Stop the WTO Millennium Round!
Ruthless in Seattle!
On 30 November representatives of 134 member governments of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will be gathering in Seattle USA to discuss a Millennium Round of trade negotiations. The outcome of these discussions will profoundly affect the living standards, job conditions, security of, and social provision for the majority of the world’s population, reports PETE COOPER.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the enforcer of international trade agreements. It is an unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic organisation with huge power over all our lives.
This power was recently demonstrated when it ruled in favour of US government appeals against the European Union (EU) ban on beef hormones, resulting in $117m worth of US trade sanctions on products including Danish pork and French Roquefort cheese.
Its ruling in favour of a US appeal on behalf of the US-owned Chiquita company against EU protection of Caribbean banana imports leaves 200,000 Windward Island small farmers facing ruin.
The agenda to be decided on at the forthcoming WTO negotiations in Seattle could include:
A Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
This would strictly limit the right and ability of governments to regulate currency speculation, investment in land, factories and services.
MAI would stop governments considering as investment criteria the record of companies and countries on human rights, labour and the environment.
It would ban investment conditions such as recycling and the use of local labour. It would grant absolute rights to trans-national corporations to compete for public contracts.
Agriculture, Intellectual Property Rights, and Services are high on the US list of priorities, since these are industries in which US trans-national corporations are dominant.
Agriculture
The US and a number of other food-exporting countries want to stop the subsidisation of food production, particularly in the EU and Japan. Small farmers everywhere, especially in developing countries would be hardest hit. The US government subsidises its own agri-businesses.
The US also wants prohibition of import bans of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) crops and seeds: the precedent for this has been set by the EU beef hormone ban mentioned above.
According to one WTO negotiator "GMOs are going to make bananas look like peanuts."
Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
These would prevent countries like India producing cheap food and medicines not conforming to US-style patent laws.
Technical barriers to trade
This could include a prohibition on labelling food as GM or non-GM, so you wouldn’t be able to tell which was which.
From this month the UK in line with the EU has finally banned the new use of the killer material asbestos. Canada, which exports asbestos, wants the WTO to prohibit this ban. Organisations such as the London Hazards centre are campaigning to defend the ban.
Public services
The US wants to make it illegal for all WTO member countries to provide services – including health, education, water, energy, tourism, film and broadcasting – through public funding.
The obligatory private provision of these services (for those who can afford it) opens up mouth-watering opportunities for the private service giants. European style public provision, such as the NHS would be outlawed!
Labour movement, environmental and women’s organisations and activists round the world have concluded that the WTO Millennium Round agenda cannot benefit the poor, and the oppressed of this world. Over 1000 organisations in over 80 countries have signed an anti-millennium round statement.
The EU governments are in favour of the Millennium Round, while differing about which items should be discussed, both with the US and each other. A recent preparatory meeting of EU ministers failed to agree on a number of issues.
The British position on labour standards is particularly hypocritical, with ministers arguing for them to be referred to a joint WTO-International Labour Organisation (ILO) body.
Unlike the WTO, the ILO has no teeth, – as Blair and co well know. After all, they are happy to preside over British anti-union laws which fail to comply with ILO standards.
The TUC’s position is essentially the same as the government’s, although an anti-MAI resolution was carried at this year’s Congress. Both the TGWU and UNISON are opposed to the WTO agenda … but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to campaign on the issues.
Other, if smaller, forces however are beginning to stir. Recently a well attended conference initiated by Green Party activists, and addressed by representatives of Red Pepper and NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, the World Development Movement and Christian Aid, launched a campaign to Stop the Millennium Round as part of the global campaign.
Reclaim the Streets activists are also taking up the issue. A trade union campaign is being initiated by Coventry Trades Union Council.
A public meeting has been called as part of the global day of action to stop the millennium round.
Hopefully this will be the beginning of a concerted campaign, which needs to be taken into the labour and social movements to turn around New Labour and its TUC clones.