The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was established in 1995 to deal with the rules of trade between nations. It oversees the implementation, administration and operation of existing international trade agreements and provides a forum for the negotiation of new arrangements as well as for the settlement of disputes.
We aim to make international trade more equitable and the international law and policy processes behind it more transparent and participatory. We also look at the relationship between international regulations and institutions that manage trade and international agreements designed to protect the environment. To achieve these aims, we have assisted policy-makers from developing and least developed countries to build their skills and knowledge so they can better participate in WTO negotiations, and in the design of domestic and regional trade policy.
"FIELD aims to make international trade more equitable and the international law and policy processes behind it more transparent and participatory."
For example, from March 2004 to June 2005, FIELD worked with policymakers and negotiators from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda on improving policy coordination in trade and environment issues. The project involved working with government representatives, local experts and other stakeholders to prepare a background report and run a series of workshops that resulted in recommendations for the trade and environment ministries in each country. Download the background study and final report for the three workshops.
From the civil society perspective, FIELD has worked to ensure better participation in the WTO dispute settlement process through research, analysis and the submission of amicus curiae briefs. Amicus curiae or 'friends of the court' briefs allow parties not directly involved in the dispute to submit relevant factual and legal arguments to a court when matters of significant public interest are at stake.
In 2004, for example, an international coalition of public interest groups, including FIELD, submitted an amicus curiae brief in a dispute between the United States and the European Union about the approval of genetically modified food and crops. In 2008, a coalition of NGOs sought FIELD's legal expertise on trade law in their campaign for the adoption of the new EU regulation on establishing a community system to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. We offered a legal opinion examining if and to what extent proposed exceptions could infringe WTO law.
FIELD lawyers also follow and influence the law and policy of the European Union and other regional trading blocks. In 2008, FIELD conducted a study "Analysing the legal and organisational issues arising from linking the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to other existing and emerging emissions trading schemes" commissioned by the European Commission on how to link the European Union's greenhouse gas emission trading scheme to other emission trading schemes. Read more on the 'Project' page.
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