Health Governance in the ‘ASEAN plus Three' Structure: An Initiative to Apply Health Protection Mechanisms in International Trade Regulations

The impacts of international trade of goods and services on population health have brought challenges to global health governance. In September 2008, the import of melamine-contaminated milk powder from China aroused public panic in Taiwan, and debates were subsequently ignited on the regulation of international trade. Later in November, Taiwan signed the Cross-Straight Food Safety Agreement with China as a means to safeguard its food safety.

As Taiwan prepares to negotiate the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with China, in an effort to join the East Asian Free Trade Area under the ‘ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) plus Three' structure, concerns about the underlying health risk intensifies and how health protection mechanisms could be applied through international trade regulations remains to be explored..

In this study, the author examines the laws and legal precedents of domestic legal systems in application of public health principles with that of international trade organizations, especially WTO, EU and ASEAN. It is found that regulations of international health governance are less applicable in dispute settlement regimes of international trade while the domestic legal systems are obligated to take public health legislations into consideration. It is also noted that the EU laws, firstly designed to facilitate economic cooperation, pays more attention to the protection of health than other global or regional trade organizations.

The author concludes this study by proposing a framework of health governance under the ‘ASEAN plus Three' structure, aiming to balance the interest of free trade and the toll on population health.