If you have a relevant resource (books, papers, bulletins, etc.) you would like to see announced in this section, please forward a copy or review by the BRIDGES staff to Heike Baumüller.
GREENING THE AMERICAS: NAFTA’S LESSONS FOR HEMISPHERIC TRADE. Edited by Carolyn L. Deere and Daniel C. Esty. Forward by José María Figueres- Olsen. September 2002. The various chapters in the Deere-Esty volume review the history of the environmental negotiations of the NAFTA, explore the treaty’s economic and environmental impacts, and draw lessons that can be applied to the ongoing Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations. Greening The Americas analyses in detail NAFTA’s environmental elements, highlighting those provisions that should be included in future agreements and those that should be amended or dropped. Available from MIT Press. To obtain a copy of this publication, visit http://www-mitpress.mit.edu.
"Intellectual Property Protection For Plant Innovation: Unresolved Issues After J.E.M. v. Pioneer" by Mark Janis and Jay Kesan, in NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY, Vol. 20, No. 11, November 2002. This article analyses the US legal case of J.E.M. Ag Supply and Farm Advantage versus Pioneer Hi-Bred, identifies issues that the December 2001 US Supreme Court decision on the case leaves unresolved, and explains how those issues have emerged in recent disputes over plant intellectual property rights (IPR). The piece argues that, while some view the J.E.M. case as the conclusion of the plant IPR "saga," the decision applied only to the "relatively narrow" issue of plant variety protection under the U.S. utility patent regime. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nbt/
"The Looming Trade War Over Plant Biotechnology" by Ronald Bailey, in TRADE POLICY ANALYSIS, No. 18, 1 August 2002. The author believes that US negotiators should pursue two actions in order to counter the efforts of EU negotiators to create a "trade barrier" against genetically modified (GM) foods from the US. First, Bailey argues that the US should block the acceptance of draft documents of the Codex Alimentarius Commission at the group’s meeting in July 2003. Secondly, Bailey contends that the US should make a concerted effort to prevent the Biosafety Protocol from coming into effect. Available at: http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-018es.html
"Making the law of the jungle: the reform of forestry legislation in Bolivia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, and Indonesia" by Eduardo Silva, David Kaimowitz, Alan Bojanic, Francois Ekoko, Togu Manurung, Iciar Pavez, in GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS (3, 2002). In the debate over the forest, policy research organisations have concentrated on uncovering the causes of deforestation and recommending measures to develop them sustainably. This article examines the conditions under which those prescriptions find their way into public policy, specifically, into reforming forest laws.
"Environmental challenges facing the MERCOSUR" by Roberto Salinas, in JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT, 11 (3, 2002). According to the author, the MERCOSUR was initially conceived as a purely economic agreement, but gradually other aspects of regional integration became issues among the trading partners. In terms of rhetoric and discourse the MERCOSUR has almost become naturalized as a region, with assumptions being made about the complementarity and substantive cooperation of the partner states and their policies. Unfortunately, it has borne very few concrete results in terms of economic growth, poverty reduction, and environmental protection.
"The time dimension in international regime interplay" by Regine Andersen, in GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, 2 (3, 2002). The importance of understanding the interplay between different international agreements is increasing, due to the rising number of international agreements with overlapping functional scopes. Three propositions are suggested in this article on how different development stages of overlapping international regimes affect their interplay. The propositions are illustrated with the case of overlapping regimes pertaining to the management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. The regimes are the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights and the International Treaty on Plan Genetic for Food and Agriculture. The case study shows that an analytic grasp of the time dimension might uncover barriers to regime formation, as well as strategic opportunities.