At the background of the inquiry into the creation of rights to animal genetic resources lie different strands of thinking and various lines of arguments. These are fueled by three major developments in the AnGR sector: the increasing volume in trade in animal products; the scientific progress...

Carbon labeling is a noble concept aimed at reducing carbon emissions through more efficient methods of manufacture and more responsible consumer habits. Unfortunately no widely accepted system of labeling exists, and creating one raises a number of questions on a global political and economic level

The global economy is undergoing significant changes. Many (re-)emerging economies (especially in South East Asia) have seen spectacular growth rates over the past few years, new markets have been created and global production chains have diversified and expanded. I argue in this paper that new...

Cultural protectionism has been an element of national and foreign policies, as an extension of state sovereignty expressed both in a defensive and offensive manner. While the generic protectionist formula in the sense of restraining trade between states through measures such as import tariffs...

Effective interaction between climate science and policy is important for moving climate negotiations forward to reach an ambitious global climate change deal. Lack of progress in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations during recent years is a good reason...

Irrespective of the diverse stances taken on the effect of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity in the external relations context, since its wording is fairly open-ended, it is clear to all observers that the Convention’s impact will largely depend on how it is implemented domestically....

This paper studies the government procurement of services from foreign suppliers by conducting a statistical analysis of data submitted by Japan and Switzerland to the WTO's Committee on Government Procurement. Using several metrics, the paper examines if the WTO’s Agreement on Government...

This paper presents the results of a four-year project tackling several issues relating to multilateral and preferential trade in services. One of the underlying organising principles of our research on services trade has been a presumed fault line between the innate coherence that is achieved...

The relationship between trade and culture can be singled-out and deservedly labelled as unique in the discussion of 'trade and ...' issues. The reasons for this exceptional quality lie in the intensity of the relationship, which is indeed most often framed as 'trade versus culture' and has been...

The European Community (EC) has recently and after lengthy and strenuous deliberations reformed its media regulation and adopted the Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMS) as a successor of the Television without Frontiers Directive. The present paper examines in particular whether and how...