NGOs and the European Union: Examining the Power of Epistemes in the EC's TRIPS and Access to Medicines Negotiations

Multilateral trade governance as social field: Global civil society and the WTO

“…Trade negotiators and Secretariat officials tend to understand trade in narrowly economic terms, divorced from political questions and normative disputes (Howse 2002). This has led to a privileging of the knowledge and authority of "experts" and resistance to what is seen as "political" interference in trade policymaking (Hannah 2011). The result is a secretive culture of decision-making, with an absence of transparency and resistance to public engagement.…”

“…Freeing market forces from "artificial" constraints -such as "barriers to trade" (increasingly broadly defined) -is believed to automatically and invariably generate increased efficiency and material well-being. With implicit faith in the utility-maximizing nature of liberalization, trade officials are generally indifferent to questions related to the distribution of the benefits and burdens of trade liberalization or the effects of trade policies on other areas such as human rights, the environment, or health (Hannah 2011;Kapoor 2006).…”

“…For NGOs concerned with international development, part of their motivation to form alliances also stems from the desire to support developing countries in WTO negotiations (Hannah 2014;Scott 2014). Many developing countries -particularly least developed countries (LDCs) -are severely under-resourced and suffer an acute lack of technical expertise; in other words, they are deficient in a key form of capital necessary to exert influence within this field.…”

“…Despite considerable theoretical interest in global civil society, there have been few empirical studies of how it actually engages with and works to influence the WTO. Although there is a large literature on the relationship between the WTO and civil society, it has focused primarily on one pole of this dyad: the WTO, its initiatives directed at civil society and the extent to which it has (or has not) been changed by this interaction (Hannah 2011;Howse 2003;Kapoor 2006;Mortensen 2003;Wilkinson 2005;Williams 2005). Where the literature has turned to examine the other poleglobal civil society -it has focused on the Seattle protests (Gill 2008;Halliday 2000;Kaldor 2000; Levi and Olson 2000;Murphy and Pfaff 2005), with comparatively little attention to global civil society's engagement with the WTO in the 15 years since then.…”

Civil Society and Investor–state Dispute Settlement: Assessing the Social Dimensions of Investment Disputes in Latin America

“…Yet important questions remain, for instance: how do civil society actors intervene in ISDS outside of institutionalised channels and what challenges face activists in the global South when seeking to intervene? A significant body of literature demonstrates how civil society actors have helped shape the global trade agenda inside and outside of formal channels (Hannah 2011;Trommer 2013;Spalding 2007;Von Bülow 2010). Shedding further light on civil society engagement in investment disputes within and outside of formal spaces will strengthen understandings of how such actors influence the enforcement of trade and investment agreements.…”