D O C U M E N T
Why is the WTO such a dirty name?
New African, Nr. 383, UK- IC Publications
Limited; London, March 2000, pages 40/41.
Why is the WTO such a dirty name?
For an answer, you must read what Cameron Duodu has written here.
Following the “Battle of Seattle” at the beginning of December last
year, which made it impossible for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to
reach any agreement on the rules
that should govern world trade in the new millennium, people all over
the world have suddenly been asking, “What is the WTO? Why is the WTO such
a dirty name not only in the countries of the South but also in some important
pockets of opinion in the North?”
The fact that such questions are being asked at all is one of the main
reasons why the WTO is in trouble. It crept up stealthily on an unsuspecting
world! And, as in all such situations of stealth, when the world did wake
up to what the WTO was about, it directed such hostility towards the WTO
in almost geometrical proportion to the manner in which the organisation
had tried to outsmart everyone but a few power brokers in North America
and Europe. In theory, the WTO is nothing more than the successor organisation
to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). I hear you say, Ah?
GATT?
What on earth was GATT?
Exactly. Unlike the UN General Assembly, or indeed any of the organs
of the UN, or the World Bank or the IMF, GATT was so bland and jargon-ridden
in its operations that few people outside the fields of economic and commerce
knew what it was about. It was founded in 1947, by the nations that had
just defeated Germany and Japan in World War II, to regulate international
trade — what type of goods should attract tariffs or customs duties when
exported from, and imported into other countries, and what should be exempted.
In other words, GATT was supposed to lay down rules for international
“trade” in much the same manner as the UN organs like the WHO (health)
and the FAO (food) did in their respective fields. Bits of what the Bretton
Woods institutions (the IMF and the World Bank) also did for finance and
economics were appended.
Now, few countries in the South were hilly sovereign nations when GATT
was created in 1947, the very year in which, by coincidence, one of the
giants of the South — India —emerged into independence from British rule.
As soon as the countries of the South gained their independence, they
were prompted by their former colonial masters:
“You must sign up with GAtT”. And the excolonies, assuming that GATT
was like the glamorous United Nations, signed up. What they did not know
was that GATT was only of use to people who had studied international corporate
or commercial law, and taught by ...people from the North!
The North wants the South to continue to export raw materials and import
finished goods. Even when organisations like the NonAligned Movement became
powerful and began to campaign against the existing rules of GATT, there
was not much that could be done about changing them. For, the Northern
“technocrats” who framed the rules had locked into them elaborate mechanisms
for litigation which suited the North more than the South.
The Group of 77
The South became known as the “Group of 77”. But they were all in the
same boat — if the industrialised nations refused to buy their products,
they would become bankrupt.
Worse, the Southern countries competed against each other in selling
to the North. For instance, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Brazil, Malaysia and
Indonesia were all cocoa producers. Could they ever agree on how to fight
the North together so that they could change their cocoa exports from beans
to chocolates, without cuffing the ground from under each other’s feet?
In former times, few people could even get access to information on
the rules regarding these areas of potential conflict. But now, the Internet
has brought the information right onto everyone s computer screens. So,
when it was proposed that GATT should be phased out and given a new, more
acceptable face plus a more sexy name, World Trade Organisation, people
everywhere began to find out whether indeed it was an organisation created
by the whole world or by the few international bullies who create, teach
and apply international commercial law.
Secret session
Perhaps it will be useful to go to a secret session of the WTO conference in Seattle in Decernbcr 1999. Our guide is John Vidal of the British daily, The Guardian. His artide, published in the 3 December 1999 issue, begins:
‘ ‘ “Four tables, each 30 yards long. More than 100 ministers, each
sit opposite a diplomat or civil servant. A few observers line two walls.
It is standing room only in Hall GB. Of those present, 90% are middle-aged
men in dark suits.
But to the 100,000 members of the public who are in Seattle to express
their misgivings about the WTO, and who have been arrested for marching
outside the convention centre in pursuit of accountability and open negotiations,
it is like the far side of the moon. I have access to the talks because,
in its incompetence, the ‘WTO has issued me with the wrong accreditation.
In short, I am a sort of [a] least-developed country. Should anyone ask,
I represent either San Serife, a country in the Indian Ocean with infinitely
changing geographical position or, preferably, any one of the 30 countries
who are WTO members but who are too poor to send even one delegate to the
talks. [emphasis added]
The five WTO working groups are where countries meet each day to thrash
out some common ground. If the gap between them is too large, then they
either enter bilateral agreements with each other or they can be called
in by Michael Moore, the WTO director general, to negotiations where he
personally bangs heads together... It’s called international diplomacy.
Investment and competition are huge issues, with ramifications for
democracy and sovereignty. If the ‘WTO secretariat can get countries to
reach any sort of agreement, these issues will be on the new trade agenda
and three years from now, after long talks in Geneva, all 134 WTO countries
might have to amend their [national] laws to allow, say, foreign companies
equal access to their markets [emphasis added].
The non-government groups are deeply worried that this would be a charter
for transnational companies to go anywhere they like. They fear that eventually
no country will be allowed to protect its own national interests.[emphasis
added].
It seems there should be a stirring debate. [But] the delegates look
bored.
‘For clarity’s sake,’ [the deputy chair says] ‘the issues on the table
refer to paras 12, 25, 26, 32, 33, 51, 52, 41, 56 and a dozen others’.
No one butts an eyelid.
‘Some basic political decisions need to be taken,’ he continues. ‘The
question is whether member countries are ready to start liberalising and
harmonising their investment and competition laws, or whether they should
continue to debate as they have for the last three years.’
The floor is open and the EU [European Union] is the first to put its
flag up to talk. ‘Our objective is to launch negotiations. We are not,
repeat not, interested in a face-saving formula...’
Chair: ‘Your position is clear. Japan?’
Japan: ‘We approach the 21st century. Some countries are concerned
about civil society [issues]. I am confident we can resolve those issues,
but Japan is opposed to a two-stage approach.
chair ‘Korea?’
Korea: ‘We cannot accept a two-step approach on investment.’
Most rich countries, including Britain, want the new round to include
the investment and competition clauses. The poor say repeatedly that they
are not ready and it would be unfair because they do not yet have the basic
laws in place [emphasis added].
The richest 29 countries in the world [had] tried to get a major investment
treaty passed in the ‘multilateral agreement on investment’ (MAI) last
year [1998]. They failed, after campaigning led by more than 600 environment
and consumer groups around the world. The investment issue was passed to
the WTO.
India: ‘Are we ready? No. Clearly and emphatically we do not want to
overload the WTO agenda.’
Most delegations have complex trade-offs to agree and a never-ending
round of talks. Outside the hall, the teargas and rubber bullets are being
used on protesters.
What goes on at the WTO
Without this account from The Guardian, the world would never have known
anything at all about what goes on in this body that claims to be the world’s
trade organisation and whose rules can literally kill some of us, if not
wipe us off the face of the earth.
For instance, South Africa and Thailand, two countries said by the
Aids Establishment to have a high incidence of HIV and Aids, are currently
being threatened with sanctions by the US government, on the instigation
of American drug companies, which want
South Africa and Thailand to stop manufacturing cheap anti-Aids drugs.
The US drug companies have “patented” the anti-Aids drugs and want to sell
them at high price. So they want South Africa and Thailand to sit idly
by and watch their citizens wiped out by Aids.
The WTO also wants to enact international laws patenting trees and
other flora and fauna, which countries in the South have utilised from
time immemorial. If, in future, a Southern country acquires the technological
know-how to put its own flora and fauna to good use, it could be infringing
the patent of a company from the North!
(When I was a kid, my father used to take me into the bush whenever
I had conjunctivitis, pluck some leaves from a plant, and drop their juice
into my eyes. I was always cured. Now, suppose a drug firm from the North
has patented this plant. What happens if I decide to set up a factory for
the large-scale manufacturing of this herbal medicine?
Companies like Monsanto in the United States have been inventing genetically
modified foods, called “terminator”, which are resistant to pests and drought.
But GM foods are also deliberately designed to produce sterile seeds which
cannot be replanted.
So if a rice or maize farmer in the South were to be enticed to put
his farm under such a crop, he would reap a rich harvest - once! For his
next crop, he would have to import seeds from Monsanto or whoever. If his
country operated an exchange control system, or import licensing, he could
stand by and watch the growing season pass by, while bureaucrats tossed
his application forms from desk to desk.
That is not the end of the story. Research is going on to map, through
the human “genome” project, the entire DNA constitution of the human body.
Which company will own the patent and what will the WTO allow itto do with
the patent?
So, you see, “The Battle of Seattle” was not fought for nothing. The
next round of WTO talks will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, this year.
We shall see what happens there.
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