the multilateral arena as an exclusive rule-making space. While this calibrated weakening of the organization seems to pose a risk to the international trading system, such a deflation ultimately provides States with the policy space required for power accommodation, with simultaneous preservation of gains earned in other spheres of the multilateral agenda.

Esta dissertação de mestrado trata do fenômeno da regulação público-privada e da mudança do clima, com ênfase na influência que os padrões de sustentabilidade relativos à emissão de Gases de Efeito Estufa - GEEs, pode ter sobre este debate. Para tanto, em primeiro lugar, buscou-se aprofundar a compreensão sobre a ascensão dos atores não estatais como agentes fundamentais do processo de regulação em arenas nacionais e transnacionais. Abordagens do Direito, da Economia, da Ciência Política e das Relações Internacionais tratam o fenômeno da regulação privada sob óticas distintas, que ora dialogam entre si, ora não. De onde advém a legitimidade e a autoridade da regulação privada? Qual o seu alcance? Diversas perguntar nascem no seio deste debate, que culmina no conceito de padrões de sustentabilidade. Os padrões de sustentabilidade são o objeto desta pesquisa, que também se debruça sobre a ampla discussão do papel que estes padrões exercem, ou podem exercer no futuro, sobre o comércio internacional. Não há consenso na literatura sobre esse ponto, a despeito de uma prevalência da visão clássica da Economia e do Direito, de que este tipo de regulação é potencialmente danoso à estrutura de governança global estabelecida, a saber, a Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC). Finalmente, o estudo aprofunda as análises sobre o papel dos padrões de sustentabilidade relativos à mudança do clima, caracterizados, especificamente, por possuírem como marca principal a contabilidade da pegada de carbono de produtos, serviços e processos. As reflexões propostas abarcam tanto a capacidade destes \'padrões de sustentabilidade de carbono\' de mitigar emissões de GEEs, quanto o seu eventual impacto sobre o comércio internacional. As conclusões abrem a discussão para uma agenda futura de pesquisa sobre o tema. / This master\'s thesis deals with the phenomenon of public-private regulation and climate change, with emphasis on the influence that the private standards regarding the emission of Greenhouse Gases, can have on this debate. Firstly, we sought to deepen our understanding of the rise of non-state actors as fundamental agents of the regulation process in national and transnational arenas. Approaches from the law, economics, political science, and international relations fields deal with the phenomenon of private regulation under different optics, which may or may not be interconnected. Where does the legitimacy and authority of private regulation come from? What is its scope? Several questions are born within this debate, culminating in the concept of private standards. Private standards are the object of this research, which also deals with the broad discussion of the role that these standards play, or may have in the future, over international trade. There is no consensus in the literature on this point, despite a prevalence of the classical view from economics and law that this type of regulation is potentially damaging to the established global governance structure, namely the World Trade Organization (WTO). Finally, the study further analyzes the role of private standards related to climate change, characterized for accounting the carbon footprint of products, services and processes. The proposed reflections cover both the ability of these \'private carbon standards\' to mitigate GHG emissions and their impact on international trade. The conclusions open the discussion for a future research agenda on the topic.

Esta dissertação de mestrado trata do fenômeno da regulação público-privada e da mudança do clima, com ênfase na influência que os padrões de sustentabilidade relativos à emissão de Gases de Efeito Estufa - GEEs, pode ter sobre este debate. Para tanto, em primeiro lugar, buscou-se aprofundar a compreensão sobre a ascensão dos atores não estatais como agentes fundamentais do processo de regulação em arenas nacionais e transnacionais. Abordagens do Direito, da Economia, da Ciência Política e das Relações Internacionais tratam o fenômeno da regulação privada sob óticas distintas, que ora dialogam entre si, ora não. De onde advém a legitimidade e a autoridade da regulação privada? Qual o seu alcance? Diversas perguntar nascem no seio deste debate, que culmina no conceito de padrões de sustentabilidade. Os padrões de sustentabilidade são o objeto desta pesquisa, que também se debruça sobre a ampla discussão do papel que estes padrões exercem, ou podem exercer no futuro, sobre o comércio internacional. Não há consenso na literatura sobre esse ponto, a despeito de uma prevalência da visão clássica da Economia e do Direito, de que este tipo de regulação é potencialmente danoso à estrutura de governança global estabelecida, a saber, a Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC). Finalmente, o estudo aprofunda as análises sobre o papel dos padrões de sustentabilidade relativos à mudança do clima, caracterizados, especificamente, por possuírem como marca principal a contabilidade da pegada de carbono de produtos, serviços e processos. As reflexões propostas abarcam tanto a capacidade destes \'padrões de sustentabilidade de carbono\' de mitigar emissões de GEEs, quanto o seu eventual impacto sobre o comércio internacional. As conclusões abrem a discussão para uma agenda futura de pesquisa sobre o tema. / This master\'s thesis deals with the phenomenon of public-private regulation and climate change, with emphasis on the influence that the private standards regarding the emission of Greenhouse Gases, can have on this debate. Firstly, we sought to deepen our understanding of the rise of non-state actors as fundamental agents of the regulation process in national and transnational arenas. Approaches from the law, economics, political science, and international relations fields deal with the phenomenon of private regulation under different optics, which may or may not be interconnected. Where does the legitimacy and authority of private regulation come from? What is its scope? Several questions are born within this debate, culminating in the concept of private standards. Private standards are the object of this research, which also deals with the broad discussion of the role that these standards play, or may have in the future, over international trade. There is no consensus in the literature on this point, despite a prevalence of the classical view from economics and law that this type of regulation is potentially damaging to the established global governance structure, namely the World Trade Organization (WTO). Finally, the study further analyzes the role of private standards related to climate change, characterized for accounting the carbon footprint of products, services and processes. The proposed reflections cover both the ability of these \'private carbon standards\' to mitigate GHG emissions and their impact on international trade. The conclusions open the discussion for a future research agenda on the topic.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-12-06T18:30:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Carvalho de Abreu Lima.pdf: 5595939 bytes, checksum: e79cfe30c913399a99094dec03e69e01 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-06T18:30:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Carvalho de Abreu Lima.pdf: 5595939 bytes, checksum: e79cfe30c913399a99094dec03e69e01 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-21 / The goal of this research is to analyze whether the World Trade Organization regulates the design, adoption and the effects of private standards on international trade, established with the aim at achieving environmental, sanitary and phytosanitary purposes, or if this agenda is purely private and falls outside the rules of the multilateral trading system. With the surge of different private standards, usually created by industries, banks, NGOs, producers, supermarkets, academy and including, in some cases, WTO Members, the developing countries and least developed countries raise concerns about possible trade barriers, which is becoming a common agenda for the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade, the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the Committee on Trade and Environment. Assess whether the WTO regulates the private standards, or how it contemplates the discussions around reducing greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity conservation and water use, becomes essential considering that the environmental agenda gains strength and entails the adoption of measures that may affect international trade. This research considers the evolution of environmental issues in the GATT-WTO system as a way to set parameters of the multilateral trading rules related to those issues. In addition, it will detail the different models of private standards and organizations that encourage standardization as a means to achieve environmental objectives or related food safety goals. Finally, the case law of the GATT-WTO will be considered, in order to assess if the WTO has jurisdiction or not over private standards. Hence, the main objective of the thesis is to question the WTO's ability to regulate the adoption of private standards and, in addition, discuss how this debate can evolve under the TBT and the SPS Agreements, or even in the Committee on Trade and Environment / O objeto da presente pesquisa é analisar se a Organização Mundial do Comércio regula a criação, adoção e efeitos de padrões privados ao comércio que visam atingir fins ambientais, sanitários e fitossanitários, ou se essa agenda é exclusivamente privada e fica fora das regras do comércio internacional. Com o surgimento de inúmeros modelos de padrões privados, normalmente criados por indústrias, bancos, ONGs, produtores, redes de supermercados, academia, incluindo, em certos casos, Membros da OMC, a preocupação de países em desenvolvimento e países de menor desenvolvimento relativo quanto ao surgimento de barreiras ao comércio se torna marcante no âmbito do Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade, do Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures e do Committee on Trade and Environment. Avaliar se a OMC regula esses padrões, ou de que maneira contempla a discussão de temas como redução de emissões de gases de efeito estufa, conservação da biodiversidade e uso da água torna-se essencial na medida em que a agenda ambiental ganha força e enseja a adoção de medidas que podem afetar o comércio internacional. A pesquisa considera a evolução dos temas ambientais no sistema GATT-OMC, como forma de estabelecer os parâmetros da regulamentação do comércio multilateral no tocante a questões ambientais. Além disso, detalha os diferentes modelos de padrões privados e organizações que incentivam a padronização como meio para se atingir objetivos ambientais ou relacionados a segurança dos alimentos. Por fim, a jurisprudência do GATT-OMC será analisada como forma de comprovar ou não que a OMC regula os padrões privados. O maior objetivo da tese é questionar a capacidade da OMC de regular a adoção dos padrões privados e, paralelamente, debater de que forma essa discussão pode evoluir no âmbito dos Acordos TBT e SPS, ou mesmo no Committee on Trade and Environment

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-12-21T11:26:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Cardeal de Oliveira Arneiro.pdf: 1407359 bytes, checksum: 5f398c30ff5997fedefd1e89ac0ca309 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-21T11:26:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Cardeal de Oliveira Arneiro.pdf: 1407359 bytes, checksum: 5f398c30ff5997fedefd1e89ac0ca309 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-14 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / This dissertation aims to analyse the responsibility of WTO Member for the so-called private standards, in the light of the State responsibility in international law for the acts of private persons. It proposes a dialogue of integration of the general international law, understood as lex generalis, with the WTO law, that is the lex generalis assuming the hypothesis that the application of States international practice supposedly gives more unity to international public law and effectiveness to WTO law. The development of the research is justified in the exploratory and hypothetic-deductive method, from the functions of the State international responsibility and the conventional and consuetudinary rules codified by the International Law Comission (ILC). The Agreements TBT and SPS foresee the Members’ duty to assure that the agreement provisions, v.g. the most favoured nation principles and the prohibition of unnecessary or excessive non-tariff barriers, should be accomplished also by the nongovernmental standardizing bodies. With that regard this study approaches the categories of State responsibility for private acts stated on the ILC Draft Articles of 2001 to the situations where Members can incur in responsibility for involvement. This assertion is valid not only for the TBT Agreement but also to SPS Agreement, thanks to the interpretative function of the lex generalis. Finally it confirms the hypothesis that application of international responsibility law, as a soft law, ought contribute to effectiveness of WTO law, as it impedes Members to use ways of damaging thirds, though mechanisms of collaboration with private parties under their control, supervision or direction / Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de analisar a responsabilidade dos Membros da OMC pelos chamados padrões privados, à luz do direito da responsabilidade internacional do Estado por atos de particulares. Realiza-se um diálogo de integração do direito internacional geral, na forma de lex generalis, com o direito da OMC, na condição de lex specialis, abordagem que se justifica tendo em vista a hipótese que a aplicação da prática internacional pode conferir maior unidade ao direito internacional público e eficácia ao direito da OMC. O desenvolvimento do trabalho se orienta por um método exploratório e hipotético-dedutivo, a partir das funções da responsabilidade internacional do Estado e da identificação das regras, convencionais e costumeiras, codificadas pela CDI. Os Acordos TBT e SPS preveem o dever dos Membros de assegurar que as disposições dos acordos – como o princípio da nação mais favorecida e a proibição de medidas não-tarifárias desnecessárias ou excessivas – sejam cumpridas também pelos órgãos padronizadores não-governamentais. Nesse mister, estudo aproxima as categorias de responsabilidade do Estado por atos de particulares do Projeto de Artigos da CDI de 2001 das situações em que pode haver responsabilidade do Membro sobre os padrões privados, encontrando-se duas categorias: responsabilidade por omissão e responsabilidade por envolvimento, operação válida não só para as violações ao Acordo TBT, mas também ao Acordo SPS, tendo em vista a função interpretativa da lex generalis. Ao fim, confirma-se a hipótese de que a aplicação do direito da responsabilidade internacional, na condição de soft law, pode contribuir para a efetividade do direito da OMC, ao impedir que Membros utilizem de artifícios para prejudicar terceiros, utilizando mecanismos de colaboração com particulares sob seu controle, supervisão ou direção