-Caveat Lector-
10 Reasons to Dismantle the WTO
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Add a new constituency to the long list of World Trade Organization (WTO)
critics which already includes consumers, labor, environmentalists, human
rights activists, fair trade groups, AIDS activists, animal protection
organizations, those concerned with Third World development, religious
communities, women's organizations. The latest set of critics includes WTO
backers and even the WTO itself.
As the WTO faces crystallized global opposition -- to be manifested in
massive street demonstrations and colorful protests in Seattle, where the
WTO will hold its Third Ministerial meeting from November 30 to December 3
-- the global trade agency and its strongest proponents veer between a
shrill defensiveness and the much more effective strategy of admitting
shortcomings and trumpeting the need for reform.
WTO critics now face a perilous moment. They must not be distracted by
illusory or cosmetic reform proposals, nor by even more substantive
proposals for changing the WTO -- should they ever emerge from the
institution or its powerful rich country members. Instead, they should
unite around an uncompromising demand to dismantle the WTO and its
corporate-created rules.
Here are 10 reasons why:
1. The WTO prioritizes trade and commercial considerations over all other
values. WTO rules generally require domestic laws, rules and regulations
designed to further worker, consumer, environmental, health, safety, human
rights, animal protection or other non-commercial interests to be
undertaken in the "least trade restrictive" fashion possible -- almost
never is trade subordinated to these noncommercial concerns.
2. The WTO undermines democracy. Its rules drastically shrink the choices
available to democratically controlled governments, with violations
potentially punished with harsh penalties. The WTO actually touts this
overriding of domestic decisions about how economies should be organized
and corporations controlled. "Under WTO rules, once a commitment has been
made to liberalize a sector of trade, it is difficult to reverse," the WTO
says in a paper on the benefits of the organization which is published on
its web site. "Quite often, governments use the WTO as a welcome external
constraint on their policies: 'we can't do this because it would violate
the WTO agreements.'"
3. The WTO does not just regulate, it actively promotes, global trade. Its
rules are biased to facilitate global commerce at the expense of efforts
to promote local economic development and policies that move communities,
countries and regions in the direction of greater self-reliance.
4. The WTO hurts the Third World. WTO rules force Third World countries to
open their markets to rich country multinationals, and abandon efforts to
protect infant domestic industries. In agriculture, the opening to foreign
imports, soon to be imposed on developing countries, will catalyze a
massive social dislocation of many millions of rural people.
5. The WTO eviscerates the Precautionary Principle. WTO rules generally
block countries from acting in response to potential risk -- requiring a
probability before governments can move to resolve harms to human health
or the environment.
6. The WTO squashes diversity. WTO rules establish international health,
environmental and other standards as a global ceiling through a process of
"harmonization;" countries or even states and cities can only exceed them
by overcoming high hurdles.
7. The WTO operates in secrecy. Its tribunals rule on the "legality" of
nations' laws, but carry out their work behind closed doors.
8. The WTO limits governments' ability to use their purchasing dollar for
human rights, environmental, worker rights and other non-commercial
purposes. In general, WTO rules state that governments can make purchases
based only on quality and cost considerations.
9. The WTO disallows bans on imports of goods made with child labor. In
general, WTO rules do not allow countries to treat products differently
based on how they were produced -- irrespective of whether made with
brutalized child labor, with workers exposed to toxics or with no regard
for species protection.
10. The WTO legitimizes life patents. WTO rules permit and in some cases
require patents or similar exclusive protections for life forms.
Some of these problems, such as the WTO's penchant for secrecy, could
potentially be fixed, but the core problems -- prioritization of
commercial over other values, the constraints on democratic
decision-making and the bias against local economies -- cannot, for they
are inherent in the WTO itself.
Because of these unfixable problems, the World Trade Organization should
be shut down, sooner rather than later.
That doesn't mean interim steps shouldn't be taken. It does mean that
beneficial reforms will focus not on adding new areas of competence to the
WTO or enhancing its authority, even if the new areas appear desirable
(such as labor rights or competition). Instead, the reforms to pursue are
those that reduce or limit the WTO's power -- for example, by denying it
the authority to invalidate laws passed pursuant to international
environmental agreements, limiting application of WTO agricultural rules
in the Third World, or eliminating certain subject matters (such as
essential medicines or life forms) from coverage under the WTO's
intellectual property agreement.
These measures are necessary and desirable in their own right, and they
would help generate momentum to close down the WTO.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Common Courage Press,
http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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