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“Predatory Globalization”: The WTO Agreement on Trade in Services, Migration, and Public Health in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2017

Obijiofor Aginam
Obijiofor Aginam*
Affiliation:
Policy & Institutional Frameworks, United Nations University headquarters, Tokyo; Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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Abstract

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Type
Hot Topics in GATS and Human Rights
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 104 , 2010 , pp. 139 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2010

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References

1 Predatory Globalization: A Critique (1999).

2 Id.

3 Comm’n on Macroeconomics & Health, Macroeconomics & Health: Investing in Health for Eco Nomic Development 75 (2001) [hereinafter Macroeconomics & Health].

4 Alfonson Mejia et al., Physician & Nurse Migration: Analysis & Policy Implications (1979).

5 See, e.g., John Hilary, the Wrong Model: GATS, Trade Liberalisation & Children’s Right to Health (2001); Scott Sinclair, GATS: How the World Trade Organization’s “New Services” Negotiations Threaten Democracy (2000), available at http://www.ratical.com/co-globalize/GATSsummary.pdf; Scott Sin Clair & Jim Grieshaber-Otto, Facing the Facts: A Guide to the GATS Debate (2002).

6 Ahmad, Omar B., Brain Drain: The Flight of Human Capital, 82 Bull. World Health Org. 797–98 (2004 Google Scholar).

7 Falk, supra note 1, at 13, 17.

8 Fatoumata Jawara & Aileen Kwa, Behind the Scenes at the WTO: the Real World of International Trade Negotiations (2003).

9 Woodward, David, The GATS and Trade in Health Services: Implications for Health in Developing Countries, 12 Rev. Int’l Pol. Econ. 511, 511-34 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conference on Trade & Development & the World Health Organization, June 1997; International Trade in Health Services: A Development Perspective (Simonetta Zarrilli & Colette Kinnon eds., 1998), Unctad/TTCD/TSB/5 WHO/TFHE/98.1 [hereinafter International Trade]; Trade in Health Services: Global, Regional, and Country Perspectives (Nick Drager & Cesar Vieira eds., 2002), available at http://www.who.int/trade/resource/THS/en/index.html [hereinafter Trade in Health Services); Rupa Chanda, Trade in Health Services, in Trade in Health Services, id., at 35-44.

10 On the evolution of the international trading system, see John Jackson, the World Trading System: Law & Policy of International Economic Relations (2d ed. 1997); Trebilcock, Michael J. & Howse, Robert, The Regulation of International Trade (3d ed. 2005 Google Scholar).

11 Malhotra, Kamal et al., Making Global Trade Work for People 3 (2003)Google Scholar.

12 Hamada, Naomi et al., International Flow of Zambián Nurses, 7 Hum. Resources Health 1, 1-5 (2009)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed (discussing the changing patterns of outward migration of Zambián nurses and various visa schemes in their destination countries).

13 Macroeconomics & Health, supra note 3, at 76.

14 Lewis, Stephen, Race against Time: Searching for Hope in Aids-Ravaged Africa 48 (2005)Google Scholar.

15 Chanda, supra note 9, at 64.

16 World Bank, World Development Report 1993: Investing in Health (1993).

17 Orvill Adams & Colette Kinnon, A Public Health Perspective, in International Trade, supra note 9, at 35-54.

18 Id. at 37 (citing S. Ababulgu, Problem of Physician Migration in Ethiopia (1997) (unpublished document).

19 Adams & Kinnon, supra note 17, at 37 (citing Volta Regional Research Team, The Doctors Are Out—Where Are They? (1997) (unpublished document).

20 Chanda, supra note 9, at 22 (citing Kaplan, D. et al., Brain Drain: New Data, New Options, 11 Trade & Indus. Monitor (1999)Google Scholar.

21 Chanda, supra note 9, at 22 (citing Khalil, Ashraf, Unchecked Exodus, Cairo Times, April 1-14, 1999 Google Scholar, at 3:3).

22 Chanda, supra note 9, at 22 (citing Oyowe, Augustine, Brain Drain: Colossal Loss of Investment for Developing Countries, 159 Courier ACP-EU 59–60 (1996 Google Scholar).

23 Anya, Ike et al., Searching the World: Following Three Graduating Classes of a Nigerian Medical School, in Toyin Falola & Niyi Afolabi, the Human Cost of African Migrations 79-88 (2007 Google Scholar).

24 Woodward, David, The GATS and Trade in Health Services: Implications for Health Care in Developing Countries, 12 Rev. Int’l Pol. Econ. 511, 518 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 I use the term “sub-Saharan Africa” only in direct reference to a seminal work where the term is used. The term, now firmly embedded in most global development discourses, balkanizes the African continent by cutting off its northern part and projects most of Black Africa as poor, undeveloped, and a reservoir of diseases, wars, and conflicts. According to Asante:

there is neither an Africa north of the Sahara nor an Africa south of the Sahara ... the Sahara is in Africa and human populations have inhabited the Sahara for thousands of years. It is useless to speak of Africa separated by deserts, as it is to speak of separations by rain forests.

See Molefi K. Asante, Kemet, Afrocentmcity, and Knowledge 33 (1990).

26 World Health Organization, Who Estimates of Health Personnel: Physicians, Nurses, Mid-wives, Dentists and Pharmacists (Around 1998) (2002).

27 WTO Secretariat, Trade in Services Division, an Introduction to the GATS (1999).

28 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Oct. 30, 1947, 61 Stat. A-ll, 55 UNTS 194, art. XXI.

29 WTO Secretariat, GATS—Facts and Fiction (2001), available at http://www.WTO.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/GATSfacts1004_e.pdf.

30 Fidler, David P. et al., Making Commitments in Health Services Under the GATS: Legal Dimensions, in International Trade in Health Services and the GATS: Current Issues and Debates 143 (Blouin, Chantal et al. eds., 2006 Google Scholar).

31 Chanda, supra note 9, at 20. See also id. at 35-44.

32 Ratha, Dilip, Workers’ Remittances: An Important and External Source of External Development Finance, in Global Development Finance 2003: Striving for Stability in Development Finance 157–75 (2003)Google Scholar.

33 Rudolf Adlung & Antonia Carzaniga, Health Services Under the General Agreement on Trade in Services, in Trade in Health Services, supra note 9, at 13-34.

34 Schrecker, Ted & Labonte, Ronald, Taming the Brain Drain: A Challenge for Public Health Systems in Southern Africa, 10 Int’l J. Occupational & Envtl. Health 410 (2002)Google ScholarPubMed.

35 Id.; Bach, Stephen, International Migration of Health Workers: Labor and Social Issues 13 (Int’l Labour Office, Working Paper No. 209, 2003)Google Scholar, at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.90.4214&rep=repl&type=pdf.

36 Schrecker & Labonte, supra note 34, at 412.

37 See, e.g., Commonwealth Secretariat, Companion Document to the Commonwealth Code of Practice for International Recruitment of Health Workers (2003).