¶¶ The use of international standards can have mixed public health implications. On the one hand, it can limit national sovereignty by setting higher standards than might be scientifically justifiable at any given time. On the other hand, it may prescribe a higher level of safety than is currently found in many developing countries that do not have the resources to achieve these standards. This limits their export capacity, with its potential poverty reduction effects. Part 1 of this glossary presented various health and trade arguments, presented the history of the World Trade Organization (WTO), defined important terms for „trade negotiations“, and examined three WTO treaties on trade in goods (GATT 1994, the Agreement on Agriculture and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures). Part 2 examines five other agreements and the growing number of bilateral and regional trade agreements, and concludes with a commentary on various proposed strategies to ensure that health is not affected by trade liberalization agreements. the (unsuccessful) insistence of developed countries to include the Singapore issues in the new round of negotiations (named after the previous Singapore Ministerial Conference, where they were first discussed, these concern proposed agreements on competition, investment, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation); The existence of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has increased the possibility of creating other health-specific agreements outside the scope of the WTO or other trade agreements. Concerns about the long-term impact of the GATS Convention on health or health-related services could be mitigated, for example, by an agreement on international trade in these services sectors. Such an agreement would prefer the progressive implementation of the right to health and not the progressive liberalization of trade in services as an objective and reference for the settlement of disputes. The Canadian government has promoted the creation of such a convention in the area of cultural diversity, in the hope that a country`s domestic policy to protect cultural goods or services would be exempt from commercial disputes.
By promoting such conventions, national governments can strengthen the international and institutional foundations of health promotion cooperation and create a counterweight to international trade agreements. The 171-page STUDY of WTO agreements and public health explains how WTO agreements relate to various aspects of health policy. It aims to provide a better overview of key issues for those who develop, communicate or discuss policy issues related to trade and health. The study covers areas such as drugs and intellectual property rights, food security, tobacco and many other issues that have been the subject of heated debate. In this joint effort, the first of its kind, which and the WTO Secretariat are working to decreate the facts. Regulatory coldness is a term coined to describe the impact of the potential costs of trade disputes on governments` willingness to introduce new health regulations. One of the oft-cited cases concerned Guatemala, which retracted a complaint filed by the United States on behalf of Gerber Foods that its legislation consolidating the WHO International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilal Substitutes – which prohibits the marketing of images of babies – expropriates Gerber`s intellectual property rights in the form of its „Pudgy Baby“ trademark.28 The dispute was never heard because of the potential costs. of its defence beyond the financial scope or the Guatemala prio. Guatemala has amended its legislation to allow imported, but not domestic, infant formula to show healthy babies on its products.
Similarly, the Canadian government let its legislation on simple packaging of tobacco products die after representatives of Phillip Morris International and R J Reynolds Tobacco International argued that this constituted an expropriation of assets (their trademarks) that violated investment in NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and intellectual property obligations[…].