Mark Ritchie & Walden Bello
on Doha WTO Meeting

From Agribusiness Examiner #134 11/26/01

MARK RITCHIE:
FIGHTING TO A DRAW IN DOHA ?

MARK RITCHIE, INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE AND TRADE
POLICY: Take the Ministers of Trade from 142 countries, a few hundred
journalists, NGOs, and business lobbyists, tens of thousand of police and
military for security, and you have the makings of one of the most surreal
events in recent international diplomacy history --- the Fourth
Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar. In
the backdrop of September 11 and the disastrous Seattle Ministerial
two years ago, the WTO set about to agree on a Ministerial declaration
that would chart the work agenda for WTO negotiators for the next few
years.

Leading up to the Doha meeting, there were serious conflicts between
North and South governments and between the United States and Europe.
As in Seattle, the U.S. and European negotiators used nearly every
known form of arm-twisting, bullying and bribery to stifle Third World
proposals and give the appearance of consensus. In Seattle, the
process did not lead to agreement, but instead to collapse. In Doha,
with the help of a one-day meeting extension, the right level of deal
making and threatening led to agreement on a final Declaration.

The entire ten page Final declaration is riddled with language that
allows every negotiator to go home and claim victory or at least the
avoidance of defeat. Upcoming elections in Brazil, France, and the
United States were key factors in a number of key public battles and
behind the scene compromises. Although this meeting and the WTO
are presented as part of the new global agenda, much of what is at
play is parochial politics played out on the global stage.

A good example of artful word-smithing in the service of domestic
politics is in the area of agriculture, where there were demands from
South countries for radical reforms, including a call for the end to
export dumping by the U.S. and EU. Unfortunately, U.S., Australian,
and European agribusiness corporations were able to keep this demand
off the agenda, by conceding general language on reducing export
subsidies. While agribusiness can claim this as a victory, the issue
of export dumping can and will most likely come back in future
meetings.

The U.S. and Europe put a number of new items on the WTO agenda,
like investment, government purchasing, and competition policy. But a
coalition of developing countries, led by India, made sure that no
negotiations on these topics could take place without the agreement of
every single member country in the WTO. India believes that this will
prevent these topics from ever being seriously negotiated in the WTO.
But will Southern countries withstand increasing pressure from the
U.S. and EU to negotiate these issues?

There was a major exception to the reign of ambiguity in Doha. The
combined forces of NGOs and a number of Third World governments
dealt a major blow against pharmaceutical companies on the issue of
drug patenting. This effort was helped by a backlash against the
pharmaceutical industry that had limited access to affordable drugs to
treat AIDS victims in Brazil, South Africa and other developing
countries. Use of the current WTO rules of trade covering intellectual
property rights, including patents, to impede public health objectives
were specifically repudiated in a special section of the final Declaration.
Over a decade of organizing by NGOs combined with strong efforts
by several developing country governments' lead to the adoption of
the special section, over the objection of the U.S., Switzerland,
Germany and the United Kingdom.

The declaration on public health and drug patents represented the
first clear victory in the WTO of the coalition of developing
countries governments and civil society groups that has emerged over
the last decade. This new "public interest coalition" of developing
countries and civil society was the most important development of the
Ministerial. Coming on the heels of similar NGO-government
collaborations on land mines, global warming, and biological diversity
protection this new international political force will likely play a
growing influence over the global agenda in the next decade.

An important emerging issue that this public interest coalition will
be tackling involves the relationship between the WTO and a new
generation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) - like the
Kyoto Protocol and Biosafety Agreement. The WTO has consistently
taken the view that trade rules should trump environmental rules, and is
attempting to enforce this view through a preemptive strike against
the authority of MEAs. There is a similar concern that this
declaration is attempting to expand WTO rule-making authority into
new areas, like drinking water and other public goods and services.
NGOs see these as "high alert" concerns for close monitoring and early
intervention.

At the end of day, there were no clear winners or losers at Doha,
except the drug companies. Everyone can claim to have survived to
fight another day. What is important is that the lines of the fight
are more clearly drawn, with the NGOs and Third World governments
lining up against the rich country governments and the multinational
corporations. The next Ministerial, set for 2003 in Mexico, will be
the next chance for this evolving coalition to move beyond the victory
on drugs to a wide range of new issues. The Mexico Ministerial could
be the beginning of a New World Order very different from that
envisioned by George W. Bush's father.

WTO MINISTERIAL IN DOHA, QATAR: END RESULT MAY WELL
BE ACCELERATED DECLINE OF THE WTO

WALDEN BELLO, FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH & ANURADHA
MITTAL, FOOD FIRST:
Something was launched at Doha, but to call it a "round" of trade
negotiations might be stretching the concept of a round. A round
means negotiations on a broad range of issues directed at trade
liberalization. What was agreed at Doha were: a) negotiations to
clarify or revise some existing agreements, e.g., anti-dumping rules;
and b) eventual negotiations for new agreements, e.g., transparency in
government procurement, investment, and competition policy.

Getting immediate negotiations going on investment, competition
policy, government procurement and trade facilitation was at the top
of the agenda of the trading powers in Doha. They fell short of this
objective, being able to secure a commitment for negotiations on these
issues only after the fifth ministerial in 2003, and only with a
"written consensus" from member countries . . . . What is clear is
that, contrary to the claims of European Trade Commissioner Pascal
Lamy, Doha did not launch a "development round." The key points of
the Doha Declaration, in fact, contradict the interests of the
developing countries. For example,

* There is only a perfunctory acknowledgment of the need to review
implementation issues, which was the key agenda of the developing
countries coming into Doha;
* The language on the phasing out of agricultural subsidies is watered
down owing to the strong objections of the European Union;
* There is no commitment to an early phase-out of textile and garment
quotas because of the strong resistance of the United States;
* The demand for a "development box" to promote food security and
development which was being pushed by a number of developing countries
was completely ignored;
* There is no commitment to change the wording of the TRIPs
(Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights) agreement to accommodate
developing countries' overriding of patents for public health
purposes;
* There is no commitment to change the TRIPs agreement to outlaw
biopiracy and patents on life, which was a key developing country
concern coming into Doha;
* The declaration eliminates the reference in the draft to the
International Labor Organization (ILO) being the appropriate forum for
addressing labor and trade issues, which leaves the door open for the
WTO to assert its jurisdiction in an area where it has no authority or
competence.

The resolution of the TRIPs and public health issue is being trumpeted
as a victory for developing countries. This is exaggerated. While an
attachment to the declaration does recognize that there is nothing in
TRIPs that would prevent countries from taking measures to promote
public health, there is no commitment to change the wording of the
TRIPs agreement. This is a serious flaw since TRIPs as it is currently
written can serve as the basis for future legal challenges to
countries that override patents in the interest of public health. . .

In fact, Doha was a defeat for the developing countries,
notwithstanding the resistance they --- and in particular, India ---
put up against arm-twisting, blackmail, and intimidation from the big
trading powers. Those of us in Doha were witness, as the Equations
team puts it, "to the highhanded unethical negotiating practices of
the developed countries - linking aid budgets and trade preferences
to the trade positions of developing countries and targeting individual
developing country negotiators."

Doha was a victory for the forces with a strong interest in subverting
the interests of the developing countries that form the majority of
the membership of the World Trade Organization by keeping the
decision-making process non transparent and undemocratic. . . . This
is why this victory may well be a Pyrrhic one for the big trading
powers. The combination of developing country resentments inflamed
by the Doha process, a deep global recession brought about by the
indiscriminate locking together of economies by accelerated trade and
financial liberalization, and reinvigorated civil society resistance
to corporate driven globalization, cannot but erode the credibility
and legitimacy of the institutional pillars of free trade like the
WTO.

And without credibility and legitimacy, institutions, no matter how
seemingly solid they may seem, eventually unravel. At the conclusion
of the Fourth Ministerial, Director General Mike Moore thanked the
delegates for "saving the WTO." The end result may well be, instead,
the accelerated decline of the WTO.