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The World Trade Organizations Impact on Public Health
The World Trade Organization is an integration organization established on 1 January 1995 to liberalize international trade and regulate its member states business and political relations. It is responsible for developing and implementing new trade agreements, oversees their performance, and monitors trade quality. The WTO was initially created based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which allows it to function as an independent but effective instrument of trade regulation (Barlow et al., 2018). The WTO regulates only trade and economic issues, despite the attempts of many countries to introduce labor agreements as well.
The WTO has the goal of ensuring equal rights on standard and transparent trade terms and the creation of safety valves to regulate critical situations. The WTO agreements are negotiated by the governments of member states and ratified by their parliaments. Decisions within the WTO are taken by consensus of all members during negotiations in an atmosphere of accountability and democracy. The organization impacts business, safety, the environment, and the health system, including public health.
The WTO acts as an instrument of liberal trade, artificially creating inequalities in income and comfort of living. However, the WTO positively and negatively affects public health through business and trade in substances that undermine and improve health. The positive impact is third-party control of alcohol and tobacco and toxic substances. The WTO defines international trade rules that restrict the activities of manufacturing companies (Gola, 2020). In addition, WTO-based agreements have reduced the cost of medical products that are not used by a single nation. Regulatory agreements on the number of medical products allow the WTO to control the smuggling of drugs that can impair health.
It may be noted that the cost of health care services is also decreasing, but with insurance and the magnitude of taxes, this cannot be entirely judged. Golas paper draws attention to the fact that many countries are on the right track to finding a balance between trade and public health (Gola, 2020). The authors point out that agreements such as GATS can help create a playing field in which countries can balance economic freedom with healthcare access. In general, trade liberalization has allowed countries such as the United States and China to increase the economic benefits that have been spent on public health.
However, the WTO has a proven negative impact on public health. It has been noted that WTO agreements such as TRIPS-plus negatively affect the acceptability and availability of medicines. The intellectual property agreement does not allow renewing patents and other countries to retain access to products (Labonte, 2019). In addition, treatments, including therapies and diagnostics, also fall under TRIPS, jeopardizing their access to diverse populations. Free trade in foods and beverages that contain unhealthy fats leads to the availability of their consumption and substitution of normal nutrition (Barlow et al., 2018). As a result, health indicators on the digestive side will be significantly impaired.
Capacity building for countries comes at the expense of strict advertising and trademark regulations. The non-tariff trade barrier created by the WTO is a ceiling that prevents companies and public health organizations from effectively providing their services (Barlow et al., 2018). Labonte notes that this barrier significantly reduces the ability to protect human health and the environment (Labonte, 2019). He speaks to the severe problem of states simply not trying to strike a balance and being more concerned about building economic benefit.
References
Barlow, P., Labonte, R., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2018). Trade challenges at the World Trade Organization to national noncommunicable disease prevention policies: A thematic document analysis of trade and health policy space. PLoS Medicine, 15(6).
Gola, S. (2020). Right to health in GATS: Can the public health exception pave the way for complementarity? ECIL Working Paper.
Labonte, R. (2019). Trade, investment and public health: compiling the evidence, assembling the arguments. Global Health, 15(1).
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