The decision by Australia’s High Court to uphold the constitutionality of the country’s ground-breaking tobacco plain packaging laws has been heralded as a victory for national sovereignty over vested interests. However, the ability of governments worldwide to introduce and im plement public health policies and laws is increasingly threatened by trade and investment treaties that privilege inve...

This study provides evidence of firm-level utilization regional trade agreements (RTAs) using transaction-level import data for Thailand. Two stylized facts are presented: some firms use RTA schemes in imports from partner countries, whereas others do not; among that countries under schemes, all transactions but them only transactions. To interpret these observations, we focus on the role impor...

BACKGROUND Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia's social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases ...

Concerns regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have raised awareness about the negative public health impacts of trade and investment agreements. In the past decade, we have learned much about the implications of trade agreements for public health: reduced equity in access to health services; increased flows of unhealthy commodities; limits on access to medicines; and constrained policy...

This article examines the effect of overlapping institutions in trade policy, where the World Trade Organization, preferential trade agreements, and other economic negotiation venues give states many options for negotiating rules and settling disputes. This article argues that overlapping institutions influence trade politics at three stages: selection of venue, negotiation of liberalization co...

Measures to actively facilitate trade are increasingly seen as essential to assist developing countries in expanding trade and benefiting from globalisation. Although often viewed as narrowly concerned with the ease and speed of Customs procedures, even greater trade cost reductions and trade and welfare benefits may be reaped from a broader view of trade facilitation (TF) that incorporates tra...