Commentaries

The Continuing Threat from Trade Negotiations

This article was published in the Dollars and Sense, March/April, Number 222. Providing a brief history of GATT/WTO, the authors then go on to explain the relationship between agriculture and intellectual property rights (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS) and why the stalled Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) could be resurrected.

US Unilateralism: A Threat to Global Sustainability?

More than 200 non-governmental organizations and individuals from dozens of countries around the world signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright expressing "concern at the manner in which the United States government is intervening in the domestic affairs of numerous other nations regarding their intellectual property laws".

The Grain Train Robbery of 1996

In late May, in a gritty outer ring settlement of Monterrey, Mexico, over 400 men, women and children stopped a grain train and carried its cargo off to their homes. Shouting "We're hungry!," women hauled off the contraband in buckets and two-year-old children carried it gingerly across the tracks in plastic bags.