Trade and environment constitute regimes in international relations: they are vehicles for cooperation between nation states that permit governments to address various subjects such as commercial non-discrimination, reduction of pollution, reciprocity and sustainable development. The issues of food safety and agricultural biotechnology (i.e., genetically modified organisms or GMOs) have been raised in both regimes, and have been managed in different and arguably inconsistent manners. In the trade regime, food safety and ag-biotech are mainly subject to the US-backed principle of ‘scientific risk assessment’ established in the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, while in the environment regime they would likely be addressed through the more politically based ‘precautionary principle’, promoted by the EU and represented in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Both the trade and environment regimes are rules-based, but conflict between them diminishes the force of precision and obligation needed to make rules effective. Furthermore, there is a danger that regime conflict could expand, thereby reducing the opportunity to promote an optimal relationship between science and society in the future.

The tension in the WTO between adaptation to globalization and integration of developing countries is illustrated by one of the central norms of the regime, transparency. Experts believe democratic governance and efficient markets are both enhanced when autonomous administrative agencies are open about what they doing. WTO requirements for regulatory transparency may prove to be more straightforward for OECD countries than developing countries. The future of the WTO as a legitimate and effective international organization depends on finding modes of regulation accessible to all its Members. A review of how Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, and Uganda implement the transparency requirements of the agreements on basic telecommunications, and sanitary and phytosantitary measures found that regulatory independence and transparency are increasingly prevalent in telecommunications, but much less so in food safety. Transparency between countries appears easier than transparency within countries, and economic regulation seems easier to adapt to international norms than social regulation.

This article focuses on the interpretation and application of law in WTO dispute settlement from the angle of legal certainty and predictability. An analysis of the interpretation of WTO law shows that in general it does not differ from the interpretation of other public international law as interpretative rules well known in international law are applied. This together with the consistence provided by the respect of earlier panel and Appellate Body reports safeguard legal certainty. Furthermore, legal certainty and predictability requires clarity in the law applicable in WTO dispute settlement, in particular as regards non-WTO law. It will be shown that apart from peremptory norms of public international law (ius cogens), the relevance of international law outside WTO law is limited. Non-WTO treaty law must not be applied except if referred to by WTO law or incorporated therein. Apart from that international law of any kind can only be considered when interpreting WTO law. In certain circumstances this applies even to non-WTO treaty law to which not all WTO members are parties. Due to the as yet limited importance of non-WTO law, legal certainty and predictability also depend on the issue of conflict of norms, which also is relevant as far as the interrelationship of the different WTO agreements is concerned. In this regard predictability and legal certainty cannot be fully reached.

This paper analyses how trade affects women's job opportunities and earnings through five case studies: Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Women's share of the labour force has increased over time and the wage gap between men and women has narrowed. A positive and statistically significant correlation between exports and women's share of employment is found while there is a statistically significant and negative correlation between women's share in employment and imports. The correlations stem from variation between sectors rather than within sectors over time, indicating that export-competing industries tend to employ women while import-competing industries tend to employ men. Trade liberalization is likely to create jobs for women and over time increase their relative wages.

This dispute between the European Communities and the United States originated when the United States amended its copyright law in a way that nullified and impaired certain benefits promised to the European Communities under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs). Article 9.1 of TRIPs requires all WTO members to comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention of 1971. Among the provisions of the Berne Convention thus incorporated into the TRIPs Agreement is one that grants to authors of literary and artistic works the exclusive right to authorize ‘the public communication by loudspeaker or any analogous instrument transmitting, by signs, sounds or images, the broadcast of the work’, and another that grants to authors of dramatic and musical works the exclusive right to authorize ‘any communication to the public of the performance of these works’.

In my article ‘WTO Dispute Settlement: the Politics of Procedure in Appellate body Rulings’ (March 2003), I linked the resignation of Debra Steger, former Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat, to the political controversy regarding amicus curiae submissions. This erroneous conclusion was based on two interviews in Geneva and implicitly supportive evidence from a WTO Reporter article.