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Section Four: Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) Section Five: Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Section Six/Conclusion: Attempt to place WTO in its global historical context
Section One:
The underlying ideology of WTO is little different from that of Adam Smith and Franois Quesnay Comparative advantage and market based trade Multilateralism is a superior method of achieving free trade than bilateralism which leads to fracture
Idea (myth) of the great depression is important to this ideology Also empirical link between levels of trade and development. The WTO mum and dad was the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) The GATT was a agreement (a continuous series of talks) not a organisation
GATT was created in 1947 US Congress Blocked plans to create a proper international organisation to regulate trade The same ideology regulated the GATT as the WTO but it was more diplomatic and less legalistic, possessed fewer sanctions and was narrower scope In some way reflection of the Ruggies embedded liberal comprise
Section Two
WTO created with little fanfare and debate in 1995 out of GATT Urgargy round 149 Members in February 2006 Attempt to put Multilateral Trading System on a much surer footing Organisation of Networks. WTO is largely run by state officials not its own secretariat (it only employs 500 people. The World Bank employs over 6000) The WTO does actually do anything (expect monitor) but it is instead a vehicle through which states do things
Over 40 different committees and working groups (General Council) Perhaps its easier to understand the WTO as a number of forums Ministerial Meeting every two years (Seattle (1999), Doha(2001), Cancun (2003) Hong Kong (2005)) Formally very democratic but realities are quite different.
At least cosmetically major moves towards liberalisation and creation of a prodevelopment agenda But are concessions real? Lift restrictions on items that you do not import from developing countries anyway Also Agriculture is a Red Herring..
Cairns Group: Argentina | Australia | Bolivia | Brazil | Canada | Chile | Colombia | Costa Rica | Guatemala | Indonesia | Malaysia | New Zealand | Pakistan |Paraguay | Philippines | South Africa | Thailand | Uruguay
Or
The issue of TRIPs has come up in relation to reform of the NHS reform The WTO has said that only a monopoly provider in the public sector is excluded from coverage. A service is commercial when patients have a choice of hospitals that is when hospitals are effectively in competition regardless of whether ownership is in public or private hands. According to this interpretation, the marketoriented reforms of the NHS Plan redefine the NHS as a commercial service subject to trade rules. At the very least, final determination of the status of the NHS will be dependent on a disputes settlements panel of the WTO (Price and Pollock, 2002).
Patenting regimes represent a compromise between public and private goods Shift towards private goods in last few decades in key economies in terms of lengths and scope of patenting Patenting of Genetic Material Herdergen, M. (2002) Patents on parts of the human body: salient issues under EC and WTO law, Journal of World Intellectual Property, 5(2):145-55. Market capitalisation of US biotechnology firms increased from $45 billion in 1994 to $311 billion in 2005
TRIPs seek to internationalise this protection Also biopiracy (Neam Tree ) As capitalist fails recognize pre-capitalist forms of common property Common heritage of mankind. Primitive accumulation redux
Also it is impossible to prove a link between innovation and property rights protection. Benefits of protection offset by costs of preventing diffusion Sampling and the Development of HipHop
Neo-liberals themselves are ambiguous on TRIPs, some see them as anti-competitive TRIPs contested not a completed project
First: Commodity Chains Second: Harvey. Particularly Image, accumulation by dispossession and TRIPs