Paths to Local Food Security: A Right to Food, A Commitment to Trade

International bodies and nation-states attending international meetings on the subject have agreed that there is a right to food. The first Millennium Development Goal, in which members of the United Nations General Assembly agreed to halve the number of persons without adequate food by the year 2015, complements this right to food. Many persons believe that the right to food--especially at the national level--is linked to national food self-sufficiency. Opponents of this view argue that self-sufficiency is economically irrational in many territories. Others believe that for many countries, particularly nations in sub-Saharan Africa, a government\u27s obligation to ensure food security can be achieved only through markets open to basic food imports, combined with some local production and probably with biotechnology. While this belief in the need for markets that are open to food imports as well as local production is the prevailing view, the experience of Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement has created some concern for the viability of this system. The Mexican market has opened to U.S. feed corn imports, which would normally lower the price. However, prices for maize have escalated as maize becomes a feed stock of choice in the fight against climate change, driving up demand. This brief article considers a few of the legal and policy issues connected with trying to balance the right to food and the commitment to free trade

Revisiting the transatlantic divergence over GMOs: Toward a cultural-political analysis

'Revisiting the transatlantic divergence over GMOs: towards a cultural-political analysis' applies a constructivist perspective to the persistent transatlantic divergence over the regulation of GM foods and crops. Political economy and institutionalism have so far dominated the literature. Notwithstanding their crucial insights, this article argues that to achieve a better understanding of the nature and depth of transatlantic regulatory divergence, one should also study prevalent cultural values and identity-related public concerns regarding food and agriculture. These factors can be identified in public opinion trends and have fuelled Europeans' resistance, while contributing to relative regulatory stability in the US. By conceptualizing cultural contexts as catalytic structures, the article also differs from more explicitly discursive accounts of political mobilization. The cultural politics of agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) relies both on pre-existing values and identities, on the one hand, and on the strategies (and material or other power resources) of political agents

International Trade Under the Rule of Law Conference

The central focus of the conference was the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with a view toward exploring the need for a superstructure of international law governing trade and economic cooperation between countries

No. 5 - International Trade under the Rule of Law: An American Society of International Law Centennial Regional Meeting

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center and designated an American Society of International Law Centennial Regional Meeting, this conference focused on the Dispute Settlement System (DSS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a view toward discussing the need for a superstructure of international law governing trade and economic cooperation between states

No. 5 - International Trade under the Rule of Law: An American Society of International Law Centennial Regional Meeting

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center and designated an American Society of International Law Centennial Regional Meeting, this conference focused on the Dispute Settlement System (DSS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a view toward discussing the need for a superstructure of international law governing trade and economic cooperation between states