By: Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians
November 26, 2001
In a world beset with concerns about terrorism and war, it is not surprising that there was little coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial meeting that took place in Doha, Qatar, last week. What coverage there was found itself relegated to the business section of most newspapers. There, readers were told that, after tense negotiations around such issues as antidumping and agriculture subsidies, the now 144 member countries of the WTO had agreed to a new "round" of trade talks.
What didn't get reported, however, is that, in the last minute wrangling over other issues, a clause was inserted into the final text by the European Union that puts our freshwater at risk, promotes the privatization of the world's water resources and endangers international environmental treaties.
Going into the meeting, there was a deep divide between the QUAD - the U.S., Europe, Japan and Canada - and everyone else. The wealthy countries of the North were pushing an ambitious series of new issues that were almost universally opposed by the countries of the South. Every day, and well into every night, negotiators struggled with this divide.
The final draft text appeared on the morning of November 14, and delegates, most of whom had not slept the night before, saved their energy for the final bone of contention about the timing of the start of new issues. Only a handful of NGOs noticed that, overnight, a new section called Trade and Environment had been added to the text by the European Union. It had not been negotiated by anyone, nor even noticed by the now bone-weary negotiators. When the assembly adopted the text later that day, frantic NGOs - severely limited in number and in their access to the process - couldn't find one delegate who had noticed this addition. Too bad, because it may have terrible potential ramifications for the world.
Article 31, iii, calls for "the reduction, or, as appropriate, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services." This poses an immediate threat to the world's declining freshwater resources, both as a "service" and as a "good."
While water has not yet been listed under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an environmental service, a number of countries - the U.S. and Canada among them - is pushing for its inclusion. In any case, the GATS covers hundreds of types of water services under other categories and contains a catalogue of measures that limits what governments can do to conserve and protect water. Canada also wants all member countries to eliminate restrictions on national treatment and market access to water services.
Already, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are aggressively promoting water privatization in developing countries, opening the door for huge transnational water corporations to profit from water delivery and wastewater treatment. Under this new WTO provision, a domestic rule that protects water as a public service and a human right could be considered a "non-tariff barrier" to trade and eliminated, as could any rule that attempts to limit privatisation.
Water is clearly a "good" in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Article 11 already rules out any quantitative restrictions on the export of a good, but allows tariff measures, such as taxes or dual price systems. But the new text proposes to do away with such export controls, making it illegal to restrict the export of bulk water for commercial purposes.
Further, Article 32 - also added that last morning - says that 31, iii, must be "compatible with" other WTO rules, particularly the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS), which sets constraints on government polices relating to animal and plant health, including biological contaminants, and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), set up to ensure that nations do not use "non-tariff barriers" such as environmental laws, in a way that interferes with trade liberalization. Domestic standards to protect water could be challenged by subsuming the trade in environmental services to these already dangerous WTO agreements.
These are not the only dangers to the environment in the Doha text. Article 31, i, (also new) attempts to clarify and codify the rules between the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). But, no sooner are MEAs recognized - a development long sought by environmentalists - than the text exempts any country not a signatory to an MEA. The U.S., for example, has not ratified the Kyoto or the Biosafety Protocols, and would not be bound by any WTO recognition of their trade provisions. In fact, this new provision would act as a disincentive for any country to sign any new MEA, because it would benefit from the environmental good deeds of others, but be under no obligation to take action themselves.
As well, the delegates agreed to broad new provisions on market access, which will speed up free trade in logging, mining, fishing and other natural resources. And the agreement on intellectual property (TRIPS) will continue to threaten biological diversity and conservation measures and permit the patenting of life forms, including plants, seeds, genes and animals. The Doha "round," was extracted under duress and intimidation. Already, there is dissention between the North and the South as to what was really agreed to. Civil society has two years before the next Ministerial meeting to discredit this profoundly undemocratic and environmentally devastating deal.:
