Feeding the giant: The WTO's influence on global public welfare regimes

As the WTO increasingly expands its policy space, it draws upon the work of other regimes to pattern rules in other areas of trade-related policy. As this occurs, how does this change the intention and effectiveness of those regimes whose focus is public welfare, and not pure trade policy? This paper addresses the WTO and its relationship with two public welfare regimes regulating food policy: the Codex Alimentarius for food safety and the treatment of plant genetic resources as intellectual property. The differentiation among the WTO as a complex, formalized regime and these two cases manifests a hierarchy among regimes that affects a regime's compliance and effectiveness in relation to other, more formalized regimes. Will the giant WTO swallow the two public welfare regimes in question, or can they maintain independence of mission and purpose?