THE PURSUIT OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS by Luchino Ferraris Published by Wageningen Academic, 2020, 288 pp., €59.00, paperback.

• Date: 01 November 2020
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12353
• Author: Bernard O’Connor

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel RECIEL. 2020;29:498–506.© 2020 Wiley Peri odicals LLC

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12353

BOOK REVIEWS

THE PURSUIT OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

IN EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS by Luchin o Ferraris

Published by Wageningen Acade mic, 2020, 288 pp., € 59.00, paperback.

The Pursuit of Sus tainable Agr iculture in EU Free Trade Agreements is

a relatively sho rt book that delive rs more than its tit le would lead

you to expect. Wag eningen Academic mu st be praised for pu blish-

ing it and Luchin o Ferraris must be th anked for his disciplin e and

thoroughnes s in the writing of it. T he book is divided into t hree

parts, ea ch of which has two chapters. Par t I examines the ideas of

sustainable development and sustainable agriculture in the context

of European Union (EU ) law and policy, Part II ex amines free trad e

agreements (F TAs) and how sustainabil ity can be built into t hem, and

Part III exam ines six different FTAs bet ween the EU and third coun-

tries. Each pa rt ends with a very useful sum mary of the findin gs of

its chapters .

The first t wo chapters examine w hat is meant by the sust ain-

ability of agri cultural produc tion in the EU. The auth or observes

that the EU is only gr adually integrating the id eas of sustainability

into agricultur al policy and that much is stil l to be done. However,

these two chap ters will be of interest to any read er seeking to un-

derstand the integration of the idea of sustainable development

into EU treaty law an d the application of tha t idea to one particula r

policy area. I t was useful that the aut hor chose to examine t his

issue prior to plu nging into the EU’s FTAs. The p uzzle remains as

to what exactl y sustainable agr iculture is. The aut hor lists decou-

pling, cross-com pliance and greening, that is, 3 0 percent of direct

payments being dependent on crop diversification, maintenance

of permanent gr assland and creatio n of ecological focus ar eas as

elements of sustainability in the 2014–2020 agricultural financing

period. But as t he author makes clear, it is stil l not known what sus-

tainable agr iculture will look like for the n ext financial period fr om

2021 to 2027. The European Commis sion’s Farm to Fork Strategy,

which is designed to introduce ideas of sustainability into agricul-

tural produc tion and the food chain in gen eral, was only published

on 20 May 2020 and it is too e arly to say how many of its ideas w ill

survive into law.

In recognition t hat there is no agreed legal d efinition (nor even a

clear scientific understanding) of the concept of sustainable agricul-

ture, Chapter 1 ex amines the wider idea, and th e relevance, of sus-

tainable devel opment in EU law. It looks at the na ture of the concept

of sustainabl e development in law and in legal the ory. This chapter

points out that d espite the dramatic switc h of EU agricultural policy

from the promot ion of production at a ny cost to the promotion of

value added an d quality products, t he objectives for agricultu re set

out in Articl e 39 of the Lisbon Treaty have not chan ged since the late

1950s. Environment al protection as an ide a, if that is what defin es

sustainabl e agriculture, is to be foun d in Article 11 of the Treaty. The

current legal framework for EU agricultural policy, as interpreted by

the EU courts , gives the legislator a very wi de discretion in defining

actual agric ultural policy. To date, this problem of what su stainable

agriculture is h as been addressed more sharp ly by economists than

lawyers.

Chapter 2 examin es in more detail the n otion of sustainab le

agriculture. I t asks how, even if there can b e some understa nding

of elements of sus tainability at t he very local or fa rm level, these

notions can be tr anslated into EU-wide le gal norms or stan dards.

The author give s us a potted history of th e EU Common Agricultu ral

Policy (CAP) and h ow ideas of environment al protection and su stain-

ability were bu ilt into the 2013 CAP mode l that applied from 2014

to 2020. That being s aid, having raised the q uestion of the defini tion

of sustainable agriculture, this chapter would have benefited from

an examination of t he distinction betwe en sustainable and enviro n-

mentally friendly agriculture. When different words are used, even

when describing the same phenomenon, lawyers should address the

reasons why and, to t he extent that there are dif ferences, what the

impact of thos e differences are. B ut maybe this is asking too much

of the author at thi s stage of the development of th e debate and EU

policy. The very a bsence of clear ideas f rom the Treaty and from

policymakers makes this examination difficult.

Chapter 3 of the boo k looks at the EU’s FTAs in th e context of

the common commercial policy, World Trade Organization (WTO)

rules and the va rious types of FTAs accordi ng to the different wider

ambitions of the EU i n pursuing them. By way of intro duction, FTAs

are exceptions to th e general most-favoured-nation no n-discrimina-

tion rule of Ar ticle I of the General Agre ement on Tariffs and Trade

(GATT) and the wid er WTO. These agree ments allow two or mo re

trading par tners to discriminate agains t all, in favour of the (usually

but not always) two pa rticipants. To ensure W TO compatibilit y,

the FTAs must add ress substantial ly all trade betwe en the parties .

Squeezing agr iculture into these a greements so as to ac hieve the

‘substantially all’ requirement has always been difficult, particularly

for the EU, and has resu lted in market access ar rangements that

struggle to m eet the common-sense idea or s tandard of ‘free trad e’.

There are FTAs wit h EU accession candidates , FTAs with neighbour-

ing countries in w hich the EU tries to spread its obj ectives without

offering mem bership, FTAs with gro ups of African, Ca ribbean and

Pacific (ACP) coun tries each of which, i n effect, used to h ave a bi-

lateral FTA with the EU a nd FTAs with countries where the EU ha s

significant ma rket access interest s. The author comm ents that in

all this it can be s aid that agriculture has widel y resisted free trade.

That being said , all EU FTAs agreed since the adop tion of the Lisbon

Treaty have had chapter s on sustainability, the envi ronment and so-

cial rights.

Chapter 4 examines the trade and sustainable development (TSD)

chapters in ‘mod ern’ EU FTAs. The chapter lo oks at the notion and