Other Words | Porto Alegre 2002 Site Update Newsletter | December 3, 2001 | No.18
At Doha, in order to approve a broad sheaf of measures that favour the already favoured, the US and WTO had to break down the resistance of certain countries of the South. This was done by way of illusory concessions, in an episode where Brazil's position remains far from clear.
The Economist magazine reports that in one of the tensest moments of the WTO's 4th Ministerial Conference, held last week at Doha (Qatar), by chance United States Trade Secretary Robert Zoellick met two Vatican representatives in the lift. Determined at all cost to secure the launch of a new round to open up national markets to large corporations but unable at that point to know if he would be successful, Zoellick had no hesitation in asking his lift companions to pray for "a little heavenly intervention" in favour of his plans. A few hours later, he was commemorating the approval of a final document that he classed as a "powerful signal to the world". It would be difficult, however, to see any divinity in the two factors that weighed most heavily on the side of the interests that the secretary represents: 1. At Doha, the countries that opposed the launching of a new round were isolated after the US allured other nations by means of showy but ineffective concessions; and 2 In the rest of the world, especially in countries of the South, a press aligned with neoliberal "right thinking" is concealing the true meaning of what the WTO meeting approved from the public.
Since before the ministerial meeting, two forces were clear about their objectives at Doha. The international movement against neoliberalism strove to repeat the success achieved at Seattle two years and prevent the launching of the new round. By arguing for international trade relations based on solidarity and development in the South, it wanted to prevent the WTO from returning to an agenda that will "exacerbate poverty and inequalities", as shown by Chakravarth Raghavan, of Third World Network, in a text written one day before the end of the meeting. At the other extreme were the United States interested precisely, in Zoellick's words, in putting the WTO back onto the offensive, in "shrugging of the scratches of Seattle". At intermediate positions were the European Union, the various blocs of countries of the South, and Japan. Contrary to the forces struggling for a new world, which were prevented from ever gaining access to Qatar, the US turned up accompanied by all their imperial power. Zoellick had warned, days before the meeting, that he would consider failure "an affront" at a moment the White House considered particularly delicate.
The South resisted, Zoellick made "concessions" ...
This show of authority, however, was not enough to ensure success. The bloc of Southern countries, comprising some fifteen nations from Asia, Africa and Central America led by India, stood up to Zoellick's pressures almost to the last minute. In practice, they were supporting the positions of the anti-neoliberal movement the whole time. They called attention to the dizzying widening of the gap between rich and poor in recent years. They claimed that before embarking on a new round, it was necessary to evaluate the results of previous negotiations, and correct their meaning. They were supported by the WTO's own statutes, which require that in normal circumstances decisions be approved unanimously. The European Union and Japan took a more flexible position. Attuned to the interests of their own transnationals, they were in favour of the round. Nonetheless, they were uncomfortable with some of its possible consequences, especially the degradation of quality of life in the countryside, whose domestic political effects are devastating.
To achieve his main objective, Zoellick had to give ground on points of secondary importance. Over the 5 days' work, he made four concessions:
1. Right at the outset he agreed to a separate declaration being drafted in which the agreement on intellectual property (TRIPS) "should not prevent [WTO] members from taking measures to protect public health". Adopted without dispute, a clear sign that it was foreseen in the United States' strategy, the resolution was nonetheless presented by the Brazilian press as the most important outcome at Doha ...
2. To eliminate opposition from the European Union, in the agriculture chapter of the main declaration, he agreed to include a safety clause slightly reducing the member-states' commitment to opening up agricultural markets. Still with an eye to the European Union and the environmentalists, he agreed to include a vague rhetorical reference to the need to preserve the environment, also in the basic text;
3. He concurred in starting negotiations on anti-dumping legislation. Present laws, especially in the United States, are seen as extremely arbitrary and directed, in practice, to imposing limits on import in sectors (steel, orange juice and others) where USA producers are not capable to compete with external competitors;
4. Contrary to the document the WTO leaders themselves presented at the opening of the Doha meeting, he accepted a relative postponement of negotiations on the four so-called "Singapore issues": a new multilateral agreement on investments, the deregulation on governmental procurement, the "competition policies" and "trade facilitation". This was most probably his most importance concession and the one that can best be exploited by the groups defending fair trade to ward off the threats from Doha.
... which are clearly false or unreliable
Two texts stand out as obligatory reading for an examination of the tactics used by the USA at the WTO meeting. One is the document launched by ATTAC-France soon after the meeting. The other is the analysis made Walden Bello, of the Philippines, from the research centre Focus on the Global South. They expose the inconsistency and falsity of the concessions made by the White House. Their main observations are as follows:
A. The USA's retreat on patents is innocuous at present and very unreliable in the future. With the posible exception of India, the drugs industry in the South was decimated by the previous WTO round, which brought in patent laws. Even if a very limited number of medicines are produced in coming years by companies in Third World countries, the pharmaceutical market will continue concentrated in a small number of transnationals. Moreover, Zoellick took care that the concession made at Doha would not be legally binding, only political and transitory. The international agreement on intellectual property (TRIPS) was not changed, leaving untouched the trend towards transforming protection for human life into more and more profitable trade, and a resource from which the majority of the world's population is excluded;
B. The idea that the WTO might now be concerned with environmental protection is frankly demagogic. According to the text approved, the regulations that may eventually be approved on this subject will only commit those nations who have signed international nature protection treaties. As ATTAC-France noted, this is an "extraordinary stimulus to follow the USA's deplorable example in refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol".
C. Still worse happened on protection for workers' rights. All the proposals designed to protect them, by reducing imports from countries that overexploit wage earners were eliminated from the final text.
The odd position of Brazil and new challenges facing the opposition
Presented by the Brazilian press as the great victors at Doha, Brazil's leaders seem in fact to have played a role in last weeks meeting as auxiliary agents of the United States tactic of launching a round of ultra-neo-liberalism at all cost. Two indications suggest this conclusion. After the meeting, Mike Moore, WTO director-general, appointed Celso Lafer, Brazilian Foreign Minister, as "godfather" of the final result. Far more telling is the report by Elourdighi Khalil, from the Paris office of the international network Act-Up!, who fights to defend the HIV positive against the greed of the pharmaceutical multinationals. He describes how, unlike India and the African nations, the Brazilian delegation was the first to "capitulate to the rich countries' position" and content themselves with the minor United States' concession on drugs.
By making superficial or merely declaratory concessions on secondary issues, the USA finally bring unbearable pressure to bear on India and other countries opposed to a new round. Their resistance forced the WTO to extend the meeting by almost 24 hours. On the 14th, the Empire won the day. It will not take long to understand how far this has worsened the impasses facing humanity. By proposing a process which tends to increase the concentration of wealth and power in a world already torn by neoliberal globalization, the USA and the WTO pose a new challenge to the movement for a new world. From Doha onwards, it is clear that we confront a system which makes no compromises; and that it will only be possible to stand up to it by proposing a new project of global power, guided by a logic contrary to what stands at present. As soon as last week's meeting ended, signs emerged that comprehension of this necessary radicalism is spreading. That is what we shall see in the next edition.
To subscribe to Other Words, just visit www.portoalegre2002.net and key in your e-mail address in the appropriate box, or send a blank e-mail to other-words-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. There's no need to write anything in the subject line or in the body of the message.
If you want to stop receiving the newsletter, send a similarly blank e-mail to other-words-unsubscribe@egroups.comOther Words:
