Professor Jane Kelsey

Professor Jane Kelsey teaches law, policy and international economic regulation at the Law Faculty at Auckland University, New Zealand. She specialises in the interface between international trade and investment agreements and domestic regulatory autonomy, most recently in relation to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). Jane is widely published in the area, but also works closely with governments, non-government organisations and inter-governmental agencies to analyse the implications of new developments and appropriate responses. Jane has recently been awarded a Royal Society Marsden Grant to research options and strategies for governments to exit international agreements that conflict with states’ other obligations. Professor Kelsey has an undergraduate degree from the Victoria University of Wellington, postgraduate degrees from Oxford and Cambridge Universities and a PhD from the University of Auckland.

presents

Options and Strategies to Rescue Human Rights from Mega-Regional Economic Treaties: Lessons from Tobacco, Meds and Indigenous Rights

The rise of mega-regional economic integration agreements on a scale never seen before poses a huge challenge to human rights communities. The tensions between binding and enforceable rules that advance commercial imperatives and ‘soft’ human rights law at the domestic and international levels are increasingly well documented, but the strategies that seek to rebalance them have been pragmatic, ad hoc and largely ineffective. This seminar will reflect on three examples where there has been some limited success – tobacco, affordable medicines, and indigenous rights – and assess the advances and the limitations on what they have achieved, and what this might portend for options and strategies in the future.