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Debacle in Seattle. A Blow-by-Blow Account
Walden Bello
Business World, 6 December 1999
SEATTLE, 3 December: The Third Ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ended in massive and total collapse shortly
before midnight tonight as negotiators failed to agree on a common declaration and on a new round of negotiations. As the host of the meeting, the US suffered its worst diplomatic debacle since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.
The talks fell victim to a combination of internal disagreements and tremendous and unrelenting protests by demonstrators on the outside. Protesters outside the Seattle county jail seeking release of some 400 of their comrades broke out into cheers at news of their total victory
over the trade organisation. Grassroots democracy 1, corporate globalisation 0, declared a jubilant Lori Wallach, head of Ralph Nader's Citizens Trade Campaign.
Internally, delegates had failed to bridge differences on the issues of agricultural liberalisation, trade in genetically modified organisms, trade and labour standards, and transparency in decision-making. At the press conference announcing failure of the talks, both US Trade
Representative Charlene Barshefsky and WTO Director General Mike Moore admitted that the organisation's decision-making processes needed to be reviewed.
Toward Apocalypse
As the WTO Ministerial hurtled toward apocalypse earlier in the day, the frustrations of developing countries mounted over their marginalisation from the negotiations. Venting the anger of many delegations at an early morning press conference at the Madison Renaissance Hotel, Clement Rohee, the foreign affairs minister of Guyana, said, We see processes manipulated by a few countries behind closed doors.
Frustrations were also rife in the streets. Marches and demonstrations had continued in the previous two days, the most notable being a
spontaneous march of about over 1,000 people to a county jail holding several hundred protesters apprehended by police over the last three days. The dynamics outside and inside the ministerial meeting interacted in an interesting way. While few developing country delegations shared the priority placed on environmental and workers' rights by the thousands of demonstrators that had converged on this city, the show of anger on the streets emboldened many Third World country delegates to resist the non-transparent methods by which the US and European Union have traditionally tried to push their trade objectives. Transparency was the demand that linked many delegates inside and the protesters outside.
Heavy-handedness Backfires
As Friday, 3 December began, the US was headed for defeat on two key issues, largely due to heavy-handed diplomacy. Fierce opposition from developing countries apparently scuttled Washington's proposal to set up a Working Group to 'study' the link between trade and labour standards. President Bill Clinton is now seen as having contributed to this outcome, since it was his statement to a Seattle newspaper that the WTO should use trade sanctions to enforce labour rights that angered many developing country delegates. The Americans' push to set up a Working Group
on trade on genetically modified products also backfired. EU Trade Minister Pascal Lamy's apparent caving in to US pressure on the first day of the negotiations triggered the ire of the environmental and trade ministers of several European countries, forcing the EU to take back its agreement with Washington. The opposition to the establishment of such a working party was widely shared, and the reason for it was underlined in a statement issued by a number of Filipino NGOs lobbying Asian governments in Seattle:
The WTO... is not the proper forum under which rules governing trade in biotechnology should be negotiated. Such rules should be deliberated upon and negotiated within the context of the negotiations for the Biosafety Protocol under the UN Convention on Biodiversity. The potential social, environmental and health risks that may arise from trade in GMOs are better addressed in environmental negotiations rather than in trade negotiations.
Stalemate in Agriculture
Much of the energy of Asian NGOs like the Southeast Asia Council on Food Security and Fair Trade was directed at influencing the text of the ministerial declaration on agriculture. Thus, they were able to closely follow the collapse of the negotiations in this sector. According to Philippine Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara, developing countries within the 'Cairns Group' of developed and developing agro-exporting countries came to Seattle with a strong stand on getting the ministerial to accept a strong language on the special and differential treatment of the agricultural policies of developing countries. The draft of the text on agriculture issued by the working committee on agriculture reflected this: it stated that S&D would no longer be embodied simply in schedules of concessions and commitments but, according to the latest draft ministerial text, in the rules and disciplines to be negotiated, so as to be more operationally effective and so as to enable developing countries, while undertaking commitments and
providing concessions, to take account of their development needs, including food security and agricultural and rural development.
On the other hand, EU intransigence forced representatives of other countries to retreat to softer wording on the section on agricultural
subsidies and domestic support that was more favourable to its interests. Instead of calling for the 'elimination' of export subsidies and domestic support, the second day's draft called for 'substantial reductions.' A pet EU term, 'multifunctionality,' was expunged from the Seattle drafts. The term refers to the idea that international trade rules must take into consideration the fact that agriculture is not just an area of production but fulfils other important functions such as sustaining the environment, food security, culture, and the regional landscape. The term is widely regarded as justifying protectionism. Some observers said, however, that the essence of multifunctionality was retained in this draft, which called on the negotiations to take into account 'non-trade concerns' that include the need to protect the environment, food security, the economic viability and development of rural areas, and food safety, without prejudice to the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary measures. Filipino and Southeast Asian NGO delegates, however, evinced dissatisfaction over the various drafts. One criticism was that specific mention was not made of US practices that distort agricultural trade, notably the use of export credits and dumping. Another source of disappointment was the elimination from the latest draft of references to 'tariff peaks' and 'tariff escalation,' two methods by which the EU and US discriminate against products developing country agricultural exports. The biggest frustrations of the NGOs, however, stemmed from the failure of the text to make the objective of meeting food security central in global agricultural trade and the absence of any commitment to meeting the needs of the poor net food-importing countries. But even without the NGO concerns taken into consideration, the negotiations among the governments were not enough to bridge the differences in agriculture. And the talks in agriculture, in turn, reflected the frustrating dynamic of the doomed negotiations as a whole.
Unravelling
By late afternoon, these were going nowhere at the Convention Center, which was still surrounded by police and National Guardsmen. At that point, said Edcel Custodio, head of the Philippine government's trade delegation in Geneva, two blocs of countries, one from Africa and one from Latin America and the Caribbean, formally issued very strong statements indicating that, if the same level transparency persisted, they would withhold their a pproval from any proposed declaration, thus torpedoing any common statement, since the WTO is supposed to work by 'consensus.' By this time, the process of backroom negotiations known as 'green rooms' or 'super-green rooms, observed a member of the press, had gotten so many
Third World delegates so angry that they were threatening to walk out. Catcalls and boos now greeted Ministerial Meeting Chairman Charlene Barshefsky's interventions, which came across more and more as high-handed. The EU and US' effort to rope some 18 to 20 selected countries to make a last ditch attempt to forge a declaration, with no obvious criteria for membership in such a body, was the last straw. By 9:30 p.m., in fact, it was becoming increasingly clear that there would be no declaration, said Philippine agriculture secretary Angara. By then, all sorts of rumours were circulating on face-saving formulas. In the end, the outcome of no declaration and no agreement on a new round was the worst possible for the US hosts.
The Magic Combination
There were many factors that contributed to the WTO collapse in Seattle, but it was the combination of the WTO's coming to Seattle with a ministerial draft that reflected so many differences, the deep rift between the EU and US on key issues, and the mutinous mood of developing country delegates amidst an unprecedented popular mobilisation and protest in the streets that unhinged the negotiations and, indeed, the WTO itself as an institution.
With the collapse of the Seattle talks, governments will return to Geneva, where negotiations in agriculture, services, and implementation, which were mandated by the 1994 Marrakesh Accord, begin sometime in January. But with the lack of a consensus declaration specifying key issues to be negotiated and setting schedules for completion, even holding these limited negotiations will prove to be a Herculean task.
Copyright 1999 Business World
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