Abstract/Summary

This thesis provides a holistic examination of the role of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) in shaping the global trade of palm oil, assessing their impact through the lens of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It navigates the complexities of the palm oil industry, a sector central to global agricultural trade and rife with sustainability challenges. This research elucidates how NTMs, employed by importing nations, affect trade dynamics and explores whether these regulatory tools are linked to SDGs, particularly in light of environmental concerns such as deforestation, thus shedding light on their standard-like role. A significant 68.6% of total palm oil production is exported, predominantly from Indonesia and Malaysia, which jointly account for 84% of these exports. The global reliance on their output, coupled with the wide-ranging applications of palm oil, underscores the sector's expansive growth and its profound economic, social, and environmental footprint. The thesis identifies a diverse array of NTMs applied by key importers, highlighting the nuanced policy landscape that palm oil exporters navigate. The study highlights that while private certification schemes like RSPO strive to enhance sustainability, their limitations necessitate public policy support, with new NTMs, such as those under the EUDR, emerging to strengthen palm oil trade sustainability. A quantitative analysis, grounded in the gravity model of international trade, dissects the multifaceted impact of NTMs on trade flows. The findings reveal that technical NTMs generally hinder trade, whereas non-technical measures may facilitate it. This nuanced impact is further influenced by country characteristics such as income level, participation in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), and accumulated trade experience. In exploring the interplay between NTMs and SDGs, the thesis reveals that NTMs linked with SDGs, which prioritize food safety and sustainable practices, tend to have a less pronounced negative effect on trade when compared to NTMs that lack such a linkage to SDGs. However, it also notes a critical gap in current measures: none directly target the environmental and social sustainability challenges most pertinent to the palm oil industry, such as deforestation and biodiversity protection in the environmental sphere, and human and cultural preservation in the social one.