Energy and Trade in the Time of Destabilized Multilateralism: Innovative Economic Policies for the WTO

The multilateral trade system has been in trouble for over a decade. The set of international trade agreements managed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has never meaningfully expanded beyond its 1990s founding package. Instead, since early 2000s bilateral trade deals done outside the WTO have multiplied. The WTO is better known today for the troubled trajectory of the unfinished Doha Round. The rhetoric of economic nationalism by the current US Administration does not help. It is time to consider new creative options before the world trading system becomes irreparably fragmented by politics. To this extent the following article advocates an initiative of creating an open plurilateral agreement on services related to energy sector under the framework of the WTO’s GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services). Energy security remains the key international issue. Initiating talks among interested countries on energy related services under GATS can move the WTO forward towards pragmatic solutions and encourage international cooperation on the critical economic matter

Between Conflict and Cooperation - Global-National Interfaces and the Fight Against Hiv/Aids in Brazil and South Africa

This paper endeavours to analyse the relationship between Global Health Governance and national health politics in the case of HIV/AIDS. The paper compares Brazil and South Africa as two cases in which the relationship between national politics and GHG has been structured in contrasting ways, ranging from conflict to cooperation. Different reciprocal influences are analysed through the interface concept. A differentiation is made between four kinds of interfaces: resource-transfer, organisational, legal, and discursive. The main finding is that despite a huge variety of global actors operating in the field of HIV/AIDS, national politics and actor constellations account for most of the contrasts between Brazil and South Africa in respect to their fight against HIV/AIDS. In contrast to Brazil, South Africa's HIV/AIDS policy has for a long time been dominated by one central political actor. Until 2003, the central ANC-government was able to push through its strict refusal to provide antiretroviral drugs in the public health system