A Critical Constructivist Theory of Regime Interplay: The World Trade Organization and the Kyoto Protocol.

Recent scholarly work on the interplay between international regimes has proceeded from a rationalist research agenda and has been largely preoccupied with developing taxonomies or conceptual maps of different types of regime interplay and exploring ways of 'optimising synergies' between overlapping regimes. This paper develops an alternative, critical constructivist framework for understanding regime interplay that directs attention not only to direct interplay between regime rules and principles but also the interplay between the discourses that surround, shape and constrain how actors interpret and seek to reconcile actual conflict, or prevent potential conflict, between regimes. The added-value of this approach is illustrated through an examination of the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Kyoto Protocol. It is shown that, despite the considerable potential for conflict between the regimes, rule-collision has been avoided through a process of 'self-censorship' on the part of the negotiators of the climate regime in determining the kinds of policy instruments that might be used to realize the regime's objectives. This 'self-censorship' is the result of the dominance (if not triumph) of a market-friendly transnational discourse of trade-environment integration that focuses on efficiency gains from technological innovation that had become internationally established before the completion of the Uruguay Round and the establishment of the WTO. However, the WTO has since played a significant role in articulating and reinforcing this discourse. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]