Past as global trade governance prelude: reconfiguring debate about reform of the multilateral trading system

This paper peers backwards into the history of the multilateral trading system and its development over the past half century as a means of considering what may lie beyond the horizon for the future of global trade governance. Its purpose is to underscore the necessity and urgency for root-and-branch reform of the multilateral trading system. It achieves this by comparing and contrasting the global trading system of 50 years ago with its modern-day equivalent and its likely future counterpart half-a-century hence. In so doing, the paper throws into sharp relief not only the inadequacies of global trade governance today but also the damaging consequences of not fundamentally reforming the system in the near future, with a particular emphasis on the past, present and future development of the world’s poorest and most marginalised countries

Three (Potential) Pillars of Transnational Economic Justice: The Bretton Woods Institutions as Guarantors of Global Equal Treatment and Market Completion

This essay aims to bring two important lines of inquiry and criticism together. It first lays out an institutionally enriched account of what a just world economic order will look like. That account prescribes, via the requisites to that mechanism which most directly instantiate the account, three realms of equal treatment and market completion - the global products, services, and labor markets; the global investment/financial markets; and the global preparticipation opportunity allocation. The essay then suggests how, with minimal if any departure from familiar canons of traditional international legal mandate interpretation, each of the Bretton Woods institutions - particularly the GATT/WTO and the IMF - can be viewed at least in part as charged with the task of fostering equal treatment and ultimate market completion within one of those three realms. The piece then argues that one of the institutions in particular - the World Bank - has, for reasons of at best negligent and at worst willful injustice on the part of influential state actors in the world community, fallen farthest short in pursuit of what should be viewed as its proper mandate. The article accordingly concludes that a fuller empowerment of the Bank to effect its ideal mission will press the Bretton Woods system more nearly into ethical balance, and with it the world into justice; and that full empowerment of the GATT/WTO and IMF should be partly conditioned upon the fuller empowerment of the Bank

Aphthous Esophagael Ulceration: A Novel Presentation of Crohn’s Disease?

Crohn’s disease (CD) commonly presents as involvement of the small bowel or colon - the esophagus is rarely involved. The authors describe the case of a 45-year-old woman who presented with odynophagia and was found to have aphthous ulcers of the esophagus. On questioning, she admitted to three to four episodes of nonbloody diarrhea, each lasting less than one week, over the past two years. The patient denied other symptoms of gastrointestinal, collagen-vascular, respiratory or cardiovascular disease. Viral, fungal and bacterial cultures of blood, stool and tissue biopsies were all negative. A small bowel enema showed inflammation of the distal ileum. Colonoscopy revealed patchy areas of inflammation of the colon and distal ileum. Biopsies from the esophagus, duodenum, terminal ileum and colon showed chronic inflammation, lymphoid aggregates, goblet cell hyperplasia (in the colon) and crypt abscesses. Giant cells, granulomas and fissures were not evident in any of the biopsies. The patient failed to respond to a three-week course of omeprazole, but her symptoms resolved within three days of starting prednisone. The exact cause of the esophageal ulcerations is unknown but most likely is CD of the esophagus