Chaire de recherche du Canada en ÉPI
Équipe
Benjamin Tremblay-Auger is a master's student in economics at Laval University (M.A.). He also holds a B.A. with distinction in economics and mathematics from the same institution. He worked at the Canada Research Chair in International Political Economy in 2017 and 2018. He participated in the construction of a new database of nearly 3000 international environmental agreements and is currently working with Jean-Frédéric Morin and Claire Peacock on several research projects using this database.
Benjamin received scholarships from the SSHRC, the National Bank and the Department of National Defence for his master's degree and was awarded a scholarship from the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation to fund a one-year exchange at the University of Toronto (2016-2017). He also made the Dean's list for his undergraduate academic performance.
Research interest
Armed conflicts; international development; rational design of international institutions.
Cours enseignés
Current research project
"Financer la discorde", Études internationales, review and resubmit.
"Treaty Design under Power Asymmetry: Counterbalancing Pooling with Flexibility", with Jean-Frédéric Morin and Claire Peacock, submitted to The Review of International Organizations.
Articles scientifiques
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Morin, JF, B. Tremblay-Auger, and C Peacock (2022) "Design Trade-Offs Under Power Asymmetry: COPs and Flexibility Clauses ", Global Environmental Politics, 22 (1) 19-43.
Negotiating parties to an environmental agreement can manage uncertainty by including flexibility clauses, such as escape and withdrawal clauses. This article investigates a type of uncertainty so far overlooked by the literature: the uncertainty generated by the creation of a Conference of the Parties (COPs) in a context of sharp power asymmetry. When negotiating an agreement, it is difficult for powerful states to make a credible commitment to weaker states, whereby they will not abuse their power to influence future COP decision-making. Flexibility clauses provide a solution to this credibility issue. They act as an insurance mechanism in case a powerful state hijack the COP. Thus, we expect that the creation of a collective body interacts with the degree of power asymmetry to make flexibility clauses more likely in environmental agreements. To test this argument, we draw on an original dataset of several specific clauses in 2,090 environmental agreements, signed between 1945 and 2018. The results support our hypothesis and suggest that flexibility clauses are an important design feature of adaptive environmental agreements.