[E-rundbrief] Info 702 - WTO-Verhandlungen gescheitert. T. 1

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 702 - Lori Wallach (Public Citizen's Global
Trade Watch Division/ USA): Doha Round - Another WTO Collapse in 'Make 
or Break' Talks Shows New Direction Is Required; Victory for Small 
Farmers, Workers, Civil Society and Developing Nations as WTO Expansion 
Bid Is Again Defeated in Geneva; Attac Österreich: WTO-Stillstand: Attac 
sieht Chance für neuen Weg.

Bad Ischl, 30.7.2008

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

================================================

Ein - hoffentlich dauernder - Erfolg des jahrelangen gewaltfreien
Widerstandes von uns globalisierungskritischen Netzwerken!

Aber auch - wie schon bei vorangegangenen Zwischenerfolgen - müssen wir 
wachsam bleiben. WTO-Chef Pascal Lamy und andere Verhalndler kündigten 
an, dass ab September in irgendeiner Form weiterverhandelt werden soll - 
wahrscheinlich um schwächere Länder unter Druck zu setzen.

Dazu kommen noch parallele EPA-Verhandlungen (Economic Partnership 
Agreements) mit einzelnen Ländern.

Als erster Infoteil Texte von Lori Wallach, Public Citizen's Global
Trade Watch Division (USA) und Attac Österreich, 29.7.2008

Weitere Infos nach den heutigen Pressekonferenzen der NGOs.

Matthias Reichl, 30.7.2008

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RIP Doha Round - Another WTO Collapse in 'Make or Break' Talks Shows New
Direction Is Required; Victory for Small Farmers, Workers, Civil Society
and Developing Nations as WTO Expansion Bid Is Again Defeated in Geneva

  Statement of Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade
Watch Division

Thank God no deal was reached, because the proposal under consideration
would have exacerbated the serious economic, food security and social
problems now rocking numerous countries.

The moldering corpse of the Doha WTO-expansion Round should have been
buried years ago. Hopefully after this latest rejection of the Doha
agenda, countries will move on to a new agenda focused on fixing the
existing WTO rules.

Countries' unwillingness to concede on particular themes is the
proximate cause for the collapse, but government positions were based on
strong public opposition in many poor and rich nations alike to
expanding WTO scope and authority after more than a decade of experience
of the WTO's damaging outcomes.

By calling a ministerial summit to try to force agreement on a WTO
expansion agenda opposed by many countries, WTO Secretary General Pascal
Lamy set up the conditions for yet another direct blow to the
beleaguered global commerce agency's shaky legitimacy.

The WTO's 14-year lifespan has sparked a dramatic wave of popular
protest across the world, and this week's talks were no different, with
small farmers, fishers and workers protesting in various national
capitals and teams of civil society activists traveling to Geneva to
remind their countries' WTO delegates of the political consequences at
home of damaging compromises.

Now that WTO expansion has been again rejected at this "make or break"
meeting, elected officials and those on the campaign trail in nations
around the world - including U.S. presidential candidates - will be
asked what they intend to do to replace the failed WTO model and its
version of corporate globalization with something that benefits the
majority of people worldwide.

While the "blame-country-x game" is likely to reach a frenzy this week,
seven years of virtual deadlock since the Doha Round WTO expansion talks
started signals that most WTO countries and their populations are
seeking a different direction than what was offered with the Doha
agenda. The WTO Secretariat and the small bloc of mainly rich country
governments who stubbornly insist on continuing with the Doha WTO
expansion agenda after it has been repeatedly rejected are the ones to
blame for the repeated summit collapses and deadlocks.

With the damaging socio-economic consequences of WTO implementation and
an exclusive negotiating process at the summit having once again
translated into a rejection of WTO expansion, the organization's
already-shaky legitimacy is nearing rock bottom.

Acknowledging the broad opposition among WTO member countries to aspects
of the Doha Round agenda, WTO officials had called last week's
invitation-only mini-ministerial with the intention of allowing 35 of
the WTO's 153-member nations to participate in a selective process known
as the "Green Room".  But even this exclusive process was abandoned by
the third day of talks in favor of closed-door meetings among
representatives from seven large countries. This so-called "G-7" group
completely excluded African and Caribbean countries, included only Japan
and China from all of Asia and only Brazil from all of Latin America.
And this was the so-called Doha "Development" Round! The remaining trade
ministers - mainly from poor countries - were left "in the dark sitting
in the dark", as the Indonesian trade minister complained. Kenya's
Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Uhuru Kenyatta spoke for the
African countries in expressing similar anger. The seven large nations
announced a tentative deal this weekend, warning that it represented a
non-negotiable balance of interests. They declared to the press that a
ministerial declaration resolving various issues was at hand. However,
when this take-it-or-leave-it deal was brought back to the exclusive
35-country grouping, inquires began about the details. Over the past two
days it became clear that the proposed modalities agreement was
unacceptable to blocs of countries and the 8-day summit ended where it
began: with countries in deep disagreement about the future direction of
global trade rules and negotiations.

Public Citizen is a national nonprofit advocacy organization based in
Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org

Lori Wallach
Director, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
+1 (202)546-4996  /  fax +1 (202)547-7369
http://www.tradewatch.org
Visit our blog http://www.eyesontrade.org

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WTO-Stillstand: Attac sieht Chance für neuen Weg

Utl.: Freihandelsansatz sollte fallen gelassen werden, stattdessen
nachhaltige Entwicklung

Attac Österreich begrüßt das neuerliche Scheitern der WTO-Verhandlungen.
"Die Industrieländer und Exportgewinner im Agrar-, Dienstleistungs- und
Industriebereich kommen mit ihren Partikularinteressen nicht mehr durch,
und das ist gut so", kommentiert Alexandra Strickner von Attac
Österreich das Scheitern der WTO-Verhandlungen. "Das Durchdrücken der
Liberalisierungsinteressen wäre nicht nur eine Niederlage einer sozial
gerechten und ökologisch nachhaltigen globalen Politik gewesen, sondern
insbesondere auch der Demokratie, weil zwei Drittel der WTO-Mitglieder
von den Verhandlungen ausgeschlossen waren und das anwesende Drittel nur
von den Regierungen vertreten war", so Strickner. VertreterInnen von
Bauernorganisationen und Gewerkschaften, insbesondere aus dem Süden
haben während der gesamten Verhandlungswoche in Genf und in ihren
Ländern ihren Regierungen klar gemacht, dass eine Abschluss der
WTO-Verhandlungsrunde mit den vorliegenden Vorschlägen zu massiven
Jobverlusten und einer weiteren Zerstörung lokaler Landwirtschaft, die
für die Hungerbekämpfung essentiell ist, zur Folge hätten. Für Millionen
von Kleinbauern und -bäuerinnen,  ArbeitnehmerInnen und lokalen
Unternehmen ist das Scheitern der Verhandlungen eine gute Nachricht", so
Alexandra Strickner, Obfrau von Attac Österreich.

Attac sieht nach dem nun bereits sieben Jahre währenden Scheitern der
Doha-Runde eine Chance, einen ganz neuen Ansatz für globale
Handelsregeln zu wählen. "Es wäre für die große Mehrheit der Menschen in
Nord und Süd, für zukünftige Generationen und für die Umwelt besser,
wenn in der UNO Handelsregeln und Entwicklungsziele, Menschenrechte,
Umweltschutz, Arbeitsrechte sowie Verteilungsziele aufeinander
abgestimmt würden. Dazu müsste die Freihandelslogik auf den Kopf
gestellt werden. Handel dürfte nur noch ein Mittel sein, um nachhaltige
Entwicklung und die Umsetzung der Menschenrechte zu verwirklichen", so
Strickner abschließend.

Alexandra Strickner, www.attac.at

-- 

     Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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