[E-rundbrief] Info 876 - WTO-Konferenz in Genf

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 876 - Our World Is Not For Sale - Stop Corporate 
Globalization (OWINFS): Governments: Listen to Your People! Abandon 
Doha—Confront the Crises!

Bad Ischl, 4.12.2009

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Our World Is Not For Sale - Stop Corporate Globalization (OWINFS)	

www.ourworldisnotforsale.org

December 4, 2009

Governments: Listen to Your People!

Abandon Doha—Confront the Crises!

The 7th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was
held in Geneva in the midst of multiple crises, when people all over the
world are demanding that governments take decisive action to protect
their livelihoods from the dangers of corporate led globalisation. The
failure of deregulation and liberalisation that the WTO locks in through
its trade regime are all too evident to the ordinary people in the
world. That this Ministerial was a non-negotiating meeting, is a
reflection of the massive resistance to the WTO trade regime from
workers, farmers, fishers and social movements from across the world.
Trade ministers did not come to Geneva empowered with a popular mandate
to move forward the negotiations. But in an inexplicable but expected
disconnect to the realities back home, many of them have called for a
speedy conclusion to the Doha Round in 2010.

Fifteen years after its inception, the WTO is further away than ever
from an equitable, just, rulesbased multilateral trading system that can
foster development. Since its launch eight years ago, it has become
progressively more evident that the Doha Development Round is completely
antagonistic to the real priorities of peoples in developing countries.
Instead, the demands of the global powers continue to set the agenda for
trade negotiations and are doing so in a climate of fear where the
'blame game' has become the order of the day. Any country that is not
prepared to support the speedy conclusion of the Doha Round is in danger
of being blamed for the failure of the multilateral trading system.

The WTO is not a solution to the multiple crises that the world is
facing. On the contrary, evidence shows that WTO trade rules are more a
cause of and will exacerbate the current food, financial and climate
crises. If the the main purpose of this ministerial meeting was to
examine the role of the WTO in the current global economic environment,
then governments must:

* immediately halt all negotiations on the Doha Round;

* reverse WTO commitments and reject progressive liberalisation;

* conduct comprehensive development audits of the impacts of WTO trade
on local and national economies;

* in collaboration with national constituencies, develop new trade rules
that will ensure food sovereignty, financial, economic and environmental
security and climate justice;

Governments: listen to your people! Abandon Doha! Confront the Crises!

(List of Supporters - see:
http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/signon/abandon-doha-confront-crises)


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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
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