As part of the Trade and Development Symposium (TDS) in December 2015 we organised a 90-minute side-event to present the work of The Independent Panel on Global Governance for Health. The title of the session was: “Trade and investment agreements: the threat to people’s health”.
About the event
The aim of the session was to assess the implications of trade and investment agreements for global health, based on the work of the Independent Panel on Global Governance for Health which critically analyses the impact of trade and investment agreements (TIAs) on how people live and work, what they consume, and their health and social protection systems. Often TIAs favour the interests of large multinational corporations, which exert disproportionate influence on national negotiating positions. Together with investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms, TIAs can undermine governments’ ability to pass laws and regulations that protect and promote public health. This requires a reform of how TIAs are negotiated, implemented and adjudicated to remove a range of power asymmetries.
Panel Members
Chair: Desmond McNEILL, University of Oslo, Leader of the Independent Panel on Global Governance for Health.
Andrew MITCHELL, Melbourne Law School, Australia.
Prof. Ted SCHRECKER, Professor, Durham University
Sanya REID SMITH, Legal Advisor and Senior Researcher, Third World Network
