Jan Matthieu of Flemish Greens wrote:
> The tragic of the whole thing is that the protestors who managed to
> disrupt the talks at Seattle played straight into the cards of those
> interests they are so much against. The US big companies prefer no new
> talks to any real changes the way third world and some European
> countries wanted.
Well, I'm not sure about that. In the WTO, the smaller countries do
have some clout, if only because of their numbers. I believe that the
late and unlamented MAI was pursued in the more exclusive OECD because
a similar initiative, the MIA, was facing opposition from small
countries in the WTO. But I'm also led to believe that the WTO is, as
I think Clinton mentioned, that the WTO is a "concensus" organization
because the powerful nations in which the TNCs are based know that
under a one-nation one-vote regime, the small nations would gang up on
them.
That said, isn't it the case that if the WTO goes ahead, the US and
TNCs will wheedle, bribe and threaten the smaller and less developed
countries into submission? So long as the structure of the WTO
remains, individual concessions can be used as negotiating fodder
(bribes of a sort) and then be gradually whittled away by challenges
from TNCs in the WTO tribunals. The arcane legal details by which,
say, shipping a load of X implies a right to trade in megatons of Y on
the same terms or that absolute "proof" of harm must be evinced in
order to ban Z on health risk grounds -- those details offer a host of
cracks into which the TNCs will drive flying wedges of lawyers
whenever they choose. I doubt that India, let alone Botswana, can
front as much legal and technical expertise to tackle the Frankenseeds
invasion as Monsanto alone can to pursue it. Even Canada, under
existing NAFTA rules, was unable to defend itself against the
determination of Ethyl Corp. (the folks that brought us tetra-ethyl
lead) to flog methyl-cyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl as a gas
additive. That couldn't have happened if NAFTA had been scuttled in a
timely fashion.
If the WTO hits a wall, that does leave the way open for the US to
continue its program to keep the world safe for TNC markets and
resource exploitation. But at least the small countries haven't
publically and officially signed over their sovereignty to tribunals
dominated by US/TNC revolving-door econocrats.
So I dunno, Jan. I think the TNCs want their Declaration of
Independence and their Constitution, signed and sealed by putatively
democratic governments, establishing them as the only true citizens
and officially reducing the rest of us to the status of biomass.
Until they get that we can go on annoying them, however mixed our
collective motives and devious or corrupt our governments.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
---
