The un and the world trade organization are considered what type of information sources?

Trade and Dispute Settlement

The WTO was established on 1 January 1995 by the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization as the result of the so-called Uruguay round of trade negotiations and signed in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994 (WTO Agreement). It is the institutional continuation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 (GATT). It endeavors to liberalize international trade. The basic treaty addressing trade in goods is GATT. GATT recognizes that exceptions to free trade can be necessary to protect higher values such as health and (food) safety.

The agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) ensures that countries only apply measures to protect human and animal health (sanitary measures) and plant health (phytosanitary measures) based on the assessment of risk, or in other words, based on science. If the measures are in conformity with international standards, no scientific substantiation of necessity is required. These measures are by definition considered necessary. For food, these international standards are the Codex Alimentarius. This inclusion of Codex in the SPS Agreement greatly enhances its significance. WTO members who follow Codex need not substantiate the necessity of their sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

WTO agreements bind WTO members. The Dispute Settlement Understanding provides procedures to resolve conflicts. If a party so requires, the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) forms a panel to adjudicate. Panel decisions can be appealed to the Appellate Body (AB). WTO cannot enforce decisions taken in this procedure; but it can allow the winning party to implement economic sanctions in case of noncompliance. These sanctions are usually additional import levies on goods from the state found at fault.

20.2 World Trade Organization

The WTO is a government-to-government organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and is composed of 153 member nations. The WTO was formed on 1 January 1995 as an outcome of the Uruguay Round of multi-lateral trade talks.2

The WTO is the only global organization that deals with the trading rules between nations. The Organization gives the same rights to both small and large countries.3 Thus, if trade disputes occur between member nations, these can be brought before the WTO (WTO, 2009a).

The WTO accomplishes its work by negotiating trading rules between nations. The agreements that are developed must be ratified by congresses or parliaments of the member nations. The ultimate goal of the WTO is to help producers, exporters, and importers of goods and services and other forms of intellectual property conduct their business; its overarching objective being to help trade to flow as freely as possible, as long as there are no undesirable side effects. By having a set of trading rules, trade becomes predictable (Table 20.1).

Table 20.1. Is trade fair to everyone?

If there is a trade dispute between member nations, the WTO provides a forum where member nations can work out trade problems and settle trade disputes. The objective is to first negotiate a resolution to the dispute. If a resolution cannot be achieved, the dispute can ultimately lead to trade sanctions, which are allowed by the WTO. These trade sanctions cannot be punitive. They must not exceed the loss that was presented in the formal dispute document.

The WTO's objective is to develop liberalized trade. Liberalized trade is not free trade. There are areas where the WTO supports trade barriers. These include the need to protect consumers, or prevent the spread of disease between humans, animals, or plants (SPS measures) and to allow certain technical barriers to trade (TBT measures), such as labeling requirements.

1.1 History

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has more than 130 members, accounting for more than 90% of world trade. More than 30 others are negotiating membership. The forerunner of the WTO is the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT was the cornerstone of international trade law and trade negotiations for more than four decades. It only achieved this status after the collapse of the Agreement on an International Trade Organization (ITO). ITO had been prepared after World War II under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), particularly the UN Economic and Social Council, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development. After it became clear that the U.S. Congress would not ratify the ITO agreement, plans to have the ITO established were dropped, and GATT became the single most important international trade (law) instrument by default.

GATT's profile was at its highest at the time of negotiation of the eight successive so-called “rounds” of tariff negotiations. These each led to new “schedules” of tariff concessions, in which the contracting parties (as the states adhering to GATT were known) individually agreed to cut tariffs on specified products, according to the agreed timetable. The last of these rounds, the Uruguay Round, led to the creation of the WTO by the 1994 Marrakech Agreement. GATT 1947 was integrated into the WTO agreement and, together with the GATT 1994 agreement, forms the backbone of international trade in goods.

Decisions in the WTO are made by the entire membership. This is typically by consensus. A majority vote is also possible, but it has never been used in the WTO and was extremely rare under the WTO's predecessor, GATT. The WTO's agreements have been ratified in all members' parliaments.

2.2.6 World Trade Organization/Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement

The World Trade Organization11 (WTO) tries to remove barriers to trade. To achieve this, several measures have been taken. Tariff barriers were reduced and to the extent that this was successful non-tariff barriers became more of a concern. The basic treaty addressing trade in goods is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT recognizes that certain exceptions to free trade can be necessary to protect higher values like health and (food) safety.

In the food trade, differences in technical standards like packaging requirements may cause problems. However, it is mostly concerns about food safety, human health, animal and plant health that induce national authorities to take measures which may frustrate the free flow of trade. To address these concerns two WTO treaties were concluded: the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement).

The SPS Agreement was drawn up to ensure that countries only apply measures to protect human and animal health (sanitary measures) and plant health (phytosanitary measures) based on the assessment of risk, or in other words, based on science. The SPS Agreement incorporates, therefore, safety aspects of foods in trade. The TBT Agreement covers all technical requirements and standards (applied to all commodities), such as labeling, that are not covered by the SPS Agreement. Therefore, the SPS and TBT Agreements can be seen as complementing each other.

To a certain extent the WTO is a supranational organization. The treaties concluded between its members are binding. There is the Dispute Settlement Understanding, providing an arbitration procedure to resolve conflicts. If a party wants to present a conflict, a Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) is formed to arbitrate on the basis of WTO law. If a party does not agree with the decision of the DSB, it can take the case to an Appellate Body (AB). The WTO does not have powers to enforce decisions taken in this arbitration procedure. It can condone, however, that if the decision reached is not implemented by the party found at fault, the winning party may implement economic sanctions. These sanctions usually take the form of additional import levies on goods from the state found at fault. If the levies are condoned by the DSB (or the AB), setting them does not in itself constitute an infringement of WTO obligations.

As follows from the above, the SPS Agreement is very important from a food safety point of view. The SPS Agreement recognizes and further elaborates on the right of the parties to this agreement to take sanitary and phytosanitary measures necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health. The measures must be scientifically justified and they may not be discriminating, nor constitute disguised barriers to international trade.

If the measures are in conformity with international standards, no scientific proof of their necessity is required. These measures are by definition considered to be necessary. The most important international standards regarding SPS are set by the so-called three sisters of the SPS Agreement: the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the International Office of Epizootics (OIE12) and the Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). The standards on food and on food safety are mainly to be found in the Codex Alimentarius.13

1.1. ISO and the market

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the international organisation dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.

ISO – together with IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has built a strategic partnership with WTO. The political agreements reached within the framework of WTO require underpinning by technical agreements. ISO, IEC and ITU, as the three principal organisations in international standardisation, have the complementary scopes, the framework, the expertise and the experience to provide this technical support for the growth of the global market.

The agreement with WTO recognises the important contribution that international standards and conformity assessment systems can make to improving efficiency of production and facilitating international trade. Where international standards exist or their completion is imminent, the code of Good Practice says that standardising bodies should use them, or the relevant parts of them, as a basis for standards they develop. It also aims at the harmonisation of standards on as wide a basis as possible, encouraging all standardising bodies to play as full a part as resources allow in the preparation of international standards by the relevant international body, including the ISO and IEC.

9.3.3.2 Tourism and recreations

World Trade Organization define that the movement of a people, outside his habitat and stay in a places not more than a consecutive year is known as Tourism (Akpabio et al., 2008). It promotes local customs, natural assets, goods and services which enrich public service and infrastructure while ruined natural resources, migration of people, inhabitant of outsider, partition of land holding and affected agriculture activities (Shah and Gupta, 2000). Information technology revolution and social media support tourism activity which targeted traditional culture and ecology of tourist place (Convention on Biological Diversity CBD, 2002). Growth of tourism and recreation industry depends on effort between the investors and governmental organization which support the livelihood of indigenous people. Any water bodies make recreation activity like water park, boating, aquarium etc; therefore non-polluted rivers can be significant destination for both domestic and intercontinental tourism and grant tax revenue and employment (Butler., 2009).

Abstract

The World Trade Organization (WTO) came into existence in 1995, with the objective to help member countries agree on common principles to facilitate international trade. At the core of WTO are a series of agreements that cover goods, services, and intellectual property. One of the agreements, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement), has had a significant impact on regulations that affect global agricultural trade. This article discusses the main provisions of the SPS agreement and provides a brief overview of the role of the World Organization for Animal Health, the International Plant Protection Convention and the Codex Alimentarius, in developing international standards for animal health, plant health and food safety.

Trade Remedy Actions

The WTO allows for trade remedy actions including antidumping (AD) and countervailing duties (CVDs). AD actions can be imposed when two conditions are met: (1) the US Department of Commerce (USDOC) determines that foreign goods are sold, or likely to be sold at less than fair value (LTFV) and (2) the US International Trade Commission (USITC) determines that an industry in the United States is injured materially, or threatened with injury, from the sale of the goods. Dumping, or sales at LTFV, typically occurs when a company exports a product at a price lower than the price it normally charges in its own home market.

The WTO agreement allows governments to act against dumping when there is genuine material injury. A government must show that dumping is taking place, calculate the extent of dumping (the dumping margin), and show that dumping is causing injury. Typically, an AD action means charging extra import duties in order to bring the price closer to normal value. The dumping margin is the difference between the price or cost in the home market (the normal value) and the price in the export market.

The WTO agreement stipulates three methods for calculating the normal value: (1) a comparison of the export price with the price in the exporter’s home market; (2) a comparison of the export price with the price charged in a third-country market; or (3) a calculation based on the combination of the exporter’s production costs, other expenses, and normal profit (constructed value).

CVDs can be imposed when (1) the USDOC determines that the government of a country, or any public entity within a country, provides a countervailable subsidy on the manufacture, production, or export of goods sold into the United States, and (2) the USITC determines that an industry in the United States is injured materially or threatened with injury by reason of these imports. The types of subsidies covered by CVD actions are specified in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and CV Measures (WTO, 2003). Only specific subsidies that apply to a specific enterprise or industry group are usually actionable. The WTO Agreement identifies three types of actionable subsidies: (1) subsidies that provide an advantage over rival exporters in a third-country market, (2) subsidies that advantage the domestic industry over exporters to that country, and (3) subsidies that damage the domestic industry in the importing country.

World Trade Organization

The WTO is not an actor in the pharmaceutical sector in the strict sense of the word. The WTO has, however, worked on strengthening patent protection of costly pharmaceutical products, so it has often been perceived as such. Patent issues have played a controversial role in securing access to and cost containment of modern pharmaceuticals in both developing and developed countries. The pharmaceutical industry has tried to defend its position that patents ultimately improve access of populations to high-quality pharmaceutical care, an argument that has been met with skepticism by many health-care professionals and activists. The WTO's meeting in Doha, Qatar, in 2001 reached agreement to allow developing countries to override certain patent laws and facilitate the use of less expensive generic drugs. In Article 31(f) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the WTO allowed countries to issue licenses to manufacturers other than the patent holder to produce patented medicine (so-called ‘compulsory licensing’). The article also allowed the import of patented pharmaceuticals if they were less costly in another country (‘parallel importing’). The key principle of the TRIPS agreement was that trade agreements should be interpreted and implemented to protect public health and promote access to medicines for all. The United States refused to support a more detailed plan saying that it failed to protect patents on drugs for noninfectious diseases and that it would undermine research and development (Laing, 2003).

Given the (research-based) pharmaceutical industry's strong influence on U.S. foreign policy, the United States has started to establish bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) to enforce patent protection in individual countries after failing to work out the details of the TRIPS agreement. These FTAs are often dubbed ‘TRIPS-Plus’ agreements, as their patent protection arrangements go well beyond the original TRIPS agreement. Some countries (e.g., Australia) had to accept the decision to provide a seat to brand-name industry representatives in the medicine selection committee of its pharmaceutical benefit scheme (PBS) (Hughes, 2004). These players (and others) influence drug regulatory and policy decisions to varying degrees, and the dynamics are rarely static. The balance of power tends to shift continuously. In studying the literature it becomes clear that pharmaceutical policies can and should be different, and that a one-size-fits-all approach for all pharmaceutical policies, and in all countries and health systems, is not recommended.

Contaminants of emerging concern and antimicrobial resistance

The World Trade Organization’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights globalized pharmaceutical sector with great momentum. Outsourcing of production to the emerging markets, where labor is cheap, workforces skilled, and environmental standards lax, has now become an attraction for the pharmaceuticals. Indeed, the vast majority of the world’s drugs are now manufactured in India (Bulk drugs) and in China, active pharmaceutical ingredients. Pharmaceutical pollution can trigger antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is a major concern. The environmental footprint of the pharma industry needs to be assessed critically for environmental sustainability. Solid, liquid, or airborne waste from pharma industries poses serious health risks. Water contamination and risks to aquaculture have recently attracted the scientific community’s radar. There is now a huge body of information on the negative effects resulting from the accumulation of pharmaceuticals in the environment, which range from the near elimination of entire species, for example, threats to vultures and birds, and male fish which are being “feminized” by PPCP pollution and the spread of AMR.

The occurrence and fate of PPCP species in our environment received great attention in the last two decades. PPCPs are biologically active ingredients that are initially planned to increase or moderate the quality of human health. Recent studies, however, suggest that pharmaceuticals and their residues are refractory compounds persisting in the environment and affecting nontarget species in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

PPCPs have been recognized as a potential environmental problem (Kümmerer et al., 2000). Recent studies provide knowledge on the PPCPs frequently used in developed countries (Kasprzyk-Horden et al., 2009; Gros et al., 2010; Ternes et al., 2004). However, the use, occurrence, fate, biotic, and abiotic degradation of therapeutics commonly used in developing countries have not been widely studied. In other words, the ecotoxicological knowledge on PPCPs such as antimalarials, antiretrovirals, antituberculotics, and antiparasitics need detailed investigation.

Furthermore, the pressure to develop innovative methods to improve the removal efficiencies of the anthropogenic pollutants from the hydrologic cycle is increasing (Sangave et al., 2007; Rosal et al., 2010; Badawy et al., 2009). Efficient removal of refractory compounds would make the recycling of industrial wastewater possible for irrigation (Badawy et al., 2009). Closing water loop is one of the options to sustain and minimize the water resource exploitation. The limited quantity of unpolluted water, especially for agricultural purposes in the future, is one of the major challenges of the world (Ternes et al., 2007). Overexploration of limited water sources is resulting in decreasing river flows, falling groundwater levels, increasing water pollution, and wetland deterioration (Descheemaeker et al., 2010). Aquatic plants used in natural and constructed wetland treatment systems have shown high efficiency (70%–90%) for removal of PPCPs (Ávila et al., 2010; Aslam et al., 2007; Calheiros et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2013; Descheemaeker et al., 2010; Heberer, 2002; Hijosa-Valsero et al., 2011; Huett et al., 2005; Lindqvist et al., 2005; Matamoros et al., 2007; Matamoros and Bayona, 2006; Park et al., 2009). Health threats posed by pollution from antibiotic production are believed to be contributing to soaring drug resistance rates (Table 1). This has serious implications for global health as antibiotic-resistance genes spread around the world through travel and trade.

Table 1. Historical resume of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USA.

Pharmaceuticals and health-care products that are refractory in function have been detected in drinking water. These include estrogen and anthropogenic EDCs. EDCs have existed for a long time in the environment, but recently they have attracted the attention of scientists. India witnessed up to 95% loss of the vulture population over the past two to three decades. The veterinary medicine diclofenac is in heavy use in the livestock sector (buffalos, cattle, sheep, and goat). The investigation proved that veterinary diclofenac is the prime cause for the decline of vulture populations. Vultures scavenge the corpses of cattle and become the victims. Pharmaceutical residues are common contaminants of groundwater in many cities. There has been an increasing concern about the potential adverse effect of EDCs on environmental health. Because the content of EDC is very low and usually accords with current environmental standards, it is not easy to recognize its harmful effects on the human endocrine system. It is believed that EDC might have a serious effect on human health, especially on the generative system. Therefore it is also called an environmental hormone.