So Much for Those World Trade Talks

New York Times
April 21, 2006
Editorial Board

A good United States trade representative needs two things. As the quarterback of America's efforts to break down trade barriers, he or she must command respect abroad. Robert Zoellick and Charlene Barshefsky each did well on that count when holding down the job.

The other important quality is access to the president. If other countries know that the United States trade representative has the political ear of the president and the often cranky Congress, they are more likely to bargain in good faith, knowing that deals reached today won't be undone tomorrow. Mickey Kantor was a close political pal of President Bill Clinton, which helped make up for the fact that he came to the job without much trade experience. Ditto for Rob Portman, the job's present occupant.

Decent United States trade representatives can make do with one of the two qualities. Ms. Barshefsky, who served under President Clinton, had a political tin ear and no particular access to the chief executive, who once vetoed a deal she struck abroad. But she commanded respect internationally, particularly from China, which helped her conclude the landmark agreement allowing China into the World Trade Organization. Mr. Portman, a former congressman, made up for his lack of international clout with political expertise, and was able to ram the Central American Free Trade Agreement down the throat of a House of Representatives that has become scared of its own shadow on trade.

Susan Schwab, the woman President Bush has nominated to succeed Mr. Portman, has neither asset. That lack does not bode well for the crucial trade talks that are now under way at the W.T.O.

Ms. Schwab is a competent technocrat. She spent some time in academia, and was on the staff of John Danforth when he was a Missouri senator. She joined the Bush administration last year as a deputy at the trade office. She doesn't have Mr. Portman's Congressional credentials, or Mr. Kantor's access to the president. Nor does she have Ms. Barshefsky's trade reputation or Mr. Zoellick's international clout.

She takes the job at a time when global trade talks to reduce agricultural subsidies are floundering. Her appointment has given Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade chief who looks for every excuse he can find to avoid ending Europe's odious farm subsidies, the perfect out: he can blame his paralysis on America for changing quarterbacks in the middle of the game. In the end, the most important byproduct of President Bush's much-discussed White House shake-up may be the torpedoing of any real progress in these critical trade negotiations.

INTRODUCTION: OUR CHALLENGE

“Our World Is Not for Sale” is a worldwide network of organizations; activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.

Against this process of corporate-led globalization, we pose the vision of a global economy that is built on principles of economic justice, ecological sustainability, and democratic accountability, one that asserts the interests of people over corporations. This is an economy built around the interests of the real producers and consumers, such as workers, peasants, family farmers, fishers, small and medium sized producers, and around the needs of those marginalized by the current system, such as women and indigenous people.

We believe that a just system must protect, not undermine, cultural, biological, economic and social diversity; put the emphasis on the development of healthy local economies and trade; secure internationally recognized environmental, cultural, social and labour rights; support the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples; and protect national and sub-national democratic decision-making processes.

Democracy is not simply a matter of holding elections. Democracy means not being on the receiving end of a top-down, one-size-fits-all set of values, priorities, and policies that are imposed through multilateral bodies, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Democracy means not being subjected to non-transparent and non-accountable decision-making, such as the WTO’s dispute settlement processes. Democracy means people taking control over forces directly impacting their lives.

When the WTO was established in 1995, its preamble stated that its purpose was to bring about greater prosperity, increase employment, reduce poverty, diminish inequality, and promote sustainable development around the world through greater “free trade”. Ten years later it is clear that the WTO has not delivered on these goals and has had exactly the opposite results.

The WTO trade regime has counteracted measures that would promote development, alleviate poverty, and help ensure human and ecological survival, both locally and globally. Under the guise of “free trade”, WTO rules are used to force open new markets and bring them under the control of transnational corporations.

Furthermore, the big trading powers have used the WTO to advance and consolidate transnational corporate control of economic and social activities in areas beyond trade, including development, investment, competition, intellectual property rights, the provision of social services, environmental protection and government procurement.

Large-scale liberalization in these areas will force developing countries to relinquish many of the economic development tools that industrialized countries used to build their economies and create jobs. Furthermore, existing provisions of the WTO, as well as ones currently being negotiated, would effectively ‘lock in’ the “structural adjustment programs” of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Moreover, in advancing the interests of the big trading powers, the methods of governance and decision-making that are used in the WTO are notorious for their reliance on threat, deception, manipulation and lack of transparency in an undemocratic and non-inclusive process.

It is the destructive social, political, and environmental consequences of the pro-corporate, neo-liberal model of globalization that has elicited rising resistance from a broad range of civil society organizations and social movements around the world, including at WTO summits in Seattle, Doha, Cancun and Hong Kong.

Our World is not for Sale is part of this global resistance.

Ten years after the founding of the WTO, it has become clear to us that the possibilities of the WTO moving in the direction of positive reforms are minimal, if not absent. Change is absolutely necessary. At the moment we have a system where:

• livelihoods are being destroyed, human rights ignored, public health endangered, the environment plundered and democratic systems eroded;
• local economies are being undermined, with workers, peasants, family farmers, fishers, consumers, women and indigenous peoples being especially disadvantaged and exploited;
• governments’ ability to guarantee access to the essentials of life, promote health, safety and food sovereignty, and protect cultural and biological diversity is being undermined and sometimes eliminated.

Around the world, the negative results of the current global economic system are propelling democratic movements - acting via the ballot box and in the streets - to demand change. Elected officials in many countries have lost faith in the current system of global economic governance. Increasingly, a number of economists and technocrats who created and espoused this system are beginning to question it, as its results prove quite the opposite of those promised. All this is taking place in the context of growing inequality both between and within nations and a resurgence of militarism.

The efforts of the WTO to forcibly liberalize global trade in a manner that harms economic justice, social well-being, gender equity and ecological sustainability, must be resisted. Its power and authority must be rolled back from many areas where it has been imposed, including agriculture, services, and intellectual property rights.

At the same time, we must devise new institutions to facilitate trade, production and distribution for the common good if we are to avoid the growing prospect of social and ecological catastrophe.

The current trade regime, which includes the WTO, as well as regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements, must give way to a new, socially just and ecologically sustainable trading framework for the 21st Century.

OUR GOALS

Since 1998, members of the OWINFS network have combined to share analysis, develop strategies and coordinate actions internationally in order to promote the development of alternative, just and sustainable economies.

We are committed to developing a new, democratically accountable trading system that advances economic justice, social well-being, gender equity and ecological sustainability, and that provides decent jobs and necessary goods and services for all people.

We support the development of vibrant local economies and the rights of workers, peasants, migrants, family farmers, consumers, women, and indigenous people. We believe that the self-determination of people must not be subordinated to international commercial commitments. Among other things, this requires that decision-making processes and enforcement at all levels of governance are democratic, transparent and inclusive.

We recognize that a socially just international trading system must give priority to the rights and welfare of the workers, peasants, migrants, fishers, and family farmers who produce our goods, services, and food.

We call on governments and multilateral agencies to halt their attacks on basic workers rights, the reversal of the gains of workers’ struggles, the undermining of job security and the race-to-the-bottom in wages and to strengthen workers’ rights worldwide.

We oppose trade liberalisation agreements and negotiations that encourage taking away access to natural resources from those indigenous and local communities that depend on them for their livelihoods and giving such access instead to corporations.

Other fundamental human rights must also be respected, promoted and realized, starting with the self-determination of indigenous peoples and the provision of basic social needs and services, including education, food security and sovereignty, universal access to clean water for human use and public health.

Likewise, ecological integrity must be a goal of a transformed global trading system. This means, among other things, that corporate trade and investment must be regulated to reverse global warming; multilateral environmental accords must have precedence over trade agreements; environmental standards must not be pulled downward by trade accords; and the right of people to reject genetically modified organisms, to preserve old growth forests and farmers’ diverse seed stocks, and promote animal welfare, must be respected.

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