Procedures matter: Justice and effectiveness in international trade negotiations
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Author | Cecilia Albin,Daniel Druckman |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066114523654 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of
International Relations
2014, Vol. 20(4) 1014 –1042
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066114523654
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E
JR
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Procedures matter: Justice and
effectiveness in international
trade negotiations
Cecilia Albin
Uppsala University, Sweden
Daniel Druckman
George Mason University, USA, Macquarie University, Australia
Abstract
International negotiators have faced repeated stalemates in a number of significant areas.
Justice issues are at the heart of the matter in many cases, as vividly illustrated by trade
negotiations, particularly at the multilateral level. Yet, issues of justice have received
limited attention in research on trade negotiation. This article asks: do trade negotiators
who take justice principles into account arrive at more effective agreements? Specifically,
it explores relationships between two types of justice during the negotiation process —
procedural and distributive justice — and the effectiveness of outcomes (agreements)
in 22 cases of bilateral and multilateral international trade negotiation. It evaluates
the impacts of these types of justice on negotiation effectiveness. The results from
analyses clearly demonstrate that procedural justice plays a central role in contributing
to effective outcomes in both bilateral and multilateral trade cases. The correlations
between procedural justice and effectiveness are very strong, and significantly stronger
than between distributive justice and effectiveness. Moreover, distributive justice
impacts upon effectiveness only when procedural justice principles are observed.
These findings contribute knowledge about factors that enhance effective outcomes in
international negotiations. They extend earlier work on justice in peace agreements and
fill a gap in the research literature. They also provide advice for negotiators, and add
important questions to the future research agenda.
Keywords
Distributive justice, effective agreements, international trade negotiations, procedural
justice
Corresponding author:
Daniel Druckman, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, 4400
University Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA.
Email: dandruckman@yahoo.com
523654EJT0010.1177/1354066114523654European Journal of International RelationsAlbin and Druckman
research-article2014
Article
Albin and Druckman 1015
International negotiations are an essential tool to tackle global issues and problems. Yet,
they have faced repeated stalemates or slowed down in a number of areas. While the
reasons are many and complex, justice issues are at the heart of the matter in many cases.
Vivid examples are found in trade negotiations, and receive most attention at the multi-
lateral level. Talks within the World Trade Organization (WTO) continue to suffer from
charges of unjust negotiation and decision-making procedures, despite improvements in
recent years (see Elsig and Pollack, forthcoming). These negotiating procedures — in
particular, charges of insufficient representation of parties and lack of transparency —
have contributed significantly to setbacks in the WTO talks (see Albin, 2008; Warwick
Commission, 2007). Difficult disagreements over issues of distributive justice have also
contributed to the current stalemate in the latest Doha Round of multilateral trade talks,
particularly in the discussions about how to implement the stated commitment to devel-
opment. Clearly, justice issues can be disruptive and have a bearing on negotiation
effectiveness.
Researchers have demonstrated that justice issues influence the dynamics and out-
come of international negotiations (e.g. Albin, 2001; Wagner and Druckman, 2012;
Zartman and Kremenyuk, 2005). However, no work to date has systematically examined
if and how procedural justice (PJ), that is, the justice of the process and procedures
whereby negotiations are conducted, and distributive justice (DJ), the justice of the allo-
cation of benefits and burdens in the outcome, influence the outcome of negotiation. This
study is designed to help fill that gap. The focus is on international trade negotiations.
They represent a significant area of international activity and are laden with problems of
justice that may influence the effectiveness of outcomes, as several case-study analysts
have shown (Albin, 2008; Kapstein, 2006). Conflicts arise due to the way that justice is
defined by different parties and by the preferred DJ principle to use for allocation, par-
ticularly with regard to differences in power (e.g. proportionality versus equality). These
conflicts slow negotiations and may result in less effective or suboptimal outcomes.
However, analyses to date have focused for the most part on single cases. An attempt is
made in this article to perform comparative analyses across a set of bilateral and multi-
lateral trade cases.
Specifically, the study elaborates a set of hypotheses about the impact of PJ and DJ
on, and their relative importance for, effective outcomes in international negotiations.
‘Effectiveness’ is defined in terms of several dimensions: extent of agreement (among
parties, on issues), time to reach agreement, comprehensiveness, and quality (see fur-
ther discussion below). These hypotheses are then explored on a selection of 22 cases
of bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations using statistical methods, along with
qualitative analyses of selected cases. The overarching purpose is to contribute both
theoretically and empirically to existing knowledge about factors that enhance the
effectiveness of negotiated outcomes, and about the specific roles of different types of
justice.
In the first section, we outline our general approach to the question of how to define
and recognize adherence to justice principles. Second, we place our research problem in
the context of the existing research literature and present the hypotheses. Third, the data
set used is presented. Fourth, the methods are discussed, including key variables, coding
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