WTO deference to national health policy: Toward an interpretive principle
WTO deference to national health policy: Toward an interpretive principle
复制标题
DOI：
10.1093/jiel/5.4.825
复制
发表时间：
2002-12-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Bloche, MG
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bloche, MG
世贸组织的批评者经常将其视为人类健康的障碍，特别是在最贫穷的国家。这种描述不仅忽视了贸易和卫生之间潜在的协同作用，而且几乎忽视了世贸组织内部最近的事态发展，这些事态发展肯定了成员国促进卫生的权力。世贸组织的制定者们很少关注卫生政策。然而，在过去的几年里，政治和艾滋病的流行已经把卫生作为一个贸易问题推到了舞台的中心。这篇文章回顾了世贸组织的反应。它考虑了世界贸易组织在几种情况下对国家卫生政策的处理-《关贸总协定》第二十条（B）款（允许限制贸易的卫生条例）、《卫生和植物检疫措施协定》（管理食品安全条例）和《与贸易有关的知识产权协定》（限制受专利保护的药品的生产和销售）。它确定了一种新的模式，即当成员国的卫生政策与贸易协定保护的其他价值观发生冲突时，对国家权威的尊重程度会提高。我认为，当成员国的条约义务出现争端时，WTO体系已经将保护健康视为事实上的解释原则。但是，世贸组织决策者并没有强加一种放之四海而皆准的合理卫生政策概念，而是倾向于遵循成员国不同的政策选择。这种方法合理地适应了卫生政治的心理，成员国之间的文化和资源差异，并希望在国际法中承认健康作为一种价值。
Critics of the WTO often cast it as an obstacle to human health, particularly in the poorest nations. Not only does this portrayal overlook potential synergies between trade and health; it all but ignores recent developments within the WTO that have affirmed member states' power to promote health. The WTO's framers paid little heed to health policy. Over the past few years, however, politics and the AIDS pandemic have pushed health to center stage as a trade issue. This article reviews the WTO's response. It considers the WTO's treatment of national health policies in several contexts - GATT Art. XX(b) (permitting health regulations that restrict trade), the SPS Agreement (governing food safety regulation), and the TRIPS Agreement (limiting manufacture and sale of patent-protected medicines). It identifies an emerging pattern of heightened deference to national authority when member states' health policies conflict with other values protected by trade agreements. The WTO system, I argue, has come to treat protection for health as a de facto interpretive principle when disputes arise over members' treaty obligations. But rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all conception of rational health policy, WTO decision-makers have preferred the path of deference to members' varied policy choices. This approach sensibly accommodates the psychology of health politics, differences in culture and resources among member states, and hopes for recognition of health as a value in international law.