On 22 October 2025, the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, in partnership with the FGV Centre for Global Law, was honored to welcome Prof. Daniel Damasio, Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP). The class was part of the third edition of the Rio School on Global Governance, Democracy and Human Rights.

Prof. Damasio assessed the relationship between trade and social rights, a classical controversial debate that continues to this day, in particular in light of the EU-Mercosur trade negotiations. The question is whether environmental and labor clauses are a pretext to protect the industry against unfair competition, or a legitimate concern to be protected. Prof. Damasio presented a few landmark cases on the Article XX of the GATT, which authorizes states to adopt commercial restrictions in order to protect certain values. The current scenario is that, in the lack of explicit social and environmental clauses, states have used Article XX of the GATT to impose trade restrictions based on environmental and social concerns, so the only way to liberalize trade today is by preferential trade agreements.

We sincerely thank Prof. Daniel Damasio for sharing his insights with us on this timely topic.