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2 - The public health implications of multilateral trade agreements
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- By M. Kent Ranson, Ph.D. candidate Health Policy Unit of LSHTM, Robert Beaglehole, Professor of Community Health University of Auckland, New Zealand, Carlos M. Correa, Lawyer and Economist; Director of the Master Program on Science and Technology Policy and Management and Director of the postgraduate course on Intellectual Property University of Buenos Aires; Consultant UNCTAD, UNIDO, WHO, FAO, Interamerican Development Bank, INTAL, World Bank, SELA, ECLA, and other regional and international organizations, Zafar Mirza, Public health specialist A national consumer protection organisation in Pakistan and combines research pursuits with activism at national and international level, Kent Buse, Assistant Professor of International Health School of Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine, Nick Drager, Coordinator: Globlization, Cross Sectoral Policies and Human Rights Department of Health and Sustainable Development with the World Health Organisation
- Edited by Kelley Lee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Kent Buse, Yale University, Connecticut, Suzanne Fustukian, Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh
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- Book:
- Health Policy in a Globalising World
- Published online:
- 22 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 08 August 2002, pp 18-40
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
An important feature of the modern global trading environment has been the establishment of a comprehensive legal and institutional foundation to regulate international trade in the context of a general desire to enhance political and economic stability. Since 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has provided a rules-based regime to govern world trade, but has had limited powers of enforcement. In recognition of the expanding network and volume of world trade, the GATT evolved in 1995 into the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international organisation with the mandate to reduce trade barriers to goods and services and to mediate trade disputes between countries. Under the WTO, the rules and regulations that guide world trade are entrenched in multilateral trade agreements (MTAs) that are enforceable through a binding dispute resolution mechanism. The underlying assumption of the WTO system is that human welfare will increase through economic growth based on trade liberalisation in the context of non-discriminatory rules and transparency. From a public health perspective, this desirable goal requires linking the benefits of the global trading system to sound social policies (Drager 1999)
This chapter explores from a public health perspective the impact, actual and potential, of selected WTO MTAs on health policy, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The purpose of this analysis is to suggest policy options for ensuring that existing, and any future, MTAs are more sensitive to public health issues.