Palm oil production is currently the focus of contentious debate. On the one hand, it yields positive socio-economic impacts and can be a powerful engine for rural development. On the other hand, it can generate severe negative impacts regarding ecological and social sustainability....

The availability of trade finance can be an important driver for international trade. This paper analyses the effect of trade finance on the trade flows of industrialized, emerging and developing economies and focuses in particular on the role of trade openness. We use Berne Union data on export...

With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the entry into force of the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community has inter alia pledged their commitment to economic development that is consistent with environmental sustainability. This paper focuses on the...

In diesem Papier werden exemplarisch drei Themen im Kontext von Umweltschutz und internationalem Handel diskutiert: erstens, die Rolle des globalen Handelsregimes für die Ausgestaltung von Umweltpolitiken, zweitens, die Folgen des Regulierungswettbewerbs für das Niveau von...

Palm oil production is currently the focus of much contentious debate. On the one hand, palm oil production has a substantial, positive (socio-) economic impact in countries which produce it, like Indonesia, and is a powerful engine of rural development. On the other hand, palm oil production...

Global economic governance stands for the institutions, regulations and mechanisms that manage the increasing interdependency of global challenges in the world economy and forms the foundation of stable global economic development. However, global economic governance remains largely mired in...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is currently the subject of heated debate – but with a narrow focus. The debate is primarily concerned with the impact of TTIP on Germany and Europe. Too little attention is being paid to the implications of this mega-regional for the...

The UN Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa in July 2015 will pave the way for the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda. The Briefing Paper series “Financing Global Development” analyses key financial and non-financial means of implementation for the new...

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted a new global development framework, the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs thereby replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were supposed to be realized...

Mitigating climate change and limiting global warming to no more than 2°C require a fast and radical transformation of politics, the economy and society. Worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases need to fall to zero by 2100. Action needs to be even faster in the case of carbon dioxide (CO2),...