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global deal or global farce?

wssd preparations fail to inspire

The themes for the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) were discussed in regional preparatory meetings worldwide during the second half of 2001. Friends of the Earth was present at many of these preparatory meetings, pushing our agenda focusing on corporate accountability, trade justice, environmental space and ecological debt and our proposals for a reformed system of international environmental governance. On the basis of these regional meetings, a global agenda may be agreed at the next global preparatory meeting, to be held in New York at the end of January. FoEI will use this PrepCom to push for corporate accountability to be on the agenda.
So far, the official preparations have not been inspiring. The most progressive policy, the one that comes closest to being a "big new idea", is being discussed under the name of a "Global Deal". So far, the content of this deal remains rather vague. Elements to be included are debt relief and market access for developing countries, a commitment to break the link between economic growth and environmental degradation in industrialized nations, increased development assistance and a reaffirmation of adherence to the "Rio Declaration" and other international environmental agreements. Though not yet fully defined, the Global Deal already has one clear enemy: the United States.

In the UNECE regional meeting comprising Europe, Canada and the US, the Americans ensured that there was no clear affirmation of such a deal in the resulting ministerial declaration. The US is blocking the Global Deal because it would commit it to things like further development aid, which they are unwilling to even consider, and might strengthen important elements of international environmental governance, such as the precautionary principle.

The United States is not just blocking the Global Deal, however. At the regional meeting, for example, it also blocked the aim of increasing the global supply of renewable energy to above 10 percent of total energy consumed. Targets and timetables seem to be off limit for the US, which could constitute a major stumbling block for Johannesburg.

global deal no great deal
Although the Global Deal is so far the most progressive idea being advanced at the international level, it has some deficiencies in its current form. For example, it calls only for a "decoupling" of economic growth and economic development and not (also) for clear ecological limits to economic activity, as defined by environmental space or ecological debt. Most worrying is a link of the Global Deal with a neo-liberal free market agenda. A non-paper tabled by Denmark at the UNECE meeting stated that a Global Deal "may include ... strengthened free trade". Much of the Global Deal discussion so far implies that the further inclusion of developing countries in international trade, based on a continuation of export-led growth in the South, is the answer to the problem of unsustainable development.

Paragraph 6 of the WTO Doha Declaration, which states that trade and environment rules should be "mutually supportive" and that environmental agreements are not allowed to be in conflict with WTO rules, is probably also written with the Global Deal in mind. After all, the UNECE Ministerial Declaration for Johannesburg uses exactly the same language calling on governments to "enhance the mutually supportive role of MEAs (multilateral environmental agreements) and the international trading system" and supports a new liberalization round.

The free-trade bias of any Global Deal will have to be rectified if FoEI is to actively support it against the even more reactionary agenda advocated mainly by the United States. US proposals so far are exclusively based on encouraging foreign direct investment and telling the world what "good governance", narrowly defined, looks like. Developing countries should pressure the EU to make the Global Deal a truly fair one, rather than an add-on to an overarching neo-liberal trade agenda.
A clear lack of honesty about the conflicts of neo-liberal trade policies and environmental and social justice also prevails in the assessment provided by governments of the last ten years. Nobody, except perhaps some business representatives, claims that the last ten years have been a resounding success. No government I have come across denies the continuing overarching negative trends. But no government so far has had a convincing story to tell about why these trends continue. Even those like Germany and Britain that make a link to economic globalization by admitting that its fruits have so far been unevenly shared, shy away from drawing the conclusion that the neo-liberal policies of the last ten years might be a root cause. Because of this faulty analysis, governments can get away with proposing more market liberalization as the only solution going. All FoEI campaigners will have a lot of educating to do on this point between now and September 2002.

Daniel Mittler, FoE Germany, FoEI WSSD Coordinator

For more information, visit www.foei.org/campaigns/Rio_10/indexrio10.html and www.johannesburgsummit.org.