Risk Regulation, Science and Interests in Transatlantic Trade Conflicts

The intersection of risk and trade has resulted in protracted and acrimonious trade conflict that questions the right of sovereign states to address the threat of harm. When regions such as Canada, the US and the EU have disagreed over the legitimacy of risk perceptions, they have placed science at the centre of international trade conflict. In these moments, scholarly attention has focused on the WTO's Dispute Settlement System. However, formal trade disputes occur as a last resort after states have exhausted other avenues for trade conflict resolution. By looking across cases disputed and informally resolved, David Hornsby offers to deepen understanding of how interests, institutions and ideas involved in risk based trade conflict interact and explain transatlantic differences. Through giving explicit attention to the role of science in these moments, a new variable for understanding trade conflict over risk based issues is considered.

David J Hornsby is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has published in both the biological and social sciences and maintains research interests in trade politics, the politics of risk regulation, middle power cooperation, and large class pedagogy.