Oceanian Sovereignty in Blue Economy: Ending Unfair Dependency Constraining Small Island Developing States

Farrel Rakha Aryasatya — 2025-06-26

The implementation of the blue economy in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) can provide a promising economic opportunity to further utilize the riches of marine resources sustainably. Unfortunately, due to the internalized cultural hegemony supporting the economical North-SIDS relations, SIDS still rely upon the investment of the Global North to provide resources to implement this concept. In Neo-Gramscian theory, the Global North is forming a ‘historical bloc’ that uses their resources to maintain an upper hand in their relationship with SIDS. The concept of ‘Oceanian Sovereignty’ in the blue economy acts as a ‘counter-hegemony’ for these countries to unify support for their sovereignty and rights over their own development course through South-South Cooperation. This paper analyzes cases of North-South power imbalance. Using the Neo-Gramscian Theory, this paper uses qualitative methods in analysing the ‘Oceanian Sovereignty’ concept as a gradual effort to counter the Global North domination in the blue economy and look into challenges of the South-South Cooperation to manifest a just transition. This paper finds that under the current state of South-South Cooperation, it is challenging to contest Global North's domination that persists through neoliberal co-optation and economic pressure without sufficient strive for international solidarity and collaboration.

Negotiating the TRIPS Waiver Proposal: India’s Strategy in the WTO to Tackle COVID-19 Pandemic

Ari Camila Puspa Devi — 2025-06-26

This research examines India's negotiation strategy on the proposal to waive the TRIPS Agreement (TRIPS waiver) at the WTO to deal with COVID-19. India, along with South Africa, submitted the TRIPS waiver proposal in response to the disparity of available medicines between developing and developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. India has played an important role in proposing TRIPS waiver in 2020. India’s historical legacy to the birth of TRIPS flexibility during the Uruguay Round 1989 and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health during the Doha Round 2001, making it interesting to observe the dynamics of negotiation and strategies used to include the TRIPS waiver in the Ministerial Conference 12. This research demonstrates that India has failed to use mixed-distributive strategy during the negotiation and then it shifts to apply integrative strategy due to the Quadrilateral type of negotiation, tight deadline affected by negotiation deadlock, and pressure of green room negotiation during the TRIPS waiver negotiation. The research utilizes the concepts of distributive and integrative strategy, as well as the dual concern model, to identify India's strategy and elaborate transformation. This research aims to contribute to the discussion of how developing countries like India navigate multilateral trade negotiation in WTO amidst contested interest between the Global North and South and elaborating strategy used during the process of negotiation.

Journal of World Trade Studies

Oceanian Sovereignty in Blue Economy: Ending Unfair Dependency Constraining Small Island Developing States

Negotiating the TRIPS Waiver Proposal: India’s Strategy in the WTO to Tackle COVID-19 Pandemic