Since Michael P. has asked a couple of times for elaboration on Seattle's encounter with the WTO's MM, I'll try to be as reliable a witness to the proceedings that took place Friday afternoon, October 1, 1999, at 4:30 pm at the University of Washington. Apologies in advance for any perceptual or emotional biases that may come through in the course of narrative as well as memory lapses [been running on 5 hours of sleep a night since we got word the WTO is coming to town]! Here goes: There were approximately 400 people in attendance. In addition to Moore and the WTO's lead economist Peter Lowe [can any NZ folks on the list give us his scoop, at least I'm pretty sure he's an NZ native], there were 6 other panelists; representing the UW faculty, women's health [PATH], labor and environmental [can we replace that word in the next millennium please] interests. Moore opened the session with a pretty canned speech, giving highlights in the history of Int'l Trade, economics, diplomacy, war, poverty etc. He stated that if most folks got the transparency they asked for, the most likely outcome would be that they would fall asleep! Trade review symposia are boring to the average person in his view. He gave a quick overview of the WTO's internal structure and it's relationship to other multilateral institutions. After he gave his speech the floor was opened up for questions from the panelists. The first was Patty Goldman, a Seattle attorney at EarthJustice. She took major exception to Moore's interpretation of WTO cases that have had negative impacts on US laws--the infamous Sea Turtle case and the Venezuelan gasoline case. It was her contention that the US went out of it's way to be non-discriminatory with regards to the writing and implementation of those laws [she helped write part of the Sea Turtle provisions of the MMPA]. Her rebuttal of Moore won a hefty round of applause from the audience. The next was Rich Feldman from the King County Labor Council. He stated in no uncertain terms that unionists in the US considered the WTO's blindness to labor rights a glaring stain on the WTO's legitimacy. This was put in the context of subsidies. To paraphrase: "why are price supports for small farmers WTO illegal, yet the subsidizing of military intervention in union busting activity or the refusal to consider unions legal, not considered illegal subsidies by the WTO. The holding of a gun to a workers head in a sweatshop is a subsidy." Additionally "why can we protect property rights but not labor rights, the WTO in this sense is a protectionist institution." Needless to say this caught Moore off guard and his response was thoroughly laughable and forgettable [I've since put those dendrites to other uses, sorry]. The crowd basically booed Moore's response [in a civil manner, mind you]. Richard Moxon, who teaches Strategy and International Management at UW went next. I almost totally forget what he said. If I remember correctly what little I do, he seemed very ambivalent about the WTO's guidelines for competition policy. Moore responded in a very indirect way and veered off into a discussion of the perils of people having a too Northern centered view of concerns about the WTO; that it exists and has substantive provisions for addressing the problems of The Global South, and that minimal sacrifices on the part of Northern countries [the US in particular] would have enormous benefits to The South--at which point someone from the audience yelled out "forgive the debt". When Moore asked "what"? because he didn't hear, the crowd, who did hear, joined in unison "forgive the debt!" [this was very moving actually]. Moore adamantly agreed! "Yes, yes, we should forgive the debt". The place erupted with applause [he fell for the trap, it was great--mind you, all this is on film]. Next was Jay Hair, former Prez. of the NWF who complained about the lack of transparency. Moore gave the reply of people would be bored as well as "the WTO is no more/less secretive than a meeting of the US cabinet." Next was Margaret Morrow, who is VP of PATH [Program for Appropriate Technology and Health]. She pointed out the gender bias of the WTO's agenda for the ministerial and also criticized the WTO's lack of transparency. Finally, Desmond O'Rourke, a Washington State Univ. professor of agricultural economics spoke about the benefits of free trade to consumers with regard to food prices. He cited statistics based on his research and also stated that the WTO wasn't moving fast enough on liberalizaion of agricultural policy--"my calculations indicate that if the present pace of reform continues, we'll achieve the goal of free trade in 2072" [that stuck to my neurons]. Moore and the audience got a good laugh out of that. That's all for now, tomorrow or over the weekend I'll type up the Audience dialog with Moore which was fascinating and really went to the core of the issues involved in the future of economic societies. cheers, ian
