Reframing Human Rights and Trade Potential and Limits of a Human Rights Perspective of WTO Law on Cultural and Educational Goods and Services

by Morijn, John

• ISBN13: 9789400000452
• ISBN10: 9400000456
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-24
• Publisher: Intersentia

Summary

The how and why of connecting international human rights law and WTO law has been a hotly debated topic in international legal scholarship for quite some time. This book explores the extent to which these two sub-regimes of international law can be meaningfully linked as a matter of law and policy. WTO law on cultural and educational goods and services, thus far under-explored in this area of study, is taken as a case study. The book first develops an international law-based framework to assess the interface of human rights and WTO obligations. Its analysis reveals that GATT and GATS driven liberalization, in the area of culture and education, raises tensions with various human rights norms. Applying the human rights/WTO law assessment framework, it is argued that these concerns would be best voiced by relying on the obligation to protect the right to education. In the light of this situation, the book first shows the potential to bring up this obligation in the context of WTO law and

Author Biography

John Morijn holds master degrees in EU law and human rights law from the College of Europe and the European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation. He defended the PhD thesis at the basis of this book at the European University Institute in May 2009. John is a senior human rights specialist at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, and a university lecturer in human rights law at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.