FW WTO's Coup Against Democracy (fwd)

[S. Lerner]

>X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 15:56:51 -0400
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: WTO's Coup Against Democracy
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>Mime-Version: 1.0
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>    Whose Trade Organisation?  Corporate Globalisation
>    and the Erosion of Democracy   229-page report
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>Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 06:02:20 -0700 (PDT)
>From: MichaelP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: WTO's Coup Against Democracy (fwd)
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>   *** 13-Oct-99 ***
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>Title: TRADE: WTO's Coup Against Democracy
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>By Danielle Knight
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>WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (IPS) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO), founded
>five years ago to enforce rules governing global trade, instead had
>launched a coup against democratic governance worldwide, a leading WTO
>critic declared Wednesday.
>
>''In the WTO forum, global commerce takes precedence over everything -
>democracy, public health, equity, the environment, food safety and more,''
>said a report from Public Citizen, a public interest group founded by
>consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
>
>''Under this new system, many decisions affecting people's daily lives are
>being shifted away from our local and national governments and, instead,
>are being made by a group of unelected trade bureaucrats sitting behind
>closed doors in Geneva,'' Nader said.
>
>The 229-page report, entitled ''Whose Trade Organisation?  Corporate
>Globalisation and the Erosion of Democracy,'' warned that, as a result of
>WTO rulings - and even threats of challenges before the trade body -
>countries had rolled back social policies won after decades of citizen
>activism.
>
>Domestic regulations, challenged before the trade body primarily by
>corporate interests, had been found to be barriers to free trade, said the
>report released in advance of the WTO's ministerial summit, scheduled to
>be held Nov 30.-Dec.4 in Seattle, Wash.
>
>''This is not free trade,'' said Joan Claybrook, president of Public
>Citizen. ''It's corporate-managed trade...that concentrates more and more
>power in the hands of fewer and fewer powerful corporate CEOs.''
>
>Countries that are signatories to the trade body are allowed to challenge
>other countries' domestic laws, if they feel it violates the principles of
>free trade.
>
>Once the WTO dispute panel, which hears the challenges, rules against a
>country's law, that nation must either repeal the regulation or face
>perpetual fines to the country that brought the challenge before the trade
>body.
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>''The WTO's five-year record looks like a quiet, slow-motion coup d'etat
>against democratic and accountable policymaking and governance
>worldwide,'' declared Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global
>Trade Watch.
>
>WTO rules go way beyond basic trade principles, such as treating domestic
>and foreign goods the same and imposes value judgements on how much
>environmental or food safety protection a country will be allowed to
>provide, said the report.
>
>It listed about 100 domestic regulations which have been challenged, or
>threatened to be challenged, before the trade body.
>
>The United States initiated about half of the challenges and, unlike many
>developing countries, the United States had the economic resources to
>aggressively pursue and defend numerous challenges before the WTO, said
>Claybrook.
>
>After one such US challenge, Guatemala weakened its implementation of the
>United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organisation Code on
>the marketing of breast milk subsidies, which banned infant formula
>packaging depicting plump, healthy babies.
>
>The Code was created to ensure that illiterate mothers did not associate
>the formula with healthy infants, because many infants had become ill or
>had died after drinking formula diluted with contaminated water.
>
>Health experts also were concerned the advertising would sway mothers away
>from breast feeding.
>
>The baby-food manufacturer Gerber, however, threatened to bring the case
>before the trade body, noting that a fat baby's face was part of its
>trademark and was protected by WTO intellectual property rules.
>
>''Faced with the threat, Guatemala exempted imported products from its
>labeling law,'' said the report.
>
>In another case, South Korea weakened its food safety policy in order to
>avoid a US challenge on its 30-day shelf-life limit for meat.  Seoul
>authorities agreed to shorten the duration of Korea's produce inspection
>process, alllowing fruit and vegetables to be sold before the results of
>safety tests were complete.
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>US health and environmental regulations have also been challenged at WTO
>hearings.
>
>When Mexico threatened to enforce a ruling under the 1991 General
>Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, the treaty that lay the groundwork
>for the WTO) the United States gutted provisions of the Marine Mammal
>Protection Act that were designed to protect dolphins from tuna fishing
>nets.
>
>''For the first time in 20 years, tuna caught in nets placed around
>schools of dolphins will appear in US supermarkets - and will bear the
>''Dolphin-Safe'' label that consumers have come to know and trust,'' said
>Public Citizen in its report.
>
>Several new challenges before the WTO have recently loomed, the report
>said.
>
>On behalf of the auto industry, for example, the United States and the
>European Union (EU) have threatened to challenge Japan's new automobile
>fuel-efficiency rules enacted to comply with its obligations under the
>Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty seeking to curb heat-trapping
>''greenhouse'' gas emissions.
>
>''Should this case move to a formal WTO dispute panel, it would be an
>important test case for the WTO legality of actions taken under an
>international environmental agreement,'' Public Citizen said.
>
>In another threat made in early 1999, the US government also challenged
>the EU that is regulation of pollution caused by the electronics industry
>may violate WTO rules governing environmental policy.
>
>On behalf of the American Electronics Association the United States
>claimed that an EU proposal to ban certain heavy metals in electronics
>equipment, to require a certain amount of recycled content and shift the
>cost of cleanup and disposal from the public to the electronics
>manufacturers, was illegal under WTO rules.
>
>The report also criticized the secrecy surrounding the trade body's
>proceedings and rulings.
>
>Members of the press, the public, advocacy groups, and even state attorney
>generals representing their own laws that are being challenged, are not
>allowed to observe the closed tribunals and hearings of the dispute
>panels, the report said.
>
>''There is no freedom of information law, no independent appeal, and
>public transcript,'' said Nader.
>
>''We have bound ourselves to tribunals that would be unconstitutional and
>illegal in this country.''(END/IPS/dk/mk/99)
>
>Origin: ROMAWAS/TRADE/
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>   .............................................
>   Bob Olsen, Toronto      [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>   .............................................
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