Challenging the EU Deforestation Regulation: sovereignty games as authority contests in global governance

Abstract Supply chain due diligence laws (SCDDLs) are contested as sovereignty intrusions for unilaterally barring imports if their production involves social and environmental abuses. This article asks how rule-makers claim authority to unilaterally make rules for other states, how rule-takers contest them and how authority relations are reordered as a result. It examines contention over the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), an especially intrusive SCDDL, as a sovereignty game, with Malaysia and Indonesia as its rule-taking challengers. The article operationalizes sovereignty games as authority contests whereby contending governments reclaim authority to govern by drawing upon sovereignty's regulative rules, which in the EUDR game are international law, state responsibility and governing competence. Unequal market power and weakening limits of international law's consent and territoriality injunctions condition the game. Shared authority emerged when the EU accepted Malaysia's enhanced sustainability framework as supporting, though not replacing, EUDR due diligence. When both rule-takers share their enhanced national sustainability frameworks with other similarly situated producer countries, they pave the way for parallel authority structures when these national frameworks coexist with, and possibly aid implementation of, the EUDR and other SCDDLs. Consequently, the EUDR sovereignty game may well result in unilateral SCDDLs being furthered from within the global South. In this way, the article brings into conversation the International Relations and global governance literatures.