The Political Geography of Contestation: Mapping the International Objections to the EU’s CBAM and EUDR

As part of its broader economic–climate agenda, the European Union (EU) has introduced prominent unilateral trade-climate instruments, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR). Presented as necessary to prevent carbon leakage and raise global environmental standards, both instru-ments have generated extensive contestation among the EU’s trade partners. This contestation presents a paradox, however: the most politically vocal critics are often not the countries ex-pected to be most economically exposed. This pattern cannot be explained by material interests alone. Instead, contestation surrounding unilateral trade–climate measures must be understood through the lens of international norm politics, which is shaped by power asymmetries, justice concerns and competing visions of global governance. To analyse this dynamic, we distinguish between contestation over norm frames (underlying principles and justifications) and norm claims (the specific policy prescriptions) (Stimmer, 2025). This framework enables us to classify contestation outcomes and assess their implica-tions for the CBAM and EUDR's legitimacy. To aid in identifying the different claims and frames, coding follows the power/trade/justice typology developed by Smith et al. (2024). The empirical analysis relies on a discourse analysis of over 500 meeting minutes from key WTO bodies as well as country submissions under the UNFCCC between 2019 and 2025. Findings show that objections to CBAM and EUDR cluster around concerns regarding WTO compatibility, procedural opacity, and inconsistency with the principle of common but differ-entiated responsibilities. While CBAM contestation is largely driven by emerging economies with industrial interests, EUDR objections are concentrated among commodity exporters, re-vealing a differentiated political geography. Overall, the analysis underscores how unilateral EU trade–climate policies, despite their proclaimed environmental ambitions, risk eroding legiti-macy and cooperation within the trade–climate nexus unless procedural inclusivity and distrib-utive fairness are more centrally addressed.