making sense of the wto doha round
negotiations
damian sullivan, friends of the earth
australia and ronnie hall, friends of the
earth england, wales and northern
ireland
Trade talks might seem far away from our
lives, but they have a very real impact on
how we live and on our surrounding
environment. The current negotiations in
the World Trade Organization, the body that
governs world trade, could (if concluded)
increase pressure on our natural
environment, reduce impoverished countries'
ability to develop, and affect the
livelihoods of small farmers and fisherfolk
around the globe. They could also reduce
national governments' ability to implement
domestic laws and regulations to protect
the environment and local jobs and promote
health and safety.
The WTO's ‘ Doha ' negotiations (so
called because they were initiated at the
WTO's 4th Ministerial in Doha , Qatar in
2001) focus on agriculture, industrial
products and raw materials, services and
intellectual property rights (the ownership
of ideas). Industrialized countries
promised developing countries that the Doha
‘Work Program' and other trade negotiations
would focus first and foremost on
development issues. In reality, it is
increasingly clear that the negotiations
threaten to undermine development, the
environment, and the livelihoods and
employment of tens of millions of people.
In addition, many developing country
proposals relating to development (focusing
on special and differential treatment and
implementation issues) are being
consistently ignored. Because the talks
cover so many areas they are frequently
difficult to follow, even for trade
negotiators themselves. This can put many
developing country governments, who have
only one trade negotiator present in Geneva
, in a very difficult position.
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Governments tend to refer to the Doha
talks as a ‘round' because all the
negotiations are supposed to be completed
at the same time (the idea is that
countries' losses in one sector will be
made up by gains in another). However, what
this means in practice is that countries
are forced to make trade-offs between
different negotiating areas. So developing
countries might be persuaded, for example,
to open up sensitive public service and
natural resource-based sectors if they
thought it would bring export opportunities
in agriculture. In addition, smaller
countries are often put under extreme
pressure to liberalize in a range of
sectors that they do not want to open
up.
A major problem with the WTO is its
decision-making process. In theory,
decisions are supposed to be made by
consensus. However, there is evidence of a
great deal of arm-twisting behind the
scenes. More powerful countries such as the
EU, the US and Japan exert whatever
influence they can to open up markets for
powerful corporate lobbies based in their
countries. Furthermore, smaller countries
are often excluded from key negotiations
until the deals have been done, and are
expected to sign up afterwards.
Key aspects of the
Doha
round
include:
Non-Agricultural Market Access
(NAMA)
negotiations, which are
focused on reducing tariffs in all goods
that are not included in the agriculture
negotiations. NAMA includes proposals that
focus on natural resource-based sectors
including minerals, forest products and
fisheries.
Tariffs are the taxes countries place on
imports and exports. They provide a means
for developing countries to protect and
promote domestic industries and local
employment (especially since they cannot
afford to do this using subsidies). Tariffs
help to protect small farmers and
fisherfolk who are essential to local
economies and societies but may be unable
to compete with huge transnational
corporations. Tariff cuts are also likely
to lead to increased forest destruction
across the globe, the further depletion of
dwindling fish stocks, and increased
mining.
NAMA negotiations may also be used to
restrict the ability of governments to
legislate and regulate at the national
level. Friends of the Earth International
has identified 212 laws and regulations
relating to the environment and health
standards that have been notified by
governments as barriers to trade.
The Agreement on Agriculture
(AOA)
tends to always be at the
centre of WTO negotiations as this is the
key sector in which developing countries
think they might gain something.
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Most developing countries want
more access to markets in the EU and
the US. At the WTO's 2003 Ministerial
in Cancun, a number of the major
developing countries united in a
group called the G20, which was
strong enough to resist pressure from
the EU and the US and insist that
developing countries weren't being
offered enough. This was an important
step, even though it has become
increasingly evident that the G20
consists of countries with strong
transnational agribusiness interests
(such companies are likely to be the
primary beneficiaries of increased
exports). The G20 includes Brazil and
India.
Many also want to use the
negotiations to ensure that their
small farmers and rural communities
are protected. They want the EU and
US to reduce farming subsidies, and
they want to be able to use trade
restrictions to keep subsidized
products out of their own markets.
Countries focusing on keeping
products out are grouped together in
the G33, coordinated by Indonesia.
These countries are less influential
and more likely to find themselves
excluded from important
negotiations.
A further group consist of some of
the smallest countries that are
worried that the special trade
agreements they already have with
particular partners could be eroded
if other developing countries start
to get more market access (this is
known as ‘preference erosion').
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The EU and the US want to lever open
developing country agricultural markets
while maintaining the huge subsidies they
pay to farmers in their own countries -
most of which go to agribusiness, not small
farmers. With hundreds of trade bureaucrats
at their side, the EU and US are often able
to make it look as if they are reforming
their agriculture policies when they are
not making any substantial changes.
The General Agreement on Trade
in Services (GATS)
negotiations
are of special interest because they relate
to some of the essential aspects of life:
water, energy, health and biodiversity (all
of which are proposed for market opening).
Services negotiations have proceeded very
slowly because many countries do not want
to open up these services, many of which
are currently publicly provided. In GATS,
countries currently have more flexibility
about what they are willing to negotiate
on, although the EU tried to reduce this
flexibility by requiring a set number of
sub-sectors to be included by each country.
GATS also includes negotiations on domestic
regulation, which could limit governments'
ability to implement national policies.
The Trade Related aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS)
Agreement
is also up for review. TRIPs works very
much in favor of Northern transnational
corporations and was initially included in
the WTO's agreements at the insistence of
the US. It obstructs people's access to
essential medicines, seeds and vital
necessities, by increasing and even
introducing costs. It also promotes the
patenting of life forms, leading to the
destruction of biodiversity and the
appropriation of traditional knowledge.
African countries are currently seeking
to remove the TRIPs requirements relating
to patents on life (although their proposal
does not exclude from TRIPs all other forms
of intellectual property rights). A further
group of developing countries, led by
India, is also seeking amendments to the
TRIPs Agreement to prevent biopiracy, which
would allow developing countries to benefit
financially from the use of traditional
knowledge and biodiversity (although this
would not necessarily or automatically
conserve and protect that knowledge and
biodiversity).
Trade and the
environment
is also a formal
negotiating area in the Doha Work Program.
Paragraph 31(i) of the WTO Doha Ministerial
Declaration may allow the WTO to set limits
on the extent to and the way in which
governments can implement multilateral
environmental agreements (MEAs). These
negotiations have so far been very
technical, but could nevertheless have
extremely important consequences for MEAs.
The WTO might limit the use of those trade
measures left to the discretion of MEA
members.
Paragraph 32 of the WTO Declaration
deals with environmental goods and
services. Environmental goods are not yet
defined, and tend to focus on products that
northern corporations want to export. They
could include, for example, nuclear power
plants and waste incinerators.
Environmental services proposed for
liberalization also tend to focus on
end-of-pipe technologies only
(pollution-abating technologies, for
example).
