Reuters | July 24, 2003
GENEVA - Non-governmental groups campaigning for a better trading deal for developing countries accused the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Tuesday of shutting poor nations out of its decision-making processes.
But a WTO spokesman said that while NGOs often made valid criticisms of how the body works, all members had an equal voice and could block any decision by refusing to approve it.
The NGOs, or non-governmental organisations, said the WTO needed deep reform to ensure that its officially-neutral Secretariat could not steer the 146-nation body towards agendas reflecting the wishes of richer powers.
WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said the suggestion that the Secretariat, which includes representatives of some 80 nations, was biased towards any one group of countries "is rubbish."
The NGO group, including Oxfam International and the white-collar Public Services International (PSI) labour body, said WTO members should stop holding "mini-ministerials" -- like a forthcoming gathering in Canada -- before key conferences.
"There is a lack of internal transparency, participation and democracy in the WTO and that is appalling in an organisation whose decisions and actions have such far-reaching effects on the lives of billions of people," one NGO spokesman said.
A memorandum by the group, which also includes developing country-based NGOs such as Malaysia's Third World Network and Focus on the Global South from Manila, suggested the system of making decisions by consensus should be dropped.
The memorandum, sent to all WTO missions in Geneva, was issued as some 25 countries -- rich, middle-income and poor -- prepared for a meeting of ministers in Montreal at the end of next week to try to get over a blockage in negotiations.
Ministers from all WTO nations are due to meet in Cancun, Mexico, in mid-September, when they are supposed to steer the two-year-old Doha Round of free trade talks into a successful final 16 months and completion of a new global trade pact.
But preliminary accords due by now have not been reached, and there is speculation the Doha Round will be extended.
Mini-ministerials, like the Montreal meeting and others attended by some 25 countries, "are discriminatory against the majority of members who are not invited," the NGOs said.
But WTO officials and diplomats from countries who have been invited say they are an opportunity to hammer out issues in a tighter forum with representatives of all parts of the world.
A diplomat from one country in the European Union said poorer WTO nations were better off than EU states, none of whom were invited to mini-ministerials individually even though they include six of the world's top 10 traders.
Trade officials from the EU's executive Commission negotiate for all 15 member states in the WTO.Reuters:
