The roles of provinces and devolved administrations in the negotiation and implementation of a Canada-UK trade agreement

在2016年英国脱欧公投后，英国首相特蕾莎·梅表示，英国政府希望迅速与加拿大达成一项新的贸易协定，以加拿大-欧盟《全面经济贸易协定》(CETA)为蓝本，英国一旦脱离欧盟，将被排除在该协定之外。有趣的是，这项协议是加拿大各省在谈判的每个阶段都直接参与的第一个加拿大自由贸易协定。除了在很大程度上由魁北克省省长让·查雷斯特发起贸易谈判外，各省从一开始就深入参与制定加拿大谈判授权本身。相比之下，目前尚不清楚英国下放的政府和议会(苏格兰、北爱尔兰和威尔士)在谈判、影响或实施未来与加拿大达成的此类贸易协定方面可能扮演什么角色。虽然有让权力下放国家参与制定欧洲政策的机制，但英国宪法没有明确的原则或教条，规定权力下放国家在制定贸易政策方面应该扮演什么角色。此外，英国权力下放的不对称性质，使权力下放的政府和议会参与贸易谈判变得更加复杂。由于英国和加拿大不在相同的宪法原则下运作，对地方政府在此类贸易谈判中已经扮演和可能发挥的作用进行比较分析是合适的。它将对贸易政策的多层次治理可能产生的优势、实用性和冲突，以及它对与贸易(例如农业补贴)间接相关的责任下放的影响提供重要的见解。它还将提供关于加拿大-英国双边贸易谈判如何在次国家行为者参与方面产生新的创新方法的见解。因此，这种知识综合的目标将有两重：第一，使人们能够更好地了解这两种模式之间的差异、它们的理论和实践理由、它们的长处和弱点，以及在双边谈判之后如何调和它们；第二，吸取经验教训，说明各省和权力下放地区对加拿大和联合王国今后贸易谈判的参与可能如何展开，但也许最重要的是，在这两种情况下，如何在可能的范围内改进和最大限度地利用这一点。

Following the vote on Brexit in 2016, the British Prime Minister Theresa May stated that its government hoped to reach a new trade agreement with Canada rapidly, to be modeled after the Canada-EU "Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement" (CETA) of which the UK will be excluded once it leaves the European Union. This agreement, interestingly, was the first Canadian free trade deal for which Canadian provinces were directly involved at every stage of the negotiations. In addition to trade talks have been initiated in good part by Quebec's Premier Jean Charest, provinces were deeply engaged, from the onset, in formulating the Canadian negotiating mandate itself. By contrast, it remains unclear what role the UK's devolved governments and parliaments (Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) may have in negotiating, influencing or implementing such a future trade deal with Canada. Whilst there were mechanisms for the involvement of devolved nations in making European policy, the UK constitution has no clear principles or doctrine as to the roles that devolved nations should play in making trade policy. Moreover, the asymmetric nature of UK devolution complicates the involvement of the devolved governments and parliaments in trade negotiations. Since the UK and Canada do not function under the same constitutional principles, a comparative analysis of the roles subnational governments have played and could play in such trade negotiations is in order. It will offer important insights about the advantages, practicalities and conflicts that can emerge from the multi-level governance of trade policy, and about its implications for devolved responsibilities indirectly linked to trade (e.g. agriculture subsidies). It will also provide insights as to how a bilateral Canada-UK trade negotiation could produce new and innovative approaches with regards to the involvement of substate actors. The goals of this knowledge synthesis, accordingly, will be twofold: first, to allow for a better understanding of the differences between the two models, of their theoretical and practical justifications, of their strengths and weaknesses, and of the ways in which they could be reconciled in the wake of bilateral negotiations; and second, to draw lessons as to how the participation of provinces and devolved regions in future trade negotiations between Canada and the UK might unfold, but perhaps most importantly as to how it could be improved and maximized, within the realm of possibility, in both cases.