Jurisdictional Integration: How Economic Globalisation Is Changing State Sovereignty

Abstract

Despite intense debate over the impact of globalisation on state sovereignty, there is a gap in the literature on conceptualisation, measurement, and research on the depth of international policy cooperation. This thesis introduces a new concept, jurisdictional integration, defined as international agreements that constrain, to varying degrees, a state's jurisdiction to make or enforce policies free from external involvement. State jurisdiction - the recognized authority to govern by domestic law - is a more coherent and tractable concept than the traditional concept of Westphalian sovereignty. A generic spectrum of points of increasing integration of state jurisdiction is presented, together with a taxonomy of points of increasing depth of international economic policy cooperation. The practicality and value of the framework is illustrated in two ways. First, an empirical analysis is presented of the depth of jurisdictional integration in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), using WTO data, to test hypotheses of the relationship between economic integration and the depth of policy cooperation in RTAs. The results indicate that the average frequency of occurrence of the deep policy cooperation provisions increased by 118% in RTAs signed 1990-1998 compared to those signed prior to 1990. Secondly, international cooperation in competition policy is analysed through compilation of a new database of stand-alone Competition Enforcement Agreements (CEAs), and the provisions in the Competition Policy Chapters of RTAs. Ordinal indices of increasing depth of jurisdictional integration with respect to competition policy are developed. New families of agreements are identified through vector analysis. Ninety-two international agreements are ranked on an enforcement cooperation index, and are used to test descriptive propositions about international competition policy cooperation. There are an increasing number of North-South agreements; and there has been both a widening and deepening of enforcement cooperation over time. Contingency table analysis is conducted of the relationship, given the existence of an agreement, between depth of enforcement cooperation and predictor variables. Whether all signatories are OECD members is a very good predictor of deep enforcement cooperation. A lack of similarity between substantive competition laws is a very good predictor of low enforcement cooperation. The level of trade integration is a moderately good predictor of the depth of enforcement cooperation; while geographic proximity is a good predictor for RTAs but not for CEAs. The depth of cooperation is almost independent of the level of economic asymmetry between signatories. These results are consistent with theories of regulatory competition and elite norm diffusion as causal mechanisms of increased international economic policy cooperation. The depth of enforcement cooperation is also found to be a very good predictor of whether agreements are "intergovernmental" or transgovernmental. The thesis suggests that the concept of jurisdictional integration can make a significant contribution to measuring the depth of all types of international economic cooperation agreements, and potentially also to cooperation in noneconomic domains; to research on the causes and consequences of international policy cooperation; and to policy development and public debate on the management of globalisation.