Trade, Investment, & Health Law Trade, Investment, & Health Law O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law

Posts tagged Health

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and the Law

Feb20
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Benn McGrady

From June 17 – 21, the O’Neill Institute will host a Summer Program on NCDs and the law in Washington DC. The Summer program is a week-long executive education course targeted at lawyers, researchers, health officials and advocates (among others). Further details are available here.

For those interested in the issues, it is worth reading a series on NCDs published by the Lancet last week and a recent New York Times article by Michael Moss. The latter explores food industry efforts to addict consumers and market unhealthy products. There is a great quote in the article from a former food industry employee about the business model:

“Discover what consumers want to buy and give it to them with both barrels. Sell more, keep your job! How do marketers often translate these ‘rules’ into action on food? Our limbic brains love sugar, fat, salt. . . . So formulate products to deliver these. Perhaps add low-cost ingredients to boost profit margins. Then ‘supersize’ to sell more. . . . And advertise/promote to lock in ‘heavy users.’ Plenty of guilt to go around here!”

No doubt this material will provide plenty of fodder for a discussion of what role law should play in addressing NCDs.

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Transnational Dispute Management Special on Legal Issues in Tobacco Control

Nov05
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Benn McGrady

Inspired by all of the WTO and investment treaty activity surrounding tobacco control, TDM has just published a special issue on Legal Issues in Tobacco Control. I am yet to read all of the articles, but the table of contents looks great. As the editors note, the publication is also timely in that the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is set to meet next week.

 

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Event in DC Tomorrow on Tobacco in the TPP

Jun07
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Benn McGrady

The Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health is hosting an event tomorrow in Washington DC on tobacco and trade. The specific focus will be on the tobacco specific exception the United States intends to propose in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. I have previously blogged about that here, here and here.

One of the issues discussed in those blog posts is the question of how reference to “science-based” regulation in the proposal might affect domestic regulatory autonomy. Yesterday, I was reviewing the proofs for a publication I have coming out and was reminded of the Philip Morris submission to USTR on the TPP. Among other things, PMI stated that it supports negotiations that foster harmonization of legitimate “science-based” regulations. The submission, which is now available here, goes on to argue that there is a lack of evidence to support the Australia’s move to plain packaging of tobacco products.

This argument about lack of evidence has been central to PMI’s criticism of Australia, despite the fact that Australia is implementing guidelines to Articles 11 and 13 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (available here). The guidelines were developed by Parties to the Convention and adopted unanimously by the Parties. The guidelines were also developed after consideration of available scientific evidence. For example, the WHO FCTC webpage on which the guidelines can be found lists 22 sources used as reference material in development of the guidelines. Many of these sources are peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals.

Despite how innocuous reference to science may appear at first glance, the term is a loaded one in the context of international trade law because it requires states to justify health measures by reference to a specific body of knowledge. Moreover, the Philip Morris submission provides an example of how tobacco companies may invoke any reference to science-based regulation if the language makes it into a tobacco specific exception.

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More on the US – India Dispute Concerning Avian Influenza

May25
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Benn McGrady

The United States Request for the Establishment of a Panel in India – Measures Concerning the Importation of Certain Agricultural Products is now available. The request challenges Indian measures restricting importation of certain agricultural products (primarily poultry) on grounds relating to the spread of avian influenza.

It appears that the dispute will focus on the question of whether the measures are justified on grounds relating to the protection of animal (rather than human) health. The dispute focuses on the lawfulness of measures restricting importation from countries where low pathogenic avian influenza has been identified. As this very helpful CDC website explains, it is high pathogenic avian influenza that is the primary concern in terms of human health i.e. these strains pose higher risks in terms of human morbidity and mortality.

Judging from the US statement to a meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body yesterday, the complaint concerns laws that prohibit importation from any WTO Member where low pathogenic avian influenza has been identified. India is arguing that there are no restrictions in place on importation from the US at present, whereas the US is arguing that the regime as a whole is unlawful even if it does not restrict US imports at present. The Request for the Establishment of a Panel names a significant number of provisions of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement). Hence, the dispute may help shape interpretation of the SPS Agreement and have flow on effects for measures to protect human health.

For the most part, it has proven difficult to defend SPS measures in formal WTO dispute settlement. This is sometimes attributed to how difficult it is to comply with the scientific evidence requirements that must be met to justify a measure and sometimes attributed to a selection bias (the most legally questionable measures are more likely to be challenged). A dispute between India and the US under the SPS Agreement may also raise tensions between developing and developed countries at the WTO. It has often been said that developing countries face particular difficulties in complying with the scientific evidence requirements at issue.

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The views reflected in this blog are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law or Georgetown University. This blog is solely informational in nature, and not intended as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed and retained attorney in your state or country.