Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
Publication Source
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
Abstract
Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) have been fundamental to enabling access to environmental information. The effectiveness of domestic and international environmental regulatory standards has been dependent on ensuring strong information access regimes, especially for information submitted to governments by firms. However, there has been an ongoing tension between providing and accessing complete regulatory information on the one hand, and the interest in maintaining the economic value of trade secrets. Such tensions have historically been managed at the domestic level within constitutional structures balancing access to information, privacy interests, and economic interests. However, the almost simultaneous advent of international norms and treaties containing obligations on ensuring access to information on the one hand (especially environmental treaties) and rules requiring greater scope and stronger protection of trade secrets and confidential business information (e.g. the TRIPS Agreement; the Trans-Pacific Partnership) on the other, may have altered the structure of those domestic processes in ways that privilege private interests in trade secrets over public interests. This article argues that the specificity and strength of trade secret protections in TRIPS (Article 39) and TRIPs-plus regional and bilateral free trade agreements are a hidden landmine that may unravel current access to information regimes e.g. Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs). The aim of this paper is to delineate the nature and scope of the limits that TRIPS and TRIPS-plus regimes place on domestic access to environmental information regimes for information submitted to governments.
Inclusive pages
1-50
ISBN/ISSN
0010-1931
Document Version
Published Version
Copyright
Copyright © 2017, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. All rights reserved.
Publisher
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
Volume
55
Issue
3
Place of Publication
New York, NY
eCommons Citation
Shabalala, Dalindyebo, "Access to Trade Secret Environmental Information: Are TRIPS and TRIPS Plus Obligations a Hidden Landmine?" (2017). School of Law Faculty Publications. 59.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/law_fac_pub/59
Comments
Document is made available for download with the permission of the publisher and the author. Permission documentation on file. The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law can be accessed here.
Link to the article on the publisher's website.