[E-rundbrief] Info 337 - V. Shiva: WTO Shrink or Sink?

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 336: Vandana Shiva: From Doha to Hong Kong, via Cancun. 
Will WTO Shrink or Sink? (Vorschau auf den WTO-Summit in Hongkong v. 13. - 
19.12.2005).

Bad Ischl, 9.12.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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 From Doha to Hong Kong, via Cancun

Will WTO Shrink or Sink?

Dr. Vandana Shiva

The WTO Ministerial at Hong Kong has already failed. For the corporate 
world it has failed because smaller, poorer developing countries are 
starting to have a say in outcomes of WTO negotiations. With the backing of 
peoples power on the streets they walked out of the Seattle and Cancun 
ministerial, exercising the highest power in democracy, the power to say 
'no', the power exercised by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, the power of 
non-cooperation with unjust rule.

Doha was the first ministerial after Seattle had failed. No new "round" 
should have been launched at Doha. That is why the slogan of the people's 
movement was "No new round: Turn around". The Doha Ministerial was to have 
been primarily for "implementation" issues  the mandatory reviews of the 
problematic agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 
and Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) imposed on the world through the Uruguay 
Round of undemocratic negotiations. As usual, the powerful countries, 
driven by their even more powerful corporations wanted both to prevent the 
mandatory reforms of the agreements that establish corporate monopolies in 
agriculture, seeds and medicines, as well as to introduce new issues like 
non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and further distort the already 
distorted GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services). It is to introduce 
new issues that they refer to a new "Doha Round" when in fact we are in the 
implementation period of the Uruguay Round. To placate the developing 
countries with doublespeak, they refer to the "Doha Development Round". 
What is offered as the "Development Package" in the draft Hong Kong 
declaration of 26th November 2005 is "Aid for Trade" with World Bank and 
IMF further locking Third World countries in debt through loans for 'trade 
related infrastructure"  more ports, more superhighways, leading to more 
green house gases, more climate change. This is not a "development package" 
but a recipe for environment disaster. World Bank is also pushing water 
privatization as trade related infrastructure. The "Aid for Trade" package 
is infact World Bank and IMF loans joining with WTO rules to impose trade 
liberalization on Third World Countries. Now that the marginalized and 
excluded players have learnt to exercise their power in WTO through 
non-cooperation, they are refusing to cooperate with demands for further 
trade liberalization in agriculture, and introduction of trade 
liberalization in services and industrial production. And they need to 
reject the "Aid of Trade" package in the draft Hong Kong Ministerial Text.

The Draft Hong Kong Declaration: A Retreat From The Doha Mandate

The Draft Hong Kong Declaration is an attempt to retreat from commitments 
made at Doha. Para 18 of the Doha Declaration addressed the extension of 
the protection of geographical indications provided for in Article 23 to 
products other than wines and spirits. These products are of interest to 
developing countries and include products such as Basmati rice (pirated and 
patented by Ricetec corporation of Texas) and Darjeeling tea. The Hong Kong 
Declaration makes no reference to extension of geographical indicators to 
other products.

Para 19 of Doha was an instruction to undertake the mandatory review of 
Article 27.3(b) of TRIPS and the review of the implementation of the TRIPS 
agreement under Article 71.1, taking fully into account the development 
dimension. The work programme of Para 19 related to review of TRIPS finds 
no mention in the Hong Kong draft.

The phasing out of export subsidies agreed to in Doha has disappeared in 
the new text.

The Doha text had reaffirmed "the right of members under the General 
Agreement on Trade in Services to regulate, and to introduce new 
regulations on the supply of services". For Hong Kong this has been diluted 
to "with due respect to the right to regulate".

On issues of interest to people and the Third World, Hong Kong is a 
regression with respect to Doha. On issues of interest to global 
corporations and rich countries, the Hong Kong declaration rushes ahead 
with expanding the WTO agenda.

"WTO: Shrink or Sink"

Since Seattle, the call of the people's movement "Our world is not for 
sale" has been "WTO shrink or sink", People's movements want a shrinkage in 
the areas controlled by WTO. They want WTO out of Agriculture; they want 
IPR's out of WTO. For the people of the world, and countries that bear the 
costs of trade liberalization, "shrink or sink" refers to shrinkage of 
corporate rights and WTO's power's over our lives and our resources.

Corporations and the powerful countries, which work on their behalf want an 
expansion of the areas under WTO's control, but a shrinkage in the powers 
and participation of member countries.

The attempts to systematically marginalize implementation issues and 
subvert the built in right to reform and change in WTO rules and agreements 
as built into the Doha mandate are an example of political shrinkage as 
interpreted by the rich and powerful countries. New reference to 
plurilateral agreement in services to be imposed on developing countries 
are new directions for exclusion when participation in multilateral 
negotiations by the weaker member starts to become a block. For 
corporations and the US and EU the way forward is an even more asymmetric, 
unjust, non-participatory, undemocratic WTO. Their "Shrink or Sink" is 
shrinkage of democracy and peoples rights.

The powers that created WTO will not allow it to sink so easily. Therefore 
democratic shrinkage is the only option left to them. And democratic 
shrinkage means an even more naked display of brutal corporate takeover of 
our economies and securities than we have witnessed in the last ten years 
of WTO rule.

For the movements too, a new challenge emerges. While we want WTO to shrink 
to the old GATT, shedding both the new issues of the Uruguay Round  IPR's, 
Agriculture, Services, Investment  - and not taking on the new issues of 
the so called Doha Round, we also have to address the subversion of WTO's 
shallow multilaterism with bilateral and plurilateral agreements. We want 
shrinkage in WTO's jurisdiction and mandate, but an enlargement of 
participation and rights of people and their government to have a say on 
issues of international trade, including which issues cannot be governed 
merely by rules for international commerce. Such issues include food and 
agriculture, biodiversity and medicines. The Agriculture Agreement has 
already led to the killing of thousands of farmers. In India, nearly 40,000 
farmers have been driven to suicides in the last decade due to trade 
liberalisation. In Cancun, Korean farmer Lee took his life. Two more Korean 
farmers committed suicide recently in protests against free trade in 
agriculture during the APEC meetings. Not only is WTO killing farmers, it 
is killing democracy. The US dispute against EU on the GMO issue shows how 
WTO rules are being used to deny citizens their right to choose the food 
they eat. From remarks made by Mr. Supachai, till recently the WTO's 
Director General, at an UNCTAD conference in Delhi on 28th November 2005, 
where he referred to the country "impeding GMO's" having lost the WTO 
dispute, it can be inferred that Monsanto has successfully used WTO for 
forcing open European markets for GMO dumping, against the will of European 
citizens, and against the constitutional rights of thirty regions in Europe 
which have declared themselves to be GMO free. WTO is clearly an 
inappropriate institution for making decisions on what farmers grow, and 
what people eat. These issues are best left to local, regional and national 
democracies. This is the content of food democracy and food sovereignty. 
That is why WTO must stop messing up with our food and agriculture systems.

Similarly, the WTO TRIPS agreement that forces countries to patent seeds 
and life forms, promotes biopiracy of traditional knowledge, and creates 
monopolies in seeds and medicines needs to change. A trade institution has 
no business to impose far reaching patent rules, which are denying people 
access to seeds and medicines. These issues too need to be returned to 
national democratic decision-making.

People's power and developing countries won in Seattle and Cancun. The 
moral and political failure of WTO needs to be translated into the creation 
of alternatives at local, national and international levels.

Beyond Hong Kong, we will either go deeper down the road to democracy or 
the road to dictatorship. Which road is taken will depend on how successful 
movements are in building creative alternatives to WTO based on economic 
democracy and economic justice.

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Dr. Vandana Shiva
A-60, Hauz Khas
New Delhi - 110016
Ph : 91-11-26535422 / 26561868 / 26968077
Fax : 91-11-26856795 / 26962589
Email: vshiva @ vsnl.com
Website : www.navdanya.org

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