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30 october 2001
developing countries and
civil society groups stunned by wto draft
declaration
Reaction in Geneva to the publication of
the WTO's final draft declaration [1], to be
negotiated at the 4th Ministerial in Doha,
Qatar, 9-13 December, was muted yesterday -
but only because developing country
ambassadors and civil society groups were so
shocked by its contents [2].
The supposedly neutral publication,
drafted by Stuart Harbinson of Hong Kong,
Chair of the WTO's General Council,
effectively initiates negotiations on all the
new issues - including competition,
investment, government procurement and trade
facilitation - opposed by many developing
countries and civil society groups since
before the last Seattle Ministerial.
Combined with extremely weak language on
all other developing country concerns
(including agriculture, implementation, debt
and technology transfer), nothing new on the
environment and sustainability and the
controversial reintroduction of the notorious
green room procedures (used to exclude many
delegates from negotiations) and the scene is
undoubtedly set for Seattle Mark II.
Alexandra Wandel of Friends of the Earth
Europe said:
"Under pressure from the EU and the US,
Harbinson has produced a 'clean text'
intended to give an impression of consensus
and simplicity. Nothing could be further
from the truth. This text offers nothing on
development, nothing on equity and nothing
on the environment or sustainability.
Anyone wondering about the real motives of
the EU and the US would be well advised to
watch developments in Doha: in the WTO it's
still business-as-usual."
[1] This and other key WTO documents for
the 4th Ministerial, published on or before
27 October 2001, can be found at
www.foei.org
or
www.ictsd.org/ministerial/doha/relevantdoc.htm
[2] See Friends of the Earth International
Statement on the WTO 4th Ministerial Revised
Draft Conference Declaration,
below,
which critiques the
declaration's position on implementation and
development, agriculture, services and the
environment.
Contact:
Alexandra Wandel, tel:+32-2-542 01 85
(Brussels) or +49-172-748 39 53
(mobile)
Ronnie Hall, tel: +44-1243-6027 56
(London)
Vicente Yu, tel: +41 22 789-0742
(Geneva)
30 october 2001
statement on the
revised draft wto 4th ministerial conference
declaratiom
The WTO draft Ministerial Conference
documents can all be found at
www.foei.org
Friends of the Earth International (FOEI)
is an international federation of 68
independent national organizations from both
North and South working on issues relating to
environmental management, natural resources
conservation, and social justice and equity.
Its member groups campaign internationally,
nationally and locally on the most urgent
environmental and social issues of today.
FOEI believes that the present trading
system promotes the free movement of goods,
services and capital as a goal in itself,
rather than ensuring that international trade
promotes economically equitable and
ecologically sustainable development. As a
result, current trade rules as administered
by the WTO encourage unsustainable resource
use and an inequitable distribution of
resources, favoring the economic interests of
developed countries and their corporations in
particular; and can conflict directly with
local, national and international
environmental laws. Furthermore, the current
level of implementation of the various WTO
agreements has proven in large part to be
detrimental to the interests of developing
and least-developed countries and their
poor.
clear bias towards the north's trade
agenda
The revised draft text of the Declaration
maintains and even increases the bias in
favor of Northern developed country trade
interests, especially with respect to the
conduct of negotiations for a new
comprehensive round for the upcoming
Ministerial.
All the elements of the current draft,
drawn up by Stuart Harbinson (of Hong Kong),
Chair of the WTO's General Council, are
consistent with previous Northern country
statements regarding a new and comprehensive
round of trade negotiations. These
preferences have been consistently opposed by
many developing countries (such as India,
Malaysia, Pakistan and Tanzania) as well as
civil society groups.
It incorporates the 'new issues' as
negotiating areas to be included in the
post-4th WTO Ministerial Conference WTO Work
Program. Tellingly, it removes other options
presented in the first draft (which would
have involved relegating the new issues to
'study groups'). The 'new issues' include
investment, competition policy, transparency
in government procurement, trade
facilitation, market access for
non-agricultural products, amendments to the
Dispute Settlement Understanding and
improving disciplines for subsidies and
anti-dumping.
The draft language on 'new issues' uses
sophisticated language effectively to
initiate negotiations on investment,
competition,
transparency in government procurement and
trade facilitation, the most hotly contested
new issues.
The document also aims to start a new
round by proposing that:
-
a common timeframe for all the separate
negotiations must be set;
-
negotiations in all areas comprise a
“single undertaking,” albeit with an “early
harvests” qualifier; and
-
the overall conduct of the negotiations
is under the supervision of a Trade
Negotiations Committee as was done during
the Uruguay Round of trade
negotiations.
weak on developing and least developed
country concerns
In stark contrast, the revised draft text's
language with respect to concerns and
proposals raised by developing and
least-developed countries remains unclear,
ambiguous and non-committal.
Language referring to trade, debt and
finance; trade and the transfer of
technology; technical cooperation and
capacity building;
least-developed countries; and small
economies does not involve the conduct of
negotiations leading to binding commitments
from WTO Members in these areas.
Instead the revised draft declaration
merely requires the WTO to “examine” or study
these issues and then make recommendations to
the General Council. The draft also fails to
address positively and effectively concerns
raised by developing and least developed
countries in relation to the implementation
of the Uruguay Round and special and
differential treatment. In fact, by packaging
implementation issues together with the new
issues, developing countries will have to pay
twice for the supposed benefits of the
Uruguay Round.
The additional 'draft Decision on
Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns'
is also vague and non-committal vis-à-vis
developing and least developed country
interests. It makes no reference to the
conduct of negotiations or other means of
effectively and substantively (in terms of
binding commitments) addressing the
implementation issues raised again and again
by developing and least-developed countries.
Instead, it focuses on minor technical
interpretations of various WTO
agreements.
differences over agriculture could stall
doha ministerial
The language on agriculture includes
agriculture as part of a new round or 'single
undertaking'; does not explicitly commit
developed countries to immediately eliminate
agricultural export support measures and the
dumping of surplus agricultural production (a
key concern for many developing and Cairns
group countries); and fails to make any
reference to the 'development box' proposed
by a number of developing countries.
The current text is vague in the extreme,
making passing references to the 'reduction
of' or 'phasing out of' export subsidies,
without specifying any commitments or
timelines. It does not mention tariff peaks,
tariff escalation or dumping at all and
completely fails to recognise calls for a
'development box' as made by Cuba, Dominican
Republic, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Peru, Honduras
and Kenya.
Furthermore, the text subtly promotes the
new round agenda by seeking to link the
timetable of the agriculture negotiations to
the timetable of other trade
negotiations.
The revised draft text does nothing to
address the fact that the implementation of
the current agriculture trade liberalization
agenda
has already caused much damage to poor local
farming communities worldwide, especially in
developing and least developed countries, and
has increased control by Northern
agro-industrial corporations over global food
and agriculture trade and production.
Overall, the revised draft text focuses on
developing an agenda that will pass muster
with the developing countries yet not commit
the EU, Japan and other industrialised
countries to specific reductions in domestic
or export support. However, it is so biased
towards a Northern agenda that it is unlikely
to succeed in this: rather, it is likely to
infuriate developing countries. It seems that
this approach to agriculture is likely to
continue indefinitely in the WTO, lending
support to calls to remove food and
agriculture from the WTO and deal with it
through a binding UN treaty on Sustainable
Agriculture and Food Security.
only a passing reference to services
Despite rapidly developing civil society
concern about the eventual social and
environmental impacts of WTO negotiations to
liberalise services, GATS only gets a passing
reference in this draft declaration.
The language in the draft text does not
recognize or address the call of developing
countries and civil society for the conduct
of a full assessment of trade in services and
its impacts. Neither does the draft text
explicitly recognize the right to regulate
trade in services with respect to national
policy objectives relating to the public
welfare and the environment.
nothing specific on the environment
Even though the draft text’s preamble
mentions “sustainable development” and
"protection of the environment" as among the
WTO’s objectives, there is nothing new in
this text. It merely recommends the Committee
on Trade and the Environment to continue
addressing the WTO's existing environmental
agenda, including on multilateral
environmental agreements and labelling. The
concerns voiced by civil society over recent
years are simply ignored.
To really address “sustainable
development” and “environment protection”
would mean addressing the negative impacts of
trade liberalization on the environment and
natural resources use and management by local
communities and the urban and rural poor.
Trade liberalization alone, absent measures
that promote equitable wealth redistribution
from rich to poor through means that are
democratic, inclusive, and economically
empowering, will not bring about development
that is economically equitable and
ecologically sustainable. It will only bring
about further environment and natural
resource degradation, and will lead to
further
human conflicts over scarce natural
resources both within and among
countries.
Various other portions of the draft text,
such as those relating to TRIPS (paras. 17 to
19), also demonstrate a failure to appreciate
the links between environment and
development. Of key importance is the draft
text’s statement instructs the TRIPs Council
to examine, inter alia, 'relevant new
developments” which leaves the door open for
the introduction of biotechnology products as
commodities subject to the WTO TRIPS regime,
notwithstanding widespread concern from civil
society and some governments regarding such
products.
The WTO Committee on Trade and
Environment, under the revised draft text,
will continue to be an ineffective body in
terms of pushing forward the
trade-environment-development triad linkage
because the draft text merely reiterates and
renews the CTE’s current ineffective mandate
to study and make recommendations regarding
such linkage.
In line with calls of many developing
countries for a comprehensive assessment and
review of the impacts and benefits of the
current state of implementation or
non-implementation of the various Uruguay
Round agreements, it is necessary that
environmental considerations - closely linked
to development considerations of developing
and least developed countries - be integrated
in such an assessment, and that the
precautionary principle should be considered
as one of the fundamental
bases for trade regulation.
Furthermore, regulatory measures of
developing and least developed Members in
pursuit of national health, safety and
environmental policy objectives must be
accorded greater flexibility in
implementation of special and differential
treatment. Focus must also be provided in
terms of looking at the trade possibilities
for developing and least developed Members
vis-à-vis environmental goods and
services.
The text fails to recognise imbalances,
negative impacts and civil society
concerns.
The revised draft text also fails to take
into account the institutional flaws within
the WTO that have resulted in the greater
disadvantage of developing and
least-developed countries.
Notwithstanding the issues and concerns
raised by civil society and many developing
and least-developed countries to the
contrary, the draft text uncritically assumes
that the benefits of trade liberalization
under the Uruguay Round agreements have been
realized and spread widely and equitably
among all countries, and that such trade
liberalization has not had any adverse or
negative impacts on the poor, their
communities, the environment, and on the
ability of many developing and
least-developed countries to provide for
their peoples.
The draft text completely fails to mention
the call of civil society and many developing
and least-developed countries for the conduct
of a full assessment of the impacts of the
current pace and direction of trade
liberalization under the Uruguay Round
agreements. It simply equates trade
liberalization, in essence, with development,
without making any concrete proposals that
would ensure that such development is
ecologically sustainable and economically
equitable.
In view of the above, FOEI calls on WTO
Members meeting for the 4th Ministerial
to:
-
State that there is a need to ensure
that the pace and direction of economic
activity must be balanced with the need to
ensure that the benefits that may be
derived from such economic activity are
shared equitably, and that such economic
activity must take into account ecological
sustainability. Such ecological
sustainability cannot be separated from any
consideration of economic equity or
enjoyment of the benefits.
-
-
Call for the conduct of socio-economic
and environmental assessments of the impact
of the implementation of trade
liberalization under the Uruguay Round
agreements on local communities and the
poor, especially in developing and least
developed countries (including those
relating to the built-in agenda such as
agriculture and trade in services). Suc
assessment should also adopt the
precautionary principle as one of the
fundamental principles of the trade
regime.
-
-
Make a clear statement that the
implementation issues raised by developing
and least-developed countries, as well as
by a broad range of civil society
organizations, need to be addressed.
Sustainable agriculture, food security, and
food sovereignty must be promoted and
supported and the current agricultural
trade liberalization agenda halted. The
impact of trade in services must be fully
assessed, and the right to regulate such
trade must be fully recognized and
respected. Also, mention must be made that
obligations that promote and protect the
public welfare and the environment under
multilateral environmental agreements
(MEAs) must be fully recognized and
implemented.
-
-
Delete references to the new issues of
investment, competition policy,
transparency in government procurement,
trade facilitation, WTO rules on subsidies
and anti-dumping as proposed negotiating
areas.
-
-
Rephrase the TRIPS-relevant paragraphs
to provide for clear statements supporting:
(a) banning of patents and IPRs for all
lifeforms, including plant varieties,
microorganisms and parts thereof; (b)
protection of traditional and indigenous
knowledge against biopiracy; (c) public
access to medicines and genetic resources,
including plant genetic resources; (d) the
right to regulate in pursuit of national
health, safety, or environmental protection
policy objectives; and (e) protection for
the right of farmers and indigenous
communities to conserve, exchange and
reproduce seeds.
For further information, please
contact:
Vicente Paolo B. Yu III
WTO Program Officer
Friends of the Earth International
160A Route de Florissant
CH-1231 Conches, Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: (41)(22)789-0742
Fax: (41)(22)789-0500
Email: yuvice@philonline.com
Ronnie Hall
International Coordinator
Trade, Environment and Sustainability
Programme
Friends of the Earth International
26-28 Underwood Street
London, N1 7JQ
United Kingdom
Tel: (44)(20)7490-1555
Fax: (44)(20)7490-0881
Email: ronnieh@foe.co.uk
Alexandra Wandel
Trade and Sustainability Coordinator
Friends of the Earth Europe
29, rue Blanche
B-1060 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: (32) 2 542 01 85
Fax: (32) 2 537 55 96
Email: alexandra.wandel@foeeurope.org
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