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.