Cross-border Movement of Natural Persons under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
Description:
• Task: Submit a Research Paper of maximum 3,000 words on ANY ONE of the following:
1. Mode 4: Cross-border Movement of Natural Persons under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
Mode 4 of the GATS has become one of the most contentious issues of the WTO, reinforcing the continued North-South conflict of economic interests.
Your research task is to make a critical examination of the Mode 4 of GATS, highlighting and commenting upon its various phases of development, debatable issues of concerns, and status since its inception to the Bali Ministerial Conference of the WTO in 2013.
2. The Doha Declaration on Public Health and the Generic Drug Waiver Accord of the WTO TRIPS Agreement
The spread of life threatening contagious diseases like AIDS and HIV led the WTO Ministerial Conference in 2001 to proclaim its Doha Declaration on Public Health which sought to amend the TRIPS pharmaceutical patent law to ensure easy and affordable access to patented life-saving drugs. To this end and under TRIPS Article 31 that authorises the circumvention of TRIPS patent right by granting compulsory licensing in the public interests and national emergencies, the generic drug waiver accord was created in 2003 with specified scope. This generic drug waiver accord has assumed and will continue to assume paramount significance on the face of the current outbreak of the Ebola public health crisis in Africa.
Your research task is to trace the legislative history and analyse the contents of the WTO generic drug weaver accord revealing its strengths and weaknesses. Do you suggest any reform proposal to improve the accord with a view to better achieving its objective?
3. Authorised Trade Sanction or Retaliation to Induce Compliance with WTO Dispute Settlement Body Rulings
As one of the means of implementing the ruling of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) contains a provision for WTO authorised trade sanction or retaliation against a ruling-defiant WTO member.
Your research task is to critically examine this provision for WTO authorised trade sanction or retaliation by a winning member against a losing member which refuses to comply with the DSB ruling. Do you have any recommendation to render it a more equitable remedy?