Since the establishment of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 2001, there has been a concern that the now-global rules governing intellectual property (IP) protection would present obstacles to securing access to medicines for populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A few years later, the […]
Editor’s Note: Below is an excerpt of input submitted by Kyla Tienhaara, Rachel Thrasher and Kevin P. Gallagher to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations in June 2023 to inform the OHCHR’s report on “Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and the right to a clean, healthy and […]
By Rachel Thrasher The European Union (EU) Commission recently proposed that all EU member countries withdraw as a bloc from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an investment treaty with the specific goal of facilitating investment and protecting investors in the energy industry. The ECT has attracted increasing criticism for its misalignment with Europe’s energy and […]
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) was established in 1995 to hear appeals on trade disputes between member countries. However, following the end of the final member’s term in 2020, it has been effectively disbanded, and the United States has since blocked all new appointments. The inability of a multilaterally accepted AB to […]
By Brook Baker and Rachel Thrasher COVID-19 exploded on a global stage dominated by an international legal and policy regime that instantiates closed science, intellectual property (IP) monopolies and privatized control over the testing, supply, price and distribution of life-saving health technologies. As a result, there were avoidable delays in biopharmaceutical preparedness, ill-adapted technologies that […]
By Devika Dutt and Kevin P. Gallagher The long-standing gridlock in trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has shifted the focus of trade negotiations to bilateral and plurilateral trade and investment agreements. Since the inception of the WTO in 1995, over 2,000 regional and bilateral trade and investment treaties have been negotiated and […]
By Rachel Thrasher A controversial legal process known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) threatens to hamper the ability of governments to mobilize finance for ambitious climate action and a just transition. When assets are protected by international investment agreements (IIAs) with ISDS, private investors in the fossil fuel sector can bring legal claims against countries […]
The World Trade Organization (WTO) came into existence in 1995, replacing the 50-year-old trade regime known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that had governed trade among capitalist countries in the geopolitical context of the Cold War. The new regime was emblematic of a moment in time, when global economic integration was […]
In parallel to a chaotic 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, leaders of Group of 20 (G20) countries met in Bali, Indonesia from November 15-16 for the G20 Leaders’ Summit against a backdrop of worsening climate impacts, an ongoing energy crisis, Russia’s war in Ukraine and skyrocketing inflation. Expectations for the […]
By Rachel Thrasher From September 27-30, 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will host its annual Public Forum, where WTO members, representatives from civil society, government, academia, business and media will gather to discuss the latest developments in world trade and to propose ways of enhancing the multilateral trading system. At the top of the […]