Trade Law and Globalization

International trade law forms an influential (due to threat of trade sanctions) normative tier above domestic law in shaping the process of economic globalization. Its main components are multilateral agreements such as the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services and Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Increasingly important are bilateral trade agreements. Although often termed free trade agreements, their inclusion of pro-monopolistic intellectual property components and provisions designed to alter the health systems of less important trading partners suggests a preferential strategic purpose favoring multinational corporate interests, with implications for applied ethics due to their limited democratic input and lack of engagement with bioethical and human rights norms.