The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement was originally meant to harmonise and enforce intellectual property rights provisions in existing trade agreements within a wider group of countries. This was commendable in itself, so ACTA’s failure was all the more disappointing. In this article, I wish to contribute to the post-ACTA debate by proposing a specific analysis of the ethical reasons why ACTA failed, and what we can learn from them. I argue that five kinds of objections—namely, secret (...) negotiations, lack of consultation, vagueness of formulation, negotiations outside any international body, and the creation of a new governing body outside already existing forums—had only indirect ethical implications. This takes nothing away from their seriousness but it does make them less compelling, because agreements should be evaluated, ethically, for what they are, rather than for the alleged reasons why they are being proposed. I then argue that ACTA would have caused three ethical problems: an excessive and misplaced kind of responsibility, a radical decrease in freedom of expression, and a severe reduction in information privacy. I conclude by indicating three lessons that can help us in shaping a potential ACTA 2.0. First, we should acknowledge the increasingly vital importance of the framework of implicit expectations, attitudes, and practices that can facilitate and promote morally good decisions and actions. ACTA failed to perceive that it would have undermined the very framework that it was supposed to foster, namely one promoting some of the best and most successful aspects of our information society. Second, we should realise that, in advanced information societies, any regulation affecting how people deal with information is now bound to influence the whole ‘onlife’ habitat within which they live. So enforcing IPR becomes an environmental problem. Third, since legal documents, such as ACTA, emerge from within the infosphere that they affect, we should apply to the process itself, which one day may lead to a post-ACTA treaty, the very framework and ethical values that we would like to see promoted by it. (shrink)

In her opening address to the 2011 session of the World Health Organization's governing body, the World Health Assembly, WHO's Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, noted that WHO's job was much more straightforward when it was dealing mainly with germs, hygiene, medicines, vaccines and sister sectors, like water supply and sanitation. Today, international public health governance is much more complex. It is not only about forging agreement around shared health problems, but also being concerned with health as an outcome of (...) global policies in areas such as trade, intellectual property, and human rights and, nationally, as an outcome of work in other sectors such as education, agriculture and the environment. Global health governance is increasingly fragmented, and WHO is not the only health game in town. (shrink)

While the Battle of Seattle immortalized a certain image of anti-globalization resistance, processes and agents of contestation remain sociologically underdeveloped. Even with the time-space compression afforded by new information technologies, how can a global civil society emerge among multi-cultured, multi-tongued peoples divided by miles of space and oceans of inequality? This article examines two cases that confronted the U.S. model of global corporate rule: the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the Zapatista challenge to the (...) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Evaluating cross-border solidarity in these cases encourages critical evaluation of claims about global civil society, the role of the Internet, and the eclipse of traditional politics in a supposedly post-national age. Contrary to orthodox globalization narratives, our analysis suggests that states, nations, and nationalisms remain key elements in contestation processes, at least in the kinds of cases examined. At the same time, transnational networks played an important role in bypassing unfavorable political opportunity structures at the domestic level, and nurtured incipient processes of framing resistance to neo-liberal globalism across national boundaries. (shrink)

The popularity of ‘food sovereignty’ to cover a range of positions, interventions, and struggles within the food system is testament, above all, to the term’s adaptability. Food sovereignty is centrally, though not exclusively, about groups of people making their own decisions about the food system—it is a way of talking about a theoretically-informed food systems practice. Since people are different, we should expect decisions about food sovereignty to be different in different contexts, albeit consonant with a core set of principles (...) (including women’s rights, a shared opposition to genetically modified crops, and a demand for agriculture to be removed from current international trade agreements). In this paper we look at the analytical points of friction in applying ideas of food sovereignty within the context of Indigenous struggles in North America. This, we argue, helps to clarify one of the central themes in food sovereignty: that it is a continuation of anti-colonial struggles, even in post-colonial contexts. Such an examination has dividends both for scholars of food sovereignty and for those of Indigenous politics: by helping to problematize notions of food sovereignty and postcoloniality, but also by posing pointed questions around gender for Indigenous struggles. (shrink)

From a 1996 survey comparing the views of economists and ordinary voters, Bryan Caplan deduces several biases—anti‐market, anti‐foreign, pessimistic, and makework biases—to support his thesis that voters are rationally irrational, i.e., that, aware of the inconsequentiality of their votes, they rationally indulge their “preferences” for public policies that have harmful results. Yet if the standard of comparison is the public’s opposition to harmful policies, rather than the level of its opposition relative to that of economists, the “biases” disappear. (...) In absolute terms, voters support free trade and are against protectionism, such that free‐trade agreements are more prevalent among democratic, rather than autocratic, regimes. Finally, the protectionist policies that are adopted in this country are the product of interest‐group politics, not of voters’ wrongheaded policy preferences. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to examine the implications of the intellectual property provisions in the US–Jordan Free Trade Agreement (US–JO FTA) and whether they serve as a template for other Arab countries who will be concluding free trade agreements with the USA. My claim in this article is that the intellectual property part of the US–JO FTA goes beyond the World Trade Organization Agreement and cannot form the right template for the proposed US–Middle (...) East FTA of 2013. The first section provides a brief introduction to the US–JO FTA. The second section provides a critical analysis of the FTA’s protection of trademarks, copyright and patents. The third and fourth sections discuss enforcement and implementation of the intellectual property provisions of the FTA. The final section provides a conclusion regarding the intellectual property provisions of the US–JO FTA and highlights an alternative template for the proposed US–Middle East FTA. (shrink)

In an economy that increasingly trades in electronic information products, the copy assumes a new reversibility, as a figure at once valued for its rapid exchangeability and vilified for of its associations with counterfeit and fraud. The incorporation of confidence measures into the design of electronic information products is symptomatic of a primary crisis of belief installed within empiricist epistemologies, of which anti-circumvention technologies and knock-off economies are merely the incorrigible children. The aesthetic strategies practiced by Albert Oehlen and (...) N.E. Thing Co., which mirror the information hiding techniques employed by steganography software and technologies of trust as well as the circumvention tactics employed to defeat them, register an emergent preoccupation in contemporary visual culture with structures of belief. They also disclose a Humean attention to processes of devivification, which figures in these artists’ work as an effect of the multiplication of the same. The trope of the ‘false bottom’ deployed in the 1930s novels of British artist and author Wyndham Lewis serves as intertext in this genealogical investigation of the politics of circumvention. (shrink)

The United States (U.S.) and Jordan launched negotiations for a free trade agreement in 2000.The US-JO FTA includes a preamble, nineteen articles, three annexes, joint statements, memorandums of understanding, and side letters. In addition to the interesting articles on labor and environment, the US-JO FTA provides the opportunity for Jordanian nationals to come to the U.S. to make investments and participate in trade. Under certain conditions, Jordanian nationals can enter the U.S. to render professional services. The purpose (...) of this article is to examine in detail article 8 of the US-JO FTA which relates to entry of nationals of one party into the territory of the other. The article starts by providing a brief background of the negotiation and conclusion of the US-JO FTA. Then, the article analyzes in detail the specific provision related to temporary entry of nationals. The article draws a comparison between US-JO FTA with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the more recent trade agreements between the U.S., Oman, Bahrain, and Morocco. Finally, the article observes that although the US-JO FTA, like all US FTAs, is designed to permit temporary entry, without intent to establish permanent residence, of persons, the U.S. should have provided Jordan with special and differential treatment for entry of its nationals. Taking into account the special circumstances of Jordan as a developing country with low-income status, high unemployment rate, and lack of resources, movement of business visitors, investors, intra-company transferees, and professionals should have been dealt with leniency so that the FTA could generate effective and real market access. (shrink)

Prior research has examined consumer intentions to purchase fakes, branding strategies and anti-counterfeiting actions, but little attention seems to have been paid to the role of consumers’ ability to discern fakes and branding strategies against counterfeiting. This article, thus, based on a study of 128 multinational managers’ experience in China, examines these inter-relationships. As a result, we address how knowledgeable and experienced managers in branding, consumer consumption and anti-counterfeiting effort perceive consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes (...) from originals interacts with branding strategies, and how such relationship influences the effectiveness of anti-counterfeiting effort. Our findings suggest that consumer discrimination itself has no significant effect on anti-counterfeiting success. However, it significantly interacts with branding strategies to predict a means to mitigate brand damage. That is, consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes from originals appears to undermine efforts to mitigate brand damage from counterfeiting, at least in China when branding is based on improving product features or advertising and promotion. However, if branding emphasises after sales service, consumers’ ability to discriminate was found to enhance firms’ ability to limit counterfeiting damage to brands. Such interactions, however, did not help stop counterfeiting, except that branding based on reliability appears to have such a positive effect. (shrink)

Recent trade negotiations such as TTIP include investor protection clauses. Against the background of an analysis of the case for trade, the paper asks whether such clauses can be justified from a normative perspective. More specifically, what is the impact of investor protection on the domestic distribution of the gains from trade between labour and capital, and how should we assess this impact from the perspective of justice? In order to answer this question, the paper develops a (...) series of ideal-type scenarios that reflect the consequences of investor protection on employment on the one hand, and on the distributive conflict between labour and capital on the other. While no claim is made which of these scenarios corresponds to TTIP or other trade agreements, they provide a useful normative framework to analyse such agreements. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to examine trade boycott of Arab countries of Danish goods and role of WTO.

The United States’ pursuit of increasingly TRIPS-Plus levels of intellectual property protection for medicines in bilateral and regional trade agreements is well recognized. Less so, however, are U.S. efforts through these agreements, to directly influence and constrain the pharmaceutical coverage programs of its trading partners. The pursuit of increasing levels of intellectual property protection in successive bilateral and regional trade agreements has been driven, at least in part, by a U.S. desire to achieve standards of protection it anticipated (...) from the TRIPS Agreement, but failed to secure. Despite the conclusion of a global agreement on IP standards that would establish significant protections in countries that had hitherto declined them, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry viewed TRIPS as falling well short of its objectives — particularly in light of the delayed introduction of patent protection in countries that are key suppliers of generic medicines, such as India. (shrink)

The accession and implementation of new generation free trade agreements bring numerous opportunities as well as challenges to Viet Nam, regarding trade, labor and investment. The increasing number of workers abroad puts a pressure on Vietnamese government to support them in new working cultures and environments. The application of chatbot, which has been known to help certain vulnerable groups such as patients, women and migrants could be one of the tools to support Vietnamese migrant workers by providing immediate (...) information, network connection and consultation. Analyzing the results of the qualitative interviews with 11 migrant workers and the group discussion with two sections from three public social media groups and three active informants, the article argues that migrant workers as a vulnerable group who are supposed to be promising users of chatbot due to their great demand and needs, may have a complicated form of trust and expectation in chatbot. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the labor and environment provisions of the US-Jordan FTA.

Todos los Acuerdos de Libre Comercio (ALCs) concluidos recientemente por la Unión Europea (UE) incluyen capítulos sobre Comercio y Desarrollo Sostenible (CDS) donde se recogen compromisos mutuos en materia laboral y medioambiental. Las disposiciones sobre medio ambiente mencionan expresamente los acuerdos multilaterales que cada Parte se compromete a cumplir, como el Acuerdo de París sobre cambio climático. Sin embargo, la falta de un mecanismo de ejecución efectiva en caso de incumplimiento de las disposiciones sobre CDS merma la credibilidad de los (...) compromisos de sostenibilidad. El ALC de la UE con Nueva Zelanda representa un punto de inflexión en esta tendencia, ya que introduce un nuevo modelo de aplicación. Con respecto a los compromisos climáticos, en particular, el ACL incluye objetivos ambiciosos que, unido al nuevo enfoque de aplicación, podrían incorporarse a futuros ALCs de la UE, contribuyendo así de forma importante a la lucha global contra el cambio climático. (shrink)

Jordan agreed to extensive liberalization undertakings under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”) that would open some sectors that were previously closed or restricted to foreign suppliers and investors. It undertook horizontal commitments in cross-border movement of individuals and commercial presence covering all types of services.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This Birth and ThatSurrogacy and Stratified Motherhood in IndiaAmrita PandeIn 2006, i came across a short newspaper article about the emergence of a new industry in India—the industry of paid birth or commercial surrogacy. People from all over the world could now hire Indian women to give birth to babies for them, for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere and with no government regulations. After some digging (...) around, I quickly realized that there was scarcely any objective, academic research about this new industry, and so began my ethnographic journey to the first clinic in not just India but in fact in the entire Global South to have a flourishing trade in both national and transnational surrogacy.1Academic inquiry into surrogacy arrangements is adequately interdisciplinary and has generated feminist, ethical, legal, and social debates for more than three decades (see, for example, Andrews 1987; Anderson 1990; Bailey 2011; Brennan and Noggle 1997; Hochschild 2012; Markens 2007; Oliver 1989; Ragoné 1994; Pande 2011; and Teman 2010). While defenders of surrogacy advocate it as a manifestation of women’s freedom and choice, much of the scholarship has displayed intense anxiety about this practice (Corea 1986; Dworkin 1983; Harding 1991; Neuhaus 1988; Raymond 1993; Roberts 1998b; and Rothman 1988). One view is that surrogacy reduces women to a mere breeder class, to the class of prostitutes, and another is that it is just another form of baby selling. Others consider the development of such reproductive technologies as a form of class and gender-based exploitation of women’s bodies. Two additional trends in this scholarship are worth emphasizing. First, [End Page 50] much of the debating takes place in abstraction and is rarely based on the actual experience of surrogates.2 Second,much of this work is about surrogacy in the Global North. This is not altogether surprising, since commercial surrogacy is a very recent phenomenon outside of the Global North.In this essay, I address these two gaps in the literature by analyzing the birthing narratives of surrogates in a clinic in India. As the surrogates compare their experiences of giving birth as a surrogate mother to their previous pregnancies, they underscore the paradox of an industry based on pro-natal technology in an otherwise anti-natal state. As importantly, these narratives are a clear manifestation of a global trend of “stratified motherhood”—“the hierarchical organization of reproductive fecundity and birth experiences that supports and rewards the maternity of some women while despising or outlawing the mother-work of others” (Rapp 2001, 469).Surrogacy in IndiaThe moral and ethical ambiguity surrounding surrogacy has made many countries, including China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and some U.S. states ban surrogacy altogether. Some countries have imposed partial bans, for instance Australia (Victoria), Brazil, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, South Africa, and the UK. Canada, Greece, South Africa, Israel, and the UK permit gestational surrogacy, subject to regulations. Then there are other countries with no regulations at all, such as Belgium, Finland, and India (Markens 2007; Teman 2010). Apart from the recent spurt of surrogacy in India, commercial surrogacy is most prevalent in California, USA, and Israel, where surrogacy is tightly controlled by the state and restricted to Israeli citizens. The Indian structure is closer to the liberal market model of surrogacy in California, where surrogacy births are primarily managed by private, commercial agencies that screen, match, and regulate agreements according to their own criteria (Pande 2009).India is not the only country to experience a rise in transnational surrogacy. Couples from countries such as the UK, Japan, Australia, and Kuwait, where surrogacy is either illegal or restricted, have hired surrogates in the United States to bear babies for them. However, while the total cost of such transnational packages is roughly between $100,000 and $120,000, in India the package costs one-third of that amount. Another factor that explains the popularity of India as a destination for transnational surrogacy is the informality of the market. Although commercial surrogacy is not illegal in India in 2002, currently there are no laws regulating surrogacy in clinics. Fertility clinics... (shrink)

In our increasingly interactive and interdependent world, we are confronted almost daily with issues in international law: think, for instance, of the recent Pinochet and Öcalan cases, the crises in Iraq, Kosovo and East Timor, or the banana and hormone disputes in the WTO. Add to this continual reports about the activities of international organizations, from the UN to the European Union, and it becomes clear that international law is the order of the day. Whoever follows these international developments, as (...) I do, and whoever is committed to the construction of a solid legal order for the international community, finds himself constantly torn between hope and despair. Signs of hope in recent years include the approval of a statute for the International Criminal Court in Rome on July 17, 1998; the Pinochet decisions of the House of Lords of November 1998 and March 1999; and the coming into force of the Ottawa agreement on anti-personnel mines in March of 1999. Yet who could witness the course of events during the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, and the long period of UN inaction against the violence that broke out in East Timor following the referendum, without feeling some sense of desperation? The mood of the present day, however, should not prevent us from taking a long-term perspective. What kind of international legal order are we moving towards on the threshold of the twenty-first century? Building up a solid international legal order is probably one of the greatest challenges facing humanity at present. Our national legal systems are strongly developed and during the last fifty years, Western Europe has succeeded in constructing an EU legal order which has made possible a peaceful society, welfare and the integration of peoples in Europe. But where do we stand on the world level? Is international law not all too slowly limping behind globalization? And yet, the century we are looking back on has been the century in which international law and the law of international organizations flourished: in the framework of the League of Nations, and then the UN, we have succeeded in codifying, consolidating and developing international law in numerous multilateral treaties ranging from human rights and maritime law to international labour, trade and environmental norms. Never before had the world witnessed such an extensive network of international organizations . Never before did states make such intensive use of treaties for arranging their mutual concerns: more than 30,000 are registered at the UN. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine whether Wenar's Bloody Oil ( 2016) succeeds in providing a theory able to accommodate the statist commitment to peoples’ sovereignty without dismissing the cosmopolitan concern regarding a just global market. Contextualising Blood Oil within the broader debate on global justice and resource ownership, I focus on some specific aspects of Wenar’s Clean Trade scheme and explain why it comes to quite radical conclusions. Yet, if these conclusions are taken seriously, Clean Trade seems too (...) demanding from the point of view of a statist account of justice. For cosmopolitans, too, the lack of normative justification for any alleged national resource sovereignty might weaken this position, especially for those who might oppose arguments to justify different forms of resource ownership. I will therefore discuss two problems with Wenar’s theory. First, I will show that, in spite of its statist premises, Wenar’s radical conclusions hardly pass the test of anti-paternalism. Is the Clean Trade scheme able to accommodate the demand of pluralism emerging in the Society of Peoples? Second, I focus on an issue that is neglected in Wenar’s book and which refers directly to the normative basis of resources ownership. I argue that this is a crucial issue, especially in contexts where the traditional idea of national sovereignty is contested, which often occurs in resource-cursed societies. (shrink)

The history of the controversy overrecombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is exploredin terms of the issue of the potential robustness ofa consumption-driven ``new'' politics of food andagriculture. It is noted that while the dominanthistorical traditions in the social sciences haveserved to discount the autonomous role that consumersand consumption play in modern societies, there hasbeen growing interest in consumption within foodstudies as well as other bodies of scholarship such aspostmodernism, social constructivism, socialcapital/social distinction, and environmentalsociology. A review of the shifting pattern (...) ofdiscourses during the rBGH controversy shows thatconsumption-driven claims and politics played atangible, but relatively minor role. Even so, it issuggested that the rBGH experience along with paralleltrends in food politics (e.g., anti-pesticidecampaigns such as the ``Alar scare,'' agribusinessattempts to intimidate opponents through fooddisparagement laws, conditions-of-productionprovisions of the World Trade Organization agreement)could make the consumption/consumer dimension of foodpolitics more important in the future. (shrink)

Government encouragement of free markets is a highly effective means of fostering pharmaceutical innovation; the NIH, by including “free-market provisions” in its licensing agreements that discourage anti-competitive and research-impeding behavior, can do a great deal to support this goal even without legislative overhaul.

This paper analyzes the likelihood that recent conventions against corruption signed by the OECD and the OAS will be effective in Latin America. It begins by looking at the cultural context of corruption in Latin America and examines efforts by Latin American signatories to implement both agreements. It then evaluates the extent to which these efforts will prove successful. It concludes with suggestions for the development of culturally sensitive policies that will be effective in the fight against corruption in Latin (...) America. (shrink)

Inclusive trade is taking hold in various forms in international organizations and in the trade policy of national governments. Absent empirical evidence that will take time to generate, it can be difficult to assess the achievements of this new approach to trade. Nancy Fraser's three justice idioms provide a conceptual entry point for evaluating the potential of the inclusive trade agenda. Fraser argues that the contemporary global justice conversation must acknowledge claims for recognition, representation, and redistribution. (...) Applying this conceptualization to the inclusive trade agenda shows that trade agreement provisions intended to favor women and Indigenous peoples go some distance in addressing claims for recognition and representation but accomplish less in remedying injustices associated with maldistribution. Therefore, the inclusive trade agenda does significantly advance global justice for marginalized groups, but works primarily in ways that are political and cultural, not economic. (shrink)

In combining the micropolitics approach in international management, the industrial relations literature and business ethics, this article conceptualizes global framework agreements as an alliance between central CSR managers of transnational corporations and central actors within trade unions to monitor subsidiaries in the implementation of CSR policies. The empirical investigation, based on the qualitative analysis of ten French multinational companies, confirms the relevance of such a conceptualization. It particularly shows that central CSR managers hope mobilizing the union network to increase (...) their capacity to supervise subsidiaries. Over there, it helps understanding concrete mechanisms adopted to implement global framework agreements since, in some of the studied cases, the managerial and union channels are coordinated precisely to strengthen this capacity. It, then, highlights the procedural nature of policies regarding global framework agreements. Overall, this paper examines the conditions necessary for mobilization of the union network and suggests avenues for future research. (shrink)

This article investigates the extent to which the emerging trend of do-it-yourself anti-ageing skin-whitening products represents a re-articulation of Western colonial concerns with environmental pollution and racial degeneracy into concern with gendered vulnerability. This emerging market is a multibillion dollar industry anchored in the USA, but expanding globally. Do-it-yourself anti-ageing skin-whitening products purport to address the needs of those looking to fight the visible signs of ageing, often promising to remove hyper-pigmented age spots from women’s skin, and replace (...) it with ageless skin, free from pigmentation. In order to contextualize the investigation of do-it-yourself anti-ageing skin-whitening practice and discourse, this article draws from the literature in colonial commodity culture, colonial tropical medicine, the contemporary anti-ageing discourse, and advertisements for anti-ageing skin-whitening products. First, it argues that the framing of the biomedicalization of ageing as a pigmentation problem caused by deteriorating environmental conditions and unhealthy lifestyle draws tacitly from European colonial concerns with the European body’s susceptibility to tropical diseases, pigmentation disorders, and racial degeneration. Second, the article argues that the rise of do-it-yourself anti-ageing skin-whitening commodities that promise to whiten, brighten, and purify the ageing skin of women and frames the visible signs of ageing in terms of pigmentation pathology. (shrink)

The World Trade Organization Agreement on the Application of Sanitary andPhytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement) isa product of international efforts to blendtrade liberalization with standards of publichealth protection. One of the aims of theAgreement is to facilitate the pre-emption andmanagement of food safety related tradedisputes. An examination of nineteenth-centuryand modern-day trade disputes illustrates howthe SPS Agreement is positioned to carry outthis remit. Historical research andcontemporary experience vindicate the Agreementas a necessary treaty to address severalfactors that (...) influence food safety relatedtrade disputes: economic considerations, riskperception, and regulatory coordination. (shrink)

The question this article addresses is how the WTO supports and deals with digital trade. The article then analyzes how existing WTO agreements have dealt with digital trade. The article also addresses recent trade agreements particularly the USMCA.

Arab countries have adopted market economy principles and pursued policies designed to strengthen their economies. The cornerstone of Arab countries' long-term economic objectives has been to increase trade and support economic growth via regional and global integration. To this end, Arab countries are attempting to broaden their engagement in the multilateral trading system by joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). In addition, some Arab countries entered into trade arrangements with the United States (U.S.) to foster economic development, (...) attract investment, and develop peaceful relationship. These trade agreements carry several implications for local economies. (shrink)

Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican perspective, which aspires to non-domination as a guiding principles and idea of global justice, regime complexes raise specific and important challenges in that they open the door to specific forms (...) of domination. I thereby challenge a more optimistic outlook in regime complexes, which paints a positive normative picture of regime complexes, arguing that they enable the enhancement of democracy beyond the state and, consequently, have the potential to reduce the democratic deficit in global governance. By drawing attention to how regime complexes reinforce domination-related injustice, this article contributes an original perspective on megaregionals and to exploring the implications of global justice as non-domination. (shrink)

Following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexican farmers altered their livelihood strategies to respond to changing market incentives. While many commercial farmers responded to falling maize prices brought on by NAFTA by shifting into the production of vegetables for export, the coping strategies of low-income farmers have been varied, from diversifying income sources through off-farm employment, to migration, to searching for niche markets for new or added-value products. In the Totonocan region of the (...) state of Veracruz, Mexico, many farmers who can no longer earn sufficient income from the sale of maize grain are turning to a byproduct of maize to generate income. The commercialization of totomoxtle, or maize husks, for domestic and international markets has not only enabled farmers to continue to profit from maize production, but it has also encouraged farmers to utilize and conserve criollo maize varieties that serve as important reservoirs of genetic diversity. Moreover, the growing importance of totomoxtle in livelihood strategies has caused some farmers to alter their maize management, selecting for better quality husks rather than for grain production. The purpose of this paper is to understand both the broad impact of NAFTA on the local agricultural economy and its more specific effects on the management of maize in the Zona Totonaca. Participation in international trade can lead to unexpected outcomes, in some cases creating new values for goods with a long history of local consumption. Commercialization of maize husks is likely to be only a temporary solution for the relief of rural poverty. Given the volatility of international markets, the long-term welfare of farmers may depend on the development of more diversified production strategies. (shrink)

This paper examines the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the World Trade Organization’s agreement governing trade in health-related services, for health policy and healthcare reform in the United States. The paper describes the nature and scope of US obligations under the GATS, the ways in which the trade agreement intersects with domestic health policy, and the institutional factors that mediate trade-offs between health and trade policy. The (...) analysis suggests that the GATS provisions on market access, national treatment and domestic regulation, which are designed to eliminate ‘regulatory barriers’ to global trade in health services, limit the range of options that state and federal regulators and legislative bodies can employ to regulate the health sector and implement healthcare reforms. As such, the paper identifies the broader social and ethical implications of free trade policy. (shrink)

After nearly 20 years of work by activists, fair trade, a movement establishing alternative trading organizations to ensure minimal returns, safe working conditions, and environmentally sustainable production, is now gaining steam, with increasing awareness and availability across a variety of products. However, this article addresses several major remaining challenges: (a) a lack of agreement about what fair trade really means and how it should be certified; (b) uneven awareness and availability across different areas, with marked differences between (...) some parts of Europe and North America that reflect more fundamental debates about distribution; (c) larger questions about the extent of the potential contribution of fair trade to development under the current system, including limitations on the number and types of workers affected and the fair trade focus on commodity goods. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of food security in developing countries and how agriculture plays an important role in achieving not only food security, but also in reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development. The promotion of trade liberalization by the World Trade Organization (WTO) through the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has undermined the productive capacity of developing countries and their comparative advantage in the agricultural sector, marginalizing small-scale farmers and benefitting the big corporations. The paper looks at (...) the issue of intellectual property rights that big corporations have for seeds and their effects on small-scale farmers, and how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is insufficient to regulate the dominance of big corporations in the food and agricultural market. The paper is divided into seven sections: trade liberalization and food security, the WTO and the AoA, the effects of the AoA on developing countries, the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) on food security, CSR and TNCs, policy recommendations, and conclusions. (shrink)

Since the EU referendum took place in June 2016, the British government’s task to implementing the vote to leave the EU has been monumental. With regard to the future trade relationship with the EU27, the British government has proposed a ‘bold and ambitious’ free trade agreement aimed at the ‘freest and most frictionless trade possible’. The complexity of achieving such an agreement within the limited timeframe available has generated lot of controversy, uncertainty and anxiety. The (...) aim of the paper is to bring some clarity with regard to the challenges ahead. A proper appreciation of these challenges is key in order for a transparent, inclusive and realistic debate about the objectives, features and timeframe of the future UK-EU trade agreement. (shrink)

Free trade agreements are about reducing tariffs, market access in services, protection of intellectual property rights, streamlining customs procedures, trade remedy measures, and dispute settlement mechanism. Equally important if not even more important than these provisions is the designation of rules of origin. Many benefits can be lost if restrictive rules of origin are incorporated. Rules of origin are supposed to be straightforward and easy-to-follow methods used to determine origin of imported goods. The policy question that arises is (...) how to improve trade integration among Arab countries through more effective rules of origin. (shrink)

Applied general equilibrium models have received considerable attention and scrutiny in the public debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. This collection brings together the leading AGE models that have been constructed to analyse NAFTA. A variety of approaches to modelling trade liberalization are taken in these studies, including multi-country and multi-sectoral models, models that focus on institutional features of particular sectors affecting multinational firms and rules of origin, and models with some inter-temporal structure. Further, by (...) constructing stylized models, theoretical linkages have been identified that drive numerical results in the larger AGE models. The volume also assesses what can be learned about the likely economic effects of NAFTA from the collection of studies taken as a whole. Areas in need of further study have been highlighted. (shrink)

The debate over a possible Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States is complicated to the point that the famous Schleswig-Holstein question seems straightforward by comparison. As a result, the debate has been fragmented into a series of arguments on separate issues, more or less ensuring that it will not reach any satisfactory conclusion.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multilateral trade organization that, at least partially, governs trade relations between its member states. The WTO (2011a) proclaims that its “overriding objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably.” The WTO is a “treaty-based” organization – it has been constituted through an agreed, legally binding treaty made up of more than 30 articles, along with additional commitments by some members in specific areas. At present, 153 states (...) are members of the WTO, which collectively make up over 97 percent of all trade worldwide (WTO 2011b). Together, the WTO treaty specifies the rights and obligations of its member states. To become a member of the WTO, a state must treat the agreement as a “single undertaking.” Members cannot choose à la carte which agreements – for example, regarding tariffs, or trade in services or intellectual property – they want to accede to and which they do not. Instead, they must take on the obligations of the agreement in toto. The WTO is one of the most consequential governance institutions in the world, a lodestar of political debate about globalization (see globalization), attracting increased interest from moral and political philosophers in recent years (James 2006; Moellendorf 2005; Risse 2007; Brock 2009). (shrink)

Two recent books consider the future of trade governance.Consent and Tradeproposes reforms to trade agreements so that states can consent more freely to their terms.On Trade Justicedefends reforms to the World Trade Organization, arguing that multilateralism is the foundation for a “new global deal” on trade. Each book describes trade's distinctive features and proposes a principle to regulate both trade and trade governance.Consent and Tradedefends a principle of respect for state consent in (...) trade agreements.On Trade Justiceoffers a theory of trade justice that requires nonexploitation. Consent and nonexploitation are important principles for economic exchanges. However, trade governance and trade itself are different forms of cooperation, with different agents and different interests at stake. Consent and nonexploitation are less compelling as principles for trade governance than for trade itself. Both books understate the conflict between their principles for trade governance and liberal justice. (shrink)