Bill Lovell wrote:
> At 01:50 PM 7/13/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >Yes, the WTO is based in Geneva, but surely it's beyond reproach?
>
> This was weeks ago, and I had a computer virus in the meantime, so
> I certainly stand ready to be corrected, but was it not the WTO that had
> a good chunk of its top leadership caught with their hands in the cookie
> jar? Or had some corruption of some kind? (And no, I'm not confusing
> that with that other nest of corruption, the International Olympic
Committee
> members who, it seems, have been "selling" Olympic siting decisions.)
You may be thinking of the European Commission, whose entire top cadre of
bureaucrats resigned/was forced to resign over the indiscretions/outright
fraud of some of its more opportunistic members. I think.
The WTO recently went through a lengthy process of electing a new Director
General, which I thought had been resolved in favour of a gentleman from
Thailand over a former PM from New Zealand and a former trade commissioner
from Canada (of all places), but I don't see a news release on the WTO site.
My comment above, which attracted not a little bit of off-list attention,
was an attempt to put forward the WTO as a 'good' international
organization, from the Free Market point of view, as opposed to the stodgy,
European (which apparently has a derogatory connotation in the governance
sense, yet seems to carry considerable cachet in the marketing of hair
products in North America), and government-oriented ISO, ITU, et al. The
WTO negotiation process shows just how difficult *serious* international
negotiations can be, but also how successful they can be. Internet
governance has yet to reach the level of "seriousness" on the international
stage which it will. Even I'll admit that's a good thing ;-).
An explosion and fire at a Bell Canada CO in downtown Toronto cut off my net
access for the whole day today, which was mildly traumatic ;-}.
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
