In this recorded presentation from October 1, 2025, hear from experts about the difficulty — and importance — of addressing processing and production methods in trade agreements.
People around the world are focused not only on what they consume but how it is produced. Products that are superficially identical can be produced in dramatically different ways. This issue has come up in a series of trade disputes over the years, notably the Dolphin-Tuna case, in which the U.S. restricted imports of tuna caught in ways that killed dolphins, and restrictions on imports produced using forced labor. WTO trade rules were written to ignore these differences in production systems, in a bid to make products as "like" as possible. This is because commodification - making products interchangeable - is the basis of economies built on mass production and reducing barriers at the border.
Yet both labor rights activists and environmentalists reject this economics because it so clearly encourages exploitative working conditions and environmentally destructive production systems. Import restrictions-based Processing and Production Methods (PPM) is a longstanding issue at WTO and in trade policy generally.
The rules of globalization that seemed locked in stone are now in many ways up for grabs. Without throwing them out entirely, as the Trump administration is inclined to do, we need new approaches designed to achieve a just climate transition, one that balances higher environmental and social goals with developing country imperatives for job creation and economic development.
Featured presenters include:
- Dr. Irene Musselli: Why has the WTO failed to address PPM satisfactorily?
- Sophia Murphy on AoA Reimagined: Setting the principles
- Maureen Santos on Brazilian perspectives on the EUDR and EU-Mercosur
