World trade body must be transformed to benefit all the people

World trade body must be transformed to benefit all the people

Hira P. Jhamtani, Board Member, Institute for Global Justice,
Jakarta

The fourth ministerial conference of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) began Friday in Doha, Qatar, with civil
society calling for democratization and a review of the
multilateral trading body.

A number of civil society groups have issued a statement
protesting the lack of democratic process in the WTO, as
reflected in the steamrolling of a draft ministerial declaration
that the majority of WTO members has not agreed upon.

On Sept. 26, the WTO's General Council put forward a draft
declaration that was presented as a "clean text", putting
brackets (indicating disagreement) only on two issues: investment
and competition policy.

A number of developing and least-developed countries (LDCs)
have criticized the draft as being imbalanced, as it did not
contain strong statements on implementation issues -- the main
agenda items put forward by them.

A second draft was released last weekend with few changes.
Civil society groups, among them Focus on the Global South in
Thailand and Public Citizen in the U.S., stated that the second
draft was met with "outrage by civil society and disbelief and
frustration by developing countries and LDCs". This is because
the tone again presumes a consensus on the future WTO agenda,
which does not exist.

The main bone of contention is inclusion of new issues for
negotiation in the draft declaration, such as investment,
competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in
government procurement, as put forward by developed or rich
countries.

New issues have constantly been put forward since the first
ministerial meeting in Singapore, 1996. In 1999, these new issues
were proposed to be negotiated as a package under the "new
comprehensive round", together with social clauses and
environmental issues.

Developing countries and LDCs, on the other hand, have
proposals to look at imbalance in WTO agreements and problems in
implementation, including the reluctance of rich countries to
provide market access for products from developing countries.

As existing agreements already pose problems, new issues would
create additional burdens for poorer countries. The difference in
the positions, as well as protests from civil society, led to the
collapse of the third ministerial conference in Seattle, 1999.

The 2001 draft declaration no longer incorporates the word
"new round". However, elements of a new round have been included
under the point, "Organization of Work Program".

These elements are: (a) negotiations to be completed at an
agreed date; (b) negotiations to be supervised by a Trade
Negotiations Committee, which will establish "appropriate
negotiating mechanisms"; (c) The outcome of negotiations will be
treated as parts of a single undertaking; (d) elements of the
work program that do not involve negotiations are accorded high
priority. Reports of progress will be made to the 5th ministerial
conference.

These elements, if agreed upon, would in effect start a new
round of negotiations, precisely what developing countries and
LDCs are objecting to.

According to the statement of the civil society groups, the
second draft declaration (to be treated as a final draft) shows a
serious breach of democratic process, whereby months of repeated
interventions by the majority of WTO members have been dismissed.

The text does not reflect the deep disagreements among WTO
members about the organization's future agenda.

For instance, since before the Seattle WTO ministerial talks,
most developing country WTO members have demanded that the
existing flaws and imbalances in the WTO be addressed, but the
U.S. has led unbending opposition to this "implementation
agenda."

The European Union's push for expansion of WTO disciplines
into new issues, such as investment, competition policy and
procurement, has been resoundingly rejected by developing
nations. Many WTO members demand new negotiations on antidumping
policy, but the U.S. has insisted the issue be off the table,
although that issue -- along with investment, competition,
procurement and more -- is included as a topic for future
negotiations in this latest text.

Meanwhile, the list of provisions, which developing-nation WTO
members have identified for urgent review and repair before any
WTO negotiations on new issues, is actually more watered down in
the latest text.

Furthermore, the civil society groups stated that under
existing WTO agreements, the poorest countries' share of world
trade had declined and many poor countries' development and
health policies had come under attack as violations of WTO rules.
The new draft responds to these demands by effectively restating
the U.S. hard-line position that none of these issues would be
addressed without further concessions by the developing
countries.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also view the draft text
as ignoring the demands of the global civil society movement that
were submitted after the Seattle ministerial talks.

Through their "Our World Is Not for Sale: WTO-Shrink or Sink"
campaign, a group of peasant farmers and fisherfolk, workers,
environmentalists and labor groups have for many months called
for transformational change within the WTO. They consider the
draft ministerial text has also ignored their calls. In their
statement, NGOs from around the world called on their governments
to denounce this text as illegitimate and to oppose its being
moved forward for use at the WTO Doha ministerial talks.

According to Martin Khor of the Third World Network, accepting
the text would mean giving more unprecedented rights to the large
corporations of developed countries at the expense of space for
domestic policy-making, and the rights of consumers, the public
and small or medium firms and farms and their employees.

Finally, the global civil society movement stated that the
recalcitrance of the WTO Secretariat and the few rich nations,
which have greatest pull on the WTO agenda to address the
developing country and civil society demands, is pushing the Doha
ministerial talks towards an outcome that may either spell
disaster for the majority of its members or another Seattle: An
outright rejection of an invalid text.