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After Seattle Can developing countries, labor unions, environmentalists, and anarchists get together to overturn the corporate new world order? San Francisco Bay Guardian(December 15, 1999) By Daniel Zoll THE TENS OF thousands of protesters who took over the streets of Seattle weren't the only dissenters at the World Trade Organization's conference. The day before the meeting collapsed, a group of trade ministers from developing countries stormed into the WTO pressroom and held an impromptu briefing. They complained that the United States and its wealthy allies had hijacked the negotiating process and were cutting secret deals in the corridors. "This should not be a game about enhancing corporate profits," said Sonny Ramphal, chief negotiator for Caribbean countries. "This should not be a time when big countries, strong countries, the world's wealthiest countries, are setting about a process designed to enrich themselves." By the last day of the conference, ministers representing a majority of the WTO's member states, mostly from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, had signed statements in which they blasted the process and refused to join any consensus. While many factors contributed to the failure of the talks, the WTO's lack of transparency -- or "sunshine," as we like to say in San Francisco -- was a major one. United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who presided over the dysfunctional negotiations, admitted as much in her final press conference. "An increasing and necessary view, generally shared among the members, was that we needed a process which had a greater degree of internal transparency and inclusion," she said. Developing countries have long complained that they have been sidelined in trade talks by the WTO's secretive "green room" process, in which the real decisions are made by wealthy nations outside of the formal negotiations. But this time the revolt of the third world ministers was bolstered by the shouts of the throngs of people outside -- people who had very similar things to say about WTO secrecy and the influence of special interests. It was that chorus of dissent -- the combined voices of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), developing countries, and labor unions -- that made history in Seattle. Now that the tear gas has cleared, the dissenters are trying to build on their fragile coalition and articulate an alternative vision for the global economy. "The ascendancy of a narrow set of business interests over all other interests of society must be reversed," reads a Dec. 3 declaration signed by NGOs from around the world. "We must all engage in a broader search for a democratic, humane, and sustainable international system." Tough task Such calls for reform are nothing new. And the rifts among the WTO's critics are profound -- for example, over how labor and environmental standards should be maintained, what protest tactics should be employed (see "Leftists Shouldn't Call In the Cops" and "Window-Smashing Hurt Our Cause,"), and whether the WTO itself should be reformed or scrapped. The task of determining a post-Seattle strategy is a formidable one. But the events of the past few weeks open up the possibility of far-reaching change in the WTO and in the global economic architecture. For the first time, "civil society" -- a phrase now commonly used to describe the broad spectrum of NGOs -- has taken center stage in the debate. As Mark Ritchie of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy told us, "Wholesale reform or restructuring of the entire system is now much more likely in the aftermath of the WTO's organizational failure in Seattle." On a national level, Medea Benjamin of San Francisco-based Global Exchange says, the challenge is to make fair trade and corporate globalization an issue in electoral campaigns, especially in the upcoming presidential race. Another goal is to block congressional approval of China's entry into the WTO. Activists are also planning a repeat performance of the Battle of Seattle when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank meet in Washington, D.C. in April. "If you can take an acronym like WTO that meant nothing to average Americans a few weeks ago and now it's a household word, why can't you transfer that to another secretive, undemocratic institution like the IMF?" Benjamin asks. A popular picket sign in Seattle bore the message "Turtles and Teamsters: United at Last." And indeed, the long-term success of the Seattle coalition depends in large part on whether organized labor and environmentalists can find common ground on trade issues. Katie Quan of UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education told us the two camps should try to formalize the alliances formed in Seattle. "The dialogue has just begun," she said. "What's good about the WTO activity is that both sides began to see there is a future in developing formal coalitions." The battle of Seattle is just the latest in a string of improbable victories for what some have referred to as a global pro-democracy movement: One year to the day before the WTO talks collapsed, an international network of activists derailed an investment-liberalization treaty proposed for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The backlash against genetically engineered foods is picking up speed in the United States. Although there will be no new round of global trade talks, at least for the time being, the WTO is forging ahead with ongoing negotiations that were built into its schedule at the end of the Uruguay Round in 1994. Activists working on narrow issues from food safety to forests are now looking to the broader anticorporate globalization coalition to support their causes. Here are a few of those issues and where they stand: Food safety Frustrated by European efforts to block U.S. companies from exporting genetically modified foods, the United States wants to bring biotechnology under the aegis of the business-friendly WTO. Going into Seattle, the European Union had opposed such a move, but during the conference E.U. representatives stunned activists by reversing their position and agreeing to the immediate establishment of a biotechnology "working group" at the WTO. Critics say putting biotechnology within the purview of the WTO could limit governments' ability to block or label genetically modified food products. The reversal immediately caused a crisis in Europe. Fearing the political backlash, 15 E.U. environment ministers immediately issued a joint statement expressing opposition to their trade delegation's negotiating position. Meanwhile, Washington wants to bar WTO member governments from regulating genetically engineered food under the "precautionary principle." Currently, governments can ban products whose safety has not been established -- including genetically modified crops and beef fattened with hormones. The United States says products should be allowed unless science proves conclusively that they are harmful. What's next: Since the Seattle talks collapsed, there will be no biotech working group at the WTO for the time being. Activists predict the issue is about to explode in the United States. On Dec. 13 the biggest U.S. demonstration against "Frankenfoods" yet was held at a Food and Drug Administration hearing in Oakland. The FDA is accepting written comments on its biotech policies until Jan. 13. For more information, and to send a letter urging the agency to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods, go to the Center for Food Safety's Web site, at www.foodsafetynow.org. Forests Global timber companies, which have already profited greatly from trade and investment liberalization, are trying to use the WTO to further tear down barriers to their operations. Even as President Bill Clinton pledged in Seattle that "the environment should be at the core of all trade concerns," his trade negotiators were moving forward with a "global free logging agreement" -- a tariff-elimination plan that would increase wood consumption worldwide. The proposed agreement would also threaten ecolabeling plans, protections against invasive species, and bans on the export of raw logs. The administration publicly dismissed activists' concerns in Seattle and refused to consider the environmental impacts of the proposed tariff liberalization. What's next: With the collapse of the round, the global free logging agreement is delayed for now. But activists fear that other pending WTO negotiations, such as those covering agriculture, could threaten forests. For example, if Europe agrees to open up its soybean markets, Brazil -- one of the world's largest soybean producers -- will step up the conversion of forests to soybean plantations. Services The WTO may still be moving toward an agreement that could lead to an assault on public sector services including education, health care, and water. The U.S. Coalition of Service Industries, drooling over the prospect of unimpeded access to foreign markets, has been feverishly lobbying to ensure that health care is included in the negotiations on the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The United States has confirmed that health care is on the table at the WTO. If enacted, new service rules at the WTO could be used to force Canada and European countries, for example, to turn over public health care services to foreign corporations. And the private companies that have already made inroads into public education in the United States want a piece of the pie too. They're pushing to have education included in the GATS negotiations. At a press briefing in Seattle Dec. 2, consumer advocate Ralph Nader predicted that health care and education would be the next targets for the WTO. "The corporations see a huge business in converting public health system dollars into corporatized marketplace dollars, and they're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars," Nader said. Environmentalists also fear that corporations will try to exploit the world water crisis by using the WTO to privatize public water systems. Under WTO rules, any bans on the export of water, including those imposed for environmental purposes, are open to challenge as a form of protectionism. What's next: The collapse of the round had little impact on services, since the GATS negotiations are already a part of the WTO's agenda. Talks on services are set to resume in Geneva in January. Investment Transnational corporations have long called for a global agreement that would protect their overseas investments. Last year an international coalition of grassroots groups blocked an attempt to negotiate a so-called Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Since then, the E.U. and Japan have been pushing to revive elements of the MAI at the WTO. The MAI would have provided transnational corporations with tools to tear down government regulations on investments -- including environmental and labor protections, local contracting preferences, and affirmative action programs. Going into the Seattle meeting, the United States was lukewarm about including investment talks in a new round. Since the collapse of the MAI, it has been wary of trying to get consensus at the WTO and now favors a strategy of negotiating bilateral investment agreements. What's next: The failure of the talks has stalled, at least temporarily, negotiations on including MAI-style investment measures in the WTO. However, the United States' efforts to cut individual investment deals with other countries could be equally damaging. Agriculture The existing WTO trade rules are already stacked against small farmers and food safety. They are designed to promote corporate monopoly control of agriculture, allow corporations to dump agricultural products on world markets at below the cost of production, and prevent governments from taking steps to protect and encourage family farms and to discourage industrial-style production. The rules also threaten labeling schemes, such as those identifying organic foods. Ongoing negotiations set to resume in January threaten to make matters worse. "These things are killing the farmers here and overseas," IATP's Ritchie says. "There is a very strong incentive to get in there in Geneva in January and try to turn these rules around." What's next: Agriculture talks are set to resume in Geneva in January. Access to drugs On behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. government has been using the WTO to bully countries that try to make medicines, including AIDS drugs, more affordable. The Clinton administration has repeatedly tried to block developing countries from implementing programs that provide lower-cost drugs, even though such programs are permitted under WTO intellectual-property rules. In response to sustained pressure from AIDS activists and other health care advocates, Clinton announced in Seattle that the U.S. government would change its trade policy to support greater access to life-saving medicines. "It's a victory in principle," Eric Sawyer, founding member of ACT-UP New York, told the Bay Guardian. "Now we need to ensure that it actually results in individuals getting quicker access to essential medicines." What's next: According to Jamie Love of the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Project on Technology, the United States is still in dispute with more than 40 countries over intellectual-property issues related to health. Activists will watch to see if the United States follows through with its new policy and lifts trade pressures on those countries. Trade advisory committees In a pre-Seattle victory for environmentalists, on Nov. 9 a federal district court judge ordered U.S. Trade Representative Barshefsky to name at least one representative from the environmental community to the two panels that advise her on international trade in wood and paper products. By limiting those panels to industry officials, the court ruled, Barshefsky had been violating the Federal Advisory Council Act, which requires that the advisory panels represent a "fair balance" of viewpoints. What's next: A coalition of environmental and consumer groups, including the Bay Area-based Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and the Sierra Club, are now demanding that Barshefsky expand the membership of the panel that advises her on trade in chemicals and allied products. Former Bay Guardian reporter and city editor Daniel Zoll is staff writer at the International Forum on Globalization.
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