Globalization

New Global Contract Needed to Re-Assert Basic Rights, Protect Environment

Global institutions enforcing trade and finance rules have overridden fundamental human rights, stalled international development and harmed the environment, finds three new papers released today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. A new system is badly needed.

Trade Talks Collapse, New Direction Needed

Today, trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization in Geneva broke down. It has now been seven years since the Doha Round of negotiations began at the WTO. People want global agreements to solve food insecurity, to get them out of poverty and to avoid the devastating effects of climate change. If trade can help these goals, it should be used.

WTO Doha Negotiations Threaten to Encourage Inefficient Food Aid Delivery

Revised rules on food aid in the latest negotiating text at the World Trade Organization fail to reduce adequately the scope for the sale of food aid and encourage a highly wasteful, trade distorting system, according to a letter sent to trade ministers today from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Oxfam International.

A Time of High Prices: An Opportunity for the Rural Poor?

This new paper by IATP finds that governments have been limited in their ability to help farmers take advantage of higher prices – due to free trade economics pushed by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization.

New WTO Agriculture Text Falls Short ? Again

New draft agricultural trade rules released at the World Trade Organization today fail to repair a deeply flawed negotiating agenda. This latest attempt to save the Doha Round adds nothing new except more loopholes and exemptions to an already complicated text.  

Food Without Thought - Fact Sheet

This is a fact sheet version of the longer report on how farm policy impacts obesity.

The Treaty Database

The Treaty Database is comprehensive overview of the U.S. history of joining or ignoring multilateral treaties. It also contains a summary of US government treaty actions broken down by presidential administration dating back to 1893. Besides the Treaty Database there are additional links to the Treaty Database Factsheet, press release and research data for the report.

Opponents Of Upcoming Davos Forum Plan To Block Access To Participants

Agence France Presse | December 8, 2003 Opponents of the World Economic Forum in Davos said Monday they will disrupt the annual event this January by blocking the access to participants. The "Swiss anti-WTO coordination" said it plans to respond to the "militarisation" of the 2004 forum, where some 6,500 soldiers are expected to be dispatched.

Trade Summit Ready For Onslaught

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) | By Doreen Hemlock | August 25, 2003 With just three months to go before Miami hosts a historic Americas trade ministers' meeting, organizers say they're on track to raise at least $10 million to fund the event -- much of it for security to handle as many as 6,000 delegates and 100,000 protesters expected to attend.

Transnational Led Privatisation and the New Regime for the Global Governance of Water

This article was originally published in Water Nepal, Journal of Water Resources Development. Volume 9/10, Number 1/2, July 2001-July 2003.