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The term globalization defines the process by which countries, companies and people are more dependent relationship between them and throughout the world, due to the acceleration of economic integration and trade communication, " intensification of those cultures (including Western culture) and travel. This phenomenon is not new and we should not necessarily fear or rebel against him. Thirty years ago, in the community in charge of public health, many were strong proponent of global anxious inequalities appearing at the international level and weight unjust diseases afflicting many of the poor in the world. We wanted to share our wealth and our democracies. We wanted, while supporting, learning the movements of emancipation of the peoples that have emerged in the wake of post-colonial struggles. We wanted to travel and meet with people from other cultures. We wanted a global village. This kind of globalization that we can still marry. Our populist protests about the current globalization have adopted, wrongly, the media called "anti-globalization". We are not anti-globalisation, we are democratic globalizers. There he is a "snag" because what we have today is not a global village but rather a market place in the world where the demands of capital and economic interest self-reported speech earlier on our dignity and justice displaced and somewhat archaic.
The discussion on the nuances of current globalization is beyond the scope of this article. We now have evidence that globalization has beneficial effects on human health (eg gender parity in power at any level in society and the sharing of technologies), but it presents risks (the growing disparity between income and environmental degradation, as the figures on poverty reduction that are mediocre). Instead, this article will focus on one of the vehicles accomplice to the triumph of the global market to the detriment of the global village: namely, the establishment of binding rules of "free trade", mainly through the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The agreements of the World Trade Organization and health The WTO was established in 1995 and is the result of multilateral trade negotiations of the Uruguay meeting on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt). It is the only multilateral organization (supra) with executive powers, which may impose fines or trade concessions in return for payment. It administers twenty-nine trade agreements, investment and "in connection with" various trade. The basic principles that underlie all of the WTO agreements are "reciprocal treatment or national" (goods, services or foreign investments are regulated in the same manner as their national counterparts), the nation's most " favored "(special privileges granted to a trading partner must be extended to all member countries) and the trade restrictions" lighter "(Social and environmental regulations in the country must be those that interfere as little world trade). Several agreements specifically focused on the tracks economic, social and environmental binding globalization and health.
Trims The agreement on investment measures and trade-related Trims The agreement prevents countries "to impose performance requirements on foreign investment. Such provisions have been exploited to serve the interests of political leaders, senior officials of corrupt governments and their families. But these same provisions have also proved helpful in developing national economies are viable and to ensure equitable economic development, safe and sustainable. Their removal more benefits to investors from developed countries as populations in developing countries [1]. Many of them also ask to be exempted from the provisions Trims to retain some control over the direction of their local economic development. However, exemptions to the provisions Trims for developing countries face opposition from rich countries - the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada [2].
Technical Barriers to Trade, or TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) The TBT agreement aims to make any "technical barrier to trade" the least restrictive setting possible for the latter. A technical barrier is a domestic regulation, which has nothing to do with tariffs (taxes that governments impose on imports) or export subsidies (they give aid on exports). The TBT agreement encourages the use of international standards and domestic regulation authorizes them to be superior only when justified. Article XX (b) of the GATT allows them to make exceptions to the general rules of GATT, including those of TBT if it is "necessary to protect human, animal and plant health, or health" [3]. However, this exception has been effective in a single case of trade dispute. In April 2001, the WTO rejected Canada's appeal against french embargo on imports of asbestos. The committee has taken into account the large body of research showing that asbestos has carcinogenic effects on human beings, and confirmed the embargo under Article XX (b) on the plea. Such a scientific certainty is rarely applicable to most of the risks to human health, including those resulting from the impact of the environment. This is partly due to the fact that countries wishing to waive the trade rules under this exception must provide evidence that the measure is, in fact, not a disguised form of protectionisme.
The SPS agreement (on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) A degree of scientific uncertainty was the premise behind the introduction of the precautionary principle. When the evidence is indicative but not irrefutable, we must give the benefit of doubt to the protection of human health and the environment. This principle was weakened by the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) which prescribes a scientific risk assessment for all regulatory criteria. The risk assessments can not take into account the multiple and cumulative impacts that are now characteristic of the problems of risk management. The criteria for risk assessment encourage producers and exporting countries, rather than citizens and importing countries, since it does not cost anything if the first, if necessary, their products are found to be harmful. The level of scientific certainty as higher than SPS governing Article XX (b) of Gatt is one of the reasons why the European Union (EU) failed against the United States and Canada in its attempt ' ban imports of beef treated with hormones. The Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO had rejected as inadequate the scientific arguments presented to him by the EU in providing evidence of a possible human carcinogenicity, though not definitive, made by the Agency for International Independent Cancer Research [4, 5]. The TBT and SPS constitute what some call the "trade-creep" shenanigans "commercial, allowing trade rules limiting how national governments can regulate their internal affairs in the areas of health and environment, not dealing differently products from other countries than their own - ie, respecting the principle of "national treatment" shared by everybody for trade liberalization [6].
The AGP (GPA) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) requires that governments take into account only the "commercial considerations" when making their purchasing decisions, in particular by refraining preferences based on human rights, labour and environment-related. The agreement (voluntary) Multi current has been signed only by very few developing countries, the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha urged members to negotiate a multilateral agreement futures on transparency in procurement public procurement [7]. As with the Trims agreement, it could help to prevent cronyism or large-scale abuse of public property by corrupt government officials. But it could also be a signal of a progressive weakening of the ability of national governments to give preference to suppliers in the country and thus affect public income groups or regions in greatest need of economic support and development. Many developing countries need to be exempt from the PGA, arguing that public procurement is one of the few means at their disposal to develop the areas, groups or disadvantaged sectors in the socio-economic [8]. Again, the more developed countries are opposed to it.
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