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Background Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia’s social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes through facilitating increased consumption of the ‘risk commodities’ tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods, and by constraining access to NCD medicines. In this paper we describe the NCD burden in Asian countries, trends in risk commodity consumption and the processes by which trade liberalization has occurred in the region and contributed to these trends. We further establish pressing questions for future research on strengthening regulatory capacity to address trade liberalization impacts on risk commodity consumption and health. Methods A semi-structured search of scholarly databases, institutional websites and internet sources for academic and grey literature. Data for descriptive statistics were sourced from Euromonitor International, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization. Results Consumption of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods was prevalent in the region and increasing in many countries. We find that trade liberalization can facilitate increased trade in goods, services and investments in ways that can promote risk commodity consumption, as well as constrain the available resources and capacities of governments to enact policies and programmes to mitigate such consumption. Intellectual property provisions of trade agreements may also constrain access to NCD medicines. Successive layers of the evolving global and regional trade regimes including structural adjustment, multilateral

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between inter

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between international and domestic policy processes. By locating trading disputes in a political analysis of policy implementation, it is argued that it is difficult to establish conceptually how the WTO dispute settlement system could have authority separate from and above the conventional international politics of trade policy relations. Instead, the article argues that case outcomes should be expected to be largely the product of domestic political institutions and policy processes, and how these intersect with developments in the WTO dispute settlement system. Brief studies of the Australian government's dispute settlement strategy and two high-profile WTO disputes—the US upland cotton and European Union sugar cases—serve to suggest that the authority of international trade law is not as significant as assumed by the legalisation thesis. Rather, domestic politics and institutions have an important impact on the outcome of trade disputes., The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between international and domestic policy processes. By locating trading disputes in a political analysis of policy implementation, it is argued that it is difficult to establish conceptually how the WTO dispute settlement system could have authority separate from and above the conventional international politics of trade policy relations. Instead, the article argues that case outcomes should be expected to be largely the product of domestic political institutions and policy processes, and how these intersect with developments in the WTO dispute settlement system. Brief studies of the Australian government's dispute settlement strategy and two high-profile WTO disputes—the US upland cotton and European Union sugar cases—serve to suggest that the authority of international trade law is not as significant as assumed by the legalisation thesis. Rather, domestic politics and institutions have an important impact on the outcome of trade disputes.

Trade poses risks and opportunities to public health nutrition. This paper discusses the potential food-related public health risks of a radical new kind of trade agreement: the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP). Under negotiation since 2010, the TPP involves Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the USA, and Vietnam. Here, we review the international evidence on the relationships between trade agreements and diet-related health and, where available, documents and leaked text from the TPP negotiations. Similar to other recent bilateral or regional trade agreements, we find that the TPP would propose tariffs reductions, foreign investment liberalisation and intellectual property protection that extend beyond provisions in the multilateral World Trade Organization agreements. The TPP is also likely to include strong investor protections, introducing major changes to domestic regulatory regimes to enable greater industry involvement in policy making and new avenues for appeal. Transnational food corporations would be able to sue governments if they try to introduce health policies that food companies claim violate their privileges in the TPP; even the potential threat of litigation could greatly curb governments’ ability to protect public health. Hence, we find that the TPP, emblematic of a new generation of 21st century trade policy, could potentially yield greater risks to health than prior trade agreements. Because the text of the TPP is secret until the countries involved commit to the agreement, it is essential for public health concerns to be articulated during the negotiation process. Unless the potential health consequences of each part of the text are fully examined and taken into account, and binding language is incorporated in the TPP to safeguard regulatory policy space for health, the TPP could be detrimental to public health nutrition. Health advocates and health-related policymakers must be proac

The multiple streams framework draws insight from interactions between agency and institutions to explore the impact of context, time and meaning on policy change and to assess the institutional and issue complexities permeating the European Union (EU) po

Trade poses risks and opportunities to public health nutrition. This paper discusses the potential food-related public health risks of a radical new kind of trade agreement: the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP). Under negotiation since 2010, the TPP involves Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the USA, and Vietnam. Here, we review the international evidence on the relationships between trade agreements and diet-related health and, where available, documents and leaked text from the TPP negotiations. Similar to other recent bilateral or regional trade agreements, we find that the TPP would propose tariffs reductions, foreign investment liberalisation and intellectual property protection that extend beyond provisions in the multilateral World Trade Organization agreements. The TPP is also likely to include strong investor protections, introducing major changes to domestic regulatory regimes to enable greater industry involvement in policy making and new avenues for appeal. Transnational food corporations would be able to sue governments if they try to introduce health policies that food companies claim violate their privileges in the TPP; even the potential threat of litigation could greatly curb governments’ ability to protect public health. Hence, we find that the TPP, emblematic of a new generation of 21st century trade policy, could potentially yield greater risks to health than prior trade agreements. Because the text of the TPP is secret until the countries involved commit to the agreement, it is essential for public health concerns to be articulated during the negotiation process. Unless the potential health consequences of each part of the text are fully examined and taken into account, and binding language is incorporated in the TPP to safeguard regulatory policy space for health, the TPP could be detrimental to public health nutrition. Health advocates and health-related policymakers must be proac

Evidence-based policy making has been criticised as a revival of the 'rationality project' in which democratic politics is regarded as rent-seeking and a deadweight loss to society. In response, the evidence-based policy movement has failed to articulate

Policy responses to the tumult of the global financial crisis of 2007-9 prompt a consideration of the critical dimensions in specifying policy change. UK monetary policy between 2007 and 2009 is characterised by a remarkable degree of innovation yet counts as a 'normal' period of policy making under the Hall (1993) framework of policy change, the enduring workhorse of the comparative public policy field. This exposes its lack of conceptual refinement in describing significant but within paradigm policy change. This paper traces this failing to the notion of a policy paradigm, both its scale and the ideational mechanisms which bind policy change. The paper develops the UK monetary policy case to consider the potential of the recently-minted concept of a thermostatic policy institution for the development of Hall's framework; but finds analytical limitations in coping with significant policy spillovers. Suggestions are made to meet this important challenge for future research in policy studies on the specification of policy change.

Government procurement policy in the UK is an uneasy mixture of different policy legacies, where the dominant objectives of cost-efficiency and value for money compete with alternatives which emphasise public procurement as central to innovation policy and/or a critical demand-side instru- ment in local and regional economic development. Quantitative analysis of which types of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit, and how, from different levels of government as a customer is, however, rare in the UK (and indeed more widely across the EU). Utilising data from the Federation of Small Businesses 2008 biannual survey, we address this important task. Results reveal different patterns of procurement depending on the territorial scale of government, in terms of both the innovativeness of SMEs supported through public procurement as well as demand-side contribu- tions to local and regional economic development, allowing us to judge future possible policy directions with regard to the use of public procurement.

A single death can be a tragedy, but it can also be a disaster, in the sense that disasters reflect a form of systems failure. To demonstrate how this can be the case, this essay draws on a coroner's report on the death of a 24-year old Iranian asylum seeker. Hamid Khazaei taken ill at an Australian-funded offshore detention centre in Papua New Guinea. There is a paradox at the heart of this episode. The policy of offshore detention in remote locations was officially adopted to deter asylum seekers from approaching Australia on on dangerously-fragile boats in search of protection. Yet while the system failed to protect the human rights of Hamid Khazaei, arguably it did so because it succeeded in keeping him out of mainland Australia, in accordance with the "humane" policy objectives of the Australian government, until he was too ill to survive. Systems grounded in the threat to do harm are likely to result in harm.

This article examines aspects of Wales's new political system. It identifies a core tension between traditional, majoritarian-designed institutions and procedures, and a new political pluralism. There is a fundamental disconnection between current politics and the original system design which has added complexity and inefficiency to the operation, management and administration of most aspects of devolved politics. Moreover, understanding the contours of the nascent and inchoate system in W ales has been obscured by debates about the distribution of legislative powers between Westminster and Cardiff. The article identifies lessons from coalition government in Wales, both for academics working on the implications of coalitions and for practitioners-specifically for 'constitution managers' and those engaged in policy-making.

This article traces the evolution of the international governance of agriculture as a sequential process, in which the negotiation of new trading and enforcement rules interacts with legal disputes over the interpretation of existing rules. The interaction between negotiation and litigation has produced a governance trajectory from vague to precise commitments and a strengthened dispute settlement process. We contest standard histories, which identify the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture as the singular event that established agriculture for the first time under the auspices of the World Trade Organization and which claim this represents the legalization of the agricultural trade regime. The case of agriculture contains important lessons for broader debates on international governance by articulating: (1) dynamic feedback processes, challenging the view that bargaining and enforcement aspects of international agreements are concluded simultaneously, and (2) key mechanisms underlying the greater precision of institutional commitments that tend to emerge over time.

The Uruguay Round Agreement made significant changes to the governance of international trade. Trade rules and dispute settlement mechanisms were altered and a series of specific agreements provided for liberalisation across economic sectors. The Agreement on Agriculture, arguably the most difficult and contentious to negotiate, permitted the continued use of trade-distorting instruments, both domestically and at the border. Rule-enforcement in agriculture therefore relies crucially on the clarity of the rules. This paper provides an in-depth study of a unique and critical case for understanding the new rules: the EC sugar regime. This policy was challenged unsuccessfully under the pre-Uruguay Round rules, but successfully under the new rules. This case is particularly valuable in allowing us to isolate the effect of the Uruguay Round on agricultural trade disputes: the policy under challenge was essentially unchanged and the legal actions addressed the same concern -excessive export subsidisation. Drawing on primary and secondary materials and interviews with key policy actors, sugar is used to illustrate how those involved in the multilateral process learned from particular rule weaknesses revealed in earlier cases, revising those rules in the Uruguay Round in such a way that dispute panels can more readily and objectively determine rule breaches.

Current research suggests that the process of knowledge creation is both networked and iterative. Synthesising the literature highlights a range of factors for analysis in knowledge-based industries. These factors are then used to examine the biotechnology sector in Queensland Australia, utilising available secondary literature, interviews with a range of broad stakeholders and 3 case–study companies. The results highlight issues regarding government policies for biotechnology, due to potential weaknesses in the network of relationships and governance between the key stakeholders (particularly within universities), the absence in some cases of relevant education (training and learning) for academics, and issues of entrepreneurial orientation and knowledge management in the use of created knowledge.

In 2008, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reached its fiftieth birthday. It has been a constant factor in directing resources to the EU agricultural sector, but the means of channelling these resources have changed considerably over time. This article charts the evolution of the CAPs principal policy instruments and analyzes the welfare effects of its major reforms. It also analyzes these changes in terms of the institutional context of the principal reform pressures, namely international trade obligations and EU budget concerns. We will show that the link between these two pressures was never one of simple determinism: the CAP and its reform can only be understood in light of these pressures and of endogenous vested interests to the policy.

The realisation that fast growing SMEs are major contributors to economic prosperity has seen these firms being increasingly attributed with a more central role in the development of wealth, innovation, employment and national competitiveness. Spatial proximity often positively affects knowledge spillovers from firms and research organisations, reinforcing the asymmetric economic geography of prosperity and accomplishment (Cooke et al, 2005). Moreover, the multi-faceted nature of innovation processes highlighted by Leyesdorff (2000) suggests this should involve the examination of wide-ranging relationships (e.g. with other firms, government agencies, universities). Relating this to geographical aspects in particular, has been the identification of regional systems of innovation as extensions of national systems (Cooke and Morgan, 1994, Morgan, 1997, Howells, 2002, Baptista and Swann, 1998). Whilst national systems of innovation focus on the central role that knowledge and innovation play in determining productivity and growth (Lundvall, 1992, Nelson, 1992), regional factors help determine the extent of individual and organisational learning, technology transfer, innovation and business performance that subsequently occurs within individual regions (Oughton et al, 2002, Howells, 2002, Asheim and Gertler, 2005).

This paper analyses the substantial financial subsidy, alongside other regulatory changes, introduced to support private health insurance in Australia at the end of the 1990s. The concept of policy layering is developed and refined theoretically in terms

The development of the Open Method of Coordination, agreement on the Lisbon Agenda and EU enlargement offered the prospect of a new and substantial EU social policy agenda. This article considers EU social and cohesion policies in the context of the recent negotiation of the EU budget for 2007-13. We find the Commission's wish to redistribute EU spending in favour of these policy areas and new member states was thwarted by key political features of EU budget making: CAP spending levels which are downwardly sticky; institutional arrangements which provide for budget making as, at best, a zero-sum game; and the preferences of contributor member states in the EU-15 to contain overall spending while preserving their net budget positions. Questions are thus raised as to the ability of the EU to make any progress, from a budgetary perspective, on the social and cohesion policy agenda in an enlarged EU.

Professor David Harvey's proposed agenda for CAP reform in EuroChoices 5(1) is, we believe, unrealistic. It pays insufficient attention to the politics of EU policy-making and ignores the importance countries place on protecting their shares of EU spending. We recognise the incremental nature of CAP reform, but believe this can lead to significant cumulative effects. Our proposal builds on modulation to transfer more CAP spending from Pillar I to Pillar II. Farmers receiving the largest payments should have their payments cut through higher compulsory modulation rates. We also seek a reduction of EU spending on the CAP, with greater national contributions achieved through the established channel of co-financing. Reply to Ackrill and Kay - David Harvey Ackrill and Kay (A&K) say my suggestions for national subscription, co-financing and discretion for CAP Pillar 1 spending and associated elimination of the troublesome UK rebate risk a stalemate, and that the further reform will necessarily be incremental, rather than radical. In reply, I argue that some radical reform will eventually be necessary, so that it makes sense to think about the required directions now. I also argue that my own suggestions are not so far from A&K's analysis as they seem to suppose. My suggestions seem little more likely to generate a stalemate than A&K's incremental change forecasts.

Current arguments in Australia concerning horizontal fiscal equalisation may help inform the debate in the United Kingdom concerning possible changes to the Barnett formula and the establishment of financial relations with any regional governments in England. Although Australia is a long-established federation, with mature institutions for managing the financial aspects of intergovernmentaltlsb> relations, the most populous states are now pushing for a per-capita-based system to replace the existing formula -- based on needs and costs -- overseen by the independent Commonwealth Grants Commission. This has important implications for the United Kingdom, where the Barnett formula -- a per capita system for deciding annual changes in the funding for the devolved administrations -- has been increasingly challenged. In particular, the Barnett system has been vulnerable to nontransparent 'formula-bypass' agreements. We argue that the status quo in the United Kingdom appears secure as long as England remains a single entity and the UK Treasury sees the financial implications of larger per capita expenditure in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as relatively small. However, we speculate that regionalisation of government in England would be likely to increase the pressure: to abandon the Barnett system; to look more systematically at need and cost, rather than population, as criteria for allocating funds between governments; and to move towards an Australian-type system. However, the recent experience of Australia also shows that larger states prefer a per-capita-based system allied to more political, less transparent, arrangements to deal with 'special circumstances'. It may be that a Barnett-type formula would suit the new `dominant states' in a fully federalised United Kingdom which would, ironically, create an alliance of interests between Scotland and London.

The concept of territorial justice has a long history in studies of the spatial distribution of welfare state services in the UK. Since the inception of the devolution process, territorial justice has maintained support as a principle to guide policy and

Current frameworks for understanding the development of the CAP all suffer from having a static rather than a dynamic perspective. This paper considers whether the concept of path dependency can provide a corrective. However, the large majority or the empirical applications of the concept have been to institutional development at a macro, constitutional level rather than to specific public policies. This paper by defining the CAP as an institution and using the concept of path dependency is an attempt to test the boundary of the existing literature. The advantages and difficulties of the concept with regard to understanding the CAP are critically assessed. The main difficulty is extending explanations or path dependency to accommodate major CAP reforms. However, in certain cases, the mechanisms of feedback loops and cumulative consequences which derive from a path dependency approach can be useful for explaining significant shifts in policy direction. Overall, the conclusion is that the concept can enrich our understanding of the development of the CAP.