GLOBAL PILLS

We hear a lot in the news about Big Tech companies and the role they are playing in our society and democracies. Niels Kirst recently presented at Yale Law School a paper titled “Big Tech, The Rule of Law and Democracy” he is today discussing with us the role of Big Tech companies and possible adaptations we need to public policies and legislation. Niels Kirst is a PhD researcher at the School of Law & Government of Dublin City University under the supervision of Professor Federico Fabbrini. 

On Global Pills we will be dedicating some episodes to the analysis of specific regions of the world and their role in shaping globalisation. Today we talk about Latin America, its internal tensions its relation with the United States, China and the European Union and its contribution to the global economic order. We discuss this with Andrés Delgado. Andrés Delgado Casteleiro works as an Assistant Professor in Law at Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Before moving to Chile, Andrés was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law (Luxembourg) , and a lecturer at Durham Law School (United Kingdom) where he also co-directed its European Law Institute.  Andrés holds a PhD and a Master from the European University Institute (Italy) and a Law degree from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He is the author of The International Responsibility of the European Union: From Competence to Normative Control (Cambridge University Press, 2016) 

In the supermarket, you can find many different products. You can use the information on the label of a product to decide whether a specific product is the healthiest choice for you today. But when can food producers for example say that a product contains a lot of vitamins or that the ingredients boost your immune system? Why can you read on the label of orange juice that it is a vitamin C-rich product, but you don't see this on most oranges? Today with Dr Alie de Boer we will dive into the concept of healthy foods, asking what kind of scientific evidence underlies nutrition and health claims and discussing why such claims are of interest not just to producers, but also to consumers.Dr. Alie de Boer is Assistant Professor in nutrition and food law at Maastricht University’s Campus Venlo. Alie is a nutritional scientist and has specialised in the link between nutrition and food law. As the founder and head of the Food Claims Centre Venlo, she studies how you can scientifically prove that food is legally considered to be safe and healthy. 

Since we get up in the morning and listen to our favourite music until we go to bed at night reading a book we all interact with copyright multiple times per day. Today we discuss with Dr Eleonora Rosati what is copyright, how international cooperation contributes to copyright protection and what are the main challenges ahead.  

The World Trade Organization is virtually one of most successful and influential experiments of international cooperation. Loved by some and hated by others, the WTO has been at the centre of the debates on globalisation since its creation in 1995. Fiercely attacked by President Trump some say the WTO is going through a deep crisis which could go as far as jeopardizing  its very existence. In this episode we discuss the present and future of the WTO with Dmitry GrozoubinskiDmitry is the Executive Director of the Geneva Trade Platform and the Founder of the consultancy ExplainTrade. He served for six years in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, three of them at the Permanent Mission to the WTO. He has written extensively on the WTO, including his semi-regular blog series for Borderlex EU, "What you need to know." Dmitry has just published a paper titled “THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION: AN OPTIMISTIC PRE-MORTEM IN HOPES OF RESURRECTION”.

There has been a lot of discussion in the news about free trade agreements concluded by the European Union and how they affect the food we eat. You might have heard for instance of acronyms like CETA and issues such as chlorinated chicken or carcinogenic growth hormones in meat. But do EU’s free trade agreements make our food less safe? We discuss this with Emily Rees, Senior Fellow at the European Centre for International Political Economy and Founder of Trade Strategies, a trade and regulatory advisory consultancy.  Emily comes from an extensive career in trade policy and economic diplomacy. She served as Trade Attaché of France to Brazil and led Brazil’s trade and investment agency with the European Union.

In this episode in 15 minutes we go through the history and main functions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Why do we need it? is it useful? 

The idea for this podcast came during the 2020 Covid lockdown in Barcelona.  I am an academic teaching globalisation, the European Union and the WTO in the top law school of the country and I was trying to overcome the many constraints of the new situation juggling between online courses, zoom conferences and skype meetings. In that situation I realised how powerful the internet can be as an instrument to learn, discuss and discover. I have always thought that understanding the world we live in should not be a privilege of a limited number of people. Since I studied international economic law at the university of Oxford I have been teaching in elite schools around Europe and I have always felt a bit frustrated not to be able to share my interests and passions with a larger amount of people. The two things I teach globalisation and the European Union are everywhere. Trump attacking the world trade organisation or imposing trade restrictions against China. The European Union playing a key role in the response to the covid pandemic while Britain is leaving it amidst chaotic trade negotiations. Free trade agreements like CETA, EU-Mercosur or the CPTPP influence key aspects of our lives for instance the food we eat, the cars we drive, or how our privacy is protected. Why then don’t share my passions and interests with a wider audience? This podcast does exactly this. In this podcast we unpack key issues related to international cooperation, globalisation, international economic policy and the European Union making them simple and easy to digest. The episodes do not follow a strict format and are directed to complete newbies as well as to a more expert audience and even specialists of the subject. Some episodes discuss new developments inviting guests who are experts in the field. Some other episodes will be purely introductory. A bit like short classes that will remain available freely on the internet to anyone who has the interest to listen to them. This is part of a wider effort to reach out to anyone who is interested in globalisation, the European Union and international cooperation outside traditional academic and policy circles. It is a continuation of an adventure started for me in 2015 when I opened my twitter account @giovannigruni and I decided to become more active on social networks like Linkedin. If you think you can contribute to this podcast please do not hesitate to contact me. The email is globalpillspodcast@gmail.com. Feel free to interact with me or to even propose yourself as a guest. The podcast also has an instagram account @gruniglobal