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</A> -Cui Bono?-
-------- forwarded message --------
From: Robert Weissman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: List CORP-FOCUS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999
Subj: 10 Reasons to Dismantle the WTO
10 Reasons to Dismantle the WTO
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Add a new constituency to the long list of World Trade Organization
(WTO) critics which already includes consumers, labor,
environmentalists, human rights activists, fair trade groups, AIDS
activists, animal protection organizations, those concerned with
Third World development, religious communities, women's
organizations. The latest set of critics includes WTO backers and
even the WTO itself.
As the WTO faces crystallized global opposition -- to be manifested
in massive street demonstrations and colorful protests in Seattle,
where the WTO will hold its Third Ministerial meeting from November
30 to December 3 -- the global trade agency and its strongest
proponents veer between a shrill defensiveness and the much more
effective strategy of admitting shortcomings and trumpeting the
need for reform.
WTO critics now face a perilous moment. They must not be
distracted by illusory or cosmetic reform proposals, nor by even
more substantive proposals for changing the WTO -- should they ever
emerge from the institution or its powerful rich country members.
Instead, they should unite around an uncompromising demand to
dismantle the WTO and its corporate-created rules.
Here are 10 reasons why:
1. The WTO prioritizes trade and commercial considerations over
all other values. WTO rules generally require domestic laws,
rules and regulations designed to further worker, consumer,
environmental, health, safety, human rights, animal protection or
other non-commercial interests to be undertaken in the "least trade
restrictive" fashion possible -- almost never is trade subordinated
to these noncommercial concerns.
2. The WTO undermines democracy. Its rules drastically shrink the
choices available to democratically controlled governments, with
violations potentially punished with harsh penalties. The WTO
actually touts this overriding of domestic decisions about how
economies should be organized and corporations controlled. "Under
WTO rules, once a commitment has been made to liberalize a sector
of trade, it is difficult to reverse," the WTO says in a paper on
the benefits of the organization which is published on its web
site. "Quite often, governments use the WTO as a welcome external
constraint on their policies: 'we can't do this because it would
violate the WTO agreements.'"
3. The WTO does not just regulate, it actively promotes, global
trade. Its rules are biased to facilitate global commerce at
the expense of efforts to promote local economic development
and policies that move communities, countries and regions in
the direction of greater self-reliance.
4. The WTO hurts the Third World. WTO rules force Third World
countries to open their markets to rich country multinationals,
and abandon efforts to protect infant domestic industries. In
agriculture, the opening to foreign imports, soon to be imposed on
developing countries, will catalyze a massive social dislocation of
many millions of rural people.
5. The WTO eviscerates the Precautionary Principle. WTO rules
generally block countries from acting in response to potential risk
-- requiring a probability before governments can move to resolve
harms to human health or the environment.
6. The WTO squashes diversity. WTO rules establish international
health, environmental and other standards as a global ceiling
through a process of "harmonization;" countries or even states and
cities can only exceed them by overcoming high hurdles.
7. The WTO operates in secrecy. Its tribunals rule on the
"legality" of nations' laws, but carry out their work behind
closed doors.
8. The WTO limits governments' ability to use their purchasing
dollar for human rights, environmental, worker rights and other
non-commercial purposes. In general, WTO rules state that
governments can make purchases based only on quality and cost
considerations.
9. The WTO disallows bans on imports of goods made with child
labor. In general, WTO rules do not allow countries to treat
products differently based on how they were produced --
irrespective of whether made with brutalized child labor, with
workers exposed to toxics or with no regard for species protection.
10. The WTO legitimizes life patents. WTO rules permit and in
some cases require patents or similar exclusive protections for
life forms.
Some of these problems, such as the WTO's penchant for secrecy,
could potentially be fixed, but the core problems -- prioritization
of commercial over other values, the constraints on democratic
decision-making and the bias against local economies -- cannot,
for they are inherent in the WTO itself.
Because of these unfixable problems, the World Trade Organization
should be shut down, sooner rather than later.
That doesn't mean interim steps shouldn't be taken. It does mean
that beneficial reforms will focus not on adding new areas of
competence to the WTO or enhancing its authority, even if the new
areas appear desirable (such as labor rights or competition).
Instead, the reforms to pursue are those that reduce or limit
the WTO's power -- for example, by denying it the authority to
invalidate laws passed pursuant to international environmental
agreements, limiting application of WTO agricultural rules in the
Third World, or eliminating certain subject matters (such as
essential medicines or life forms) from coverage under the WTO's
intellectual property agreement.
These measures are necessary and desirable in their own right,
and they would help generate momentum to close down the WTO.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate
Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington,
D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy
(Common Courage Press, http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
----------------------------------------
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