At the Edge (11-13 November 1999)

AT THE EDGE
Towards 21st Century Internationalism

TNI 25th Anniversary (1974-1999)

Mobilisation against Globalisation: Focus on the WTO

Only weeks after the TNI Festival, the governments of the world were due to meet in Seattle, USA, for the third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization. Many at the Festival were aware of, or indeed involved in, the preparations for Seattle, when hundreds of NGOs and other organisations of civil society planned to demonstrate, calling for a comprehensive review of the WTO and its activities.

The WTO has facilitated the prising open of markets for the benefit of TNCs at the expense of national economies, workers, farmers, consumers and the environment. It has contributed to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few, impoverished millions and promoted unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Its system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, non-transparent and non-accountable. The governments that dominate the WTO, and the TNCs that have benefited, have refused to recognise and address these problems. Instead, they are pushing for further liberalisation.

A worldwide movement is calling for a moratorium on any new issues or further negotiations that expand the scope and power of the WTO, pending a comprehensive and in-depth review and assessment of the existing agreements. It is demanding full participation of civil society in the review, thereby providing an opportunity to change course and develop an alternative, humane and sustainable international system of trade and investment relations.

Chairperson: Marcos Arruda
Speakers: Walden Bello, Susan George, Ilka Schroeder, Sarah Anderson

Walden Bello is a member of the TNI Planning Board, someone who has gone to prison for his activism, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South (Bangkok), Professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of Manila, National Chair for the Citizens' Action Party (Akbayan, Philippines), and author of many books on trade and development.

The WTO has been characterised in many ways. Ralph Nader has called it 'Free Trade über Alles'. Others see it as a framework of foundation for TNCs. In the Third World, it is seen as the latest and most nefarious unequal treaty since the 19th century. I agree with those like Raguban who call it 'a medium of re-colonisation'.

In the run-up to Seattle, there is apprehension among many developing countries. They have not yet met even 50% of the commitments they were forced into under the Uruguay Round, yet now the EU and the USA are calling for new rounds. Governments of the South feel they lost out in the Uruguay Round as they clearly did not really know what they were signing up to in these negotiations. It was a massive agreement, with many subsidiary agreements, literally miles and miles of pages. Only after studying and beginning to implement the agreements they signed, has the full implications of the WTO been understood. Many Southern countries are too poor to have more than a few representatives in the WTO whereas the US and EU, for example, have literally hundreds employed to negotiate.

For many countries in the South, the WTO represents the climax of two decades of reversals. First there was the defeat of UNCTAD. From the 1960s, UNCTAD worked with an entirely different set of principles for how Third World countries should participate in the world economy. These included preferential access, the use of trade policy for industrialisation and technology transfer to the South. This was a reformist policy but clearly something very different from the WTO. Secondly, many of these countries are going to Seattle exhausted after having been put through the ringer of structural adjustment since the 1980s. Structural adjustment with its principles of liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation has been one universal model imposed on over 90 countries.

On the global level, the WTO is the institutionalisation of a framework that makes any sort of meaningful development impossible. Development policies such as import substitution in Latin America in the 1950-60s and the industrialization of Asia were based on heavy controls on capital investment, protectionism, and mercantilism, and they were only possible because there was not a set of global rules such as those imposed through the Uruguay Round. However, now there is a comprehensive set of rules overseen by the 'coercive grip' of the WTO governing many aspects of economic life including trade interactions but also trade-related issues like national security, for example. Anti-developmental and anti-industrial elements of the WTO include the elimination of quotas and trade-related investment measures. By these means, the WTO has stopped developing countries from using trade policy to stimulate industrialization as many did from the 1950s to 1980s to nurture their national economies.

The Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) is a set of very strict rules on patents, which favors the industrial super-powers and makes industrialization by imitation next to impossible. The diffusion of technology in earlier periods (i.e. where one country after another borrowed ideas freely from the USA and other industrial powers) has been almost eliminated to control this applied technological knowledge. TRIPs has given the monopoly to those who control knowledge industries and to those elites who are determining the pace and the method of technological development of the South.

The 'National Treatment' principle of the WTO says that foreigners, as well as national citizens, should have equal rights to exploit the services and other assets of an economy. This prevents real indigenous control over services, for example, which is a fundamental sector of the economy.

The GATT-WTO agreement has been very destructive of agriculture. The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) actually goes very much against the rhetoric of 'free trade' that it is supposed to be animating. The AoA is really about regulating the monopolistic competition between the EU and the USA for third country markets. It includes cuts in subsidies to agriculture but it legitimises the heavy subsidisation of agriculture in the North, particularly in the EU and USA. Subsidy levels in the OECD rose from US $ 182 billion in 1995, to US $ 280 billion 1997, to US $ 362 billion in 1998. About half of all agricultural production costs in the North is accounted for by state subsidies. So, as one person in the South put it, "The North is saying, 'Socialist agriculture for us. Private enterprise for you'." This is an important area to understand because agriculture subsidises the rest of the economy.

In Seattle, the apparent disagreement will be between the USA and the EU, but in actual fact our countries will be asked to give even more concessions, more liberalisation, which will bring terrible consequences to our farmers and agricultural population. As we know, it is not small farmers who benefit from the subsidies in the North but large corporations, including the big traders of grains and other crops.

Civil society groups in the South are coming to Seattle with a clear agenda. When those of us from the Philippines met in Manila a few days ago, we came up with eight points of agreement in less than three hours:

• No new negotiations, no new round
• No new negotiations in agriculture and services
• Elimination of all forms of agricultural and fishery subsidies in the USA and EU and other exporting countries
• Demand that the EU, USA and other developed agro-export countries live up to the spirit of their commitments under the Uruguay Round and grant access to their markets of agricultural exports from developing countries without demanding reciprocal concessions
• Oppose efforts to introduce new issues into WTO coverage, including investment, competition policy, linkage between trade and labor standards
• In the review of TRIPS, oppose the patenting of all organisms.

The groups that framed this set of demands do not believe that the WTO can be reformed. They will be in Seattle demanding the elimination of the WTO. The effort here is to overload the system so that it does not function. There is a great sense in the South that this is an unreformable institution. The only way that the South can regain and improve its status within the world economy is if the WTO is unable to function, and that demands activities both outside and inside.

Susan George is Associate Director of TNI, a member of the Citizens Collective Against the WTO (France), Vice-President of Attac (France), and author of many books.

I want to look at the big principles that are guiding the WTO, how they feed into the dispute resolution mechanism, and why I think this is terribly dangerous.

The WTO Agreements cover many different areas of economic activity including agriculture, industrial tariffs, services (160 different areas), TRIPs, TRIMs, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, and so on. Above all of these is the dispute resolution mechanism, which is another agreement covering the entire WTO regime. It is useful to think of the WTO as an umbrella covering agreements on many different subjects. However, the same principles apply to all those subjects.

The WTO's 'Most Favored Nation' principle means that a government has to treat products coming from one member of the WTO in exactly the same way as those coming from any other member. There is to be no discrimination, particularly on the basis of how a product is produced or harvested. This means you cannot favour a country's products because it is trying to produce them under better ecological or better social conditions. The technical framework is called 'Processes and Methods of Production' and you are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of PMPs. You cannot say, 'I would rather not buy footballs made in Pakistan because they are made by child labour,' or 'I wish to buy tuna fish harvested with nets that do not destroy dolphins,' for example.

'National Treatment' means that you have to treat the products from any country similar to the way you would treat products from your own country. This raises similar questions. For example, the Turtle-Shrimp Decision violates the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species, a multilateral agreement on the environment. The WTO says that it is of no consequence whether or not boats that catch shrimps have nets, which also ensnare turtles.

'Quantitative Restrictions' rejects any bans or quotas on any products from anywhere. So far, there appear to be no specific decisions on the basis of this principle. However, it could mean that you cannot refuse to export a resource if there is a demand for it. The USA has been demanding that Canada exports water but Canada is resisting. Under the terms of NAFTA, the USA is arguing that Canada does not have the right to refuse. We can see how this might be interpreted in the WTO, for example, obliging a country of the South to export food even if there is a shortage among its own people. It might also be applied to the shipment of toxic wastes to the South even though the Basle Convention forbids this.

The agreements on 'Technical Barriers to Trade' and sanitary/ phyto-sanitary measures are concerned with the
'harmonising' of standards. 'Harmonising' means the lowering of everyone's standards to the lowest common denominator. For example, Canada has attacked France and other European countries over asbestos. Canada is the largest producer of asbestos. Asbestos is proven to be cancer-inducing but Canada is arguing that it is safe if used properly. This decision, which was to be announced before Seattle, is now suspiciously scheduled for three months later. We are afraid that it will go against the environment and public health.

The 'Precautionary Principle' simply does not apply in the WTO. The principle states that if I want to export something to you, it is up to me to prove that what I want to export is safe. You do not have to prove that it is dangerous. The WTO reverses the burden of proof. It is up to the importer to prove that it is dangerous, or the product has to be accepted. This is the basis of the Hormone Beef Decision, which has raised an enormous outcry in France. The EU's ten-year ban on imports of hormone-fed beef from the USA came to an end. The WTO said that as the EU had not proved that the beef was dangerous, it would have to accept it. The EU continued to refuse and it was then perfectly legal, under the process of 'Cross Retaliation', for the USA to apply tariffs against European exports to the USA worth an amount decided by the WTO panel, in this case US $ 116 million a year.

This led one charismatic farmer and his friends from the Confederation Paysans, the organisation of small and medium farmers in France which wants food security for all, to dismantle a MacDonalds fast-food outlet that was being constructed in a nearby town. He was arrested and refused bail for several weeks, and became a national hero. Now everybody in France knows what the WTO is.

The WTO has a dispute resolution mechanism, which is basically the legislature, the judiciary and the executive. The panels, which make these decisions, of which I have described several out of the 170 so far, are made up of trade experts meeting behind closed doors. Organisations and citizens have no rights to make representations to these panels. The appeals are heard quickly and they can apply sanctions. They are made up of people who have no sensitivity to the environment, to public health, to workers' concerns, to any of the issues that most social movements think are vital.

Not only that, they are abrogating laws. The EU has had the Lome Convention with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries for the past twenty years, giving them favourable terms for their banana exports. The giant US banana company Chiquita rented the US Government to bring a suit to the WTO and the WTO ruled that the Lomé Convention is favoritism. Chiquita bananas are harvested under terrible conditions, including very dangerous pesticides, by severely exploited. Meanwhile, several thousand Caribbean banana farmers, mostly women who have no alternative income, will be deprived of their livelihood. But that does not matter to the WTO because a banana is a banana and Europe has no right to a foreign policy that conflicts with trade.

All these measures reveal that you can construe anything as a 'technical barrier to trade'. Any national law, rule, or standard can be interpreted in this way by a powerful country that has got the lawyers and technical expertise. A subsidy to the Brazilian aeronautical industry was outlawed. According to the WTO, Brazil does not have the right to an infant industry that might grow into a viable, competitive industry.

This is why we are going to Seattle. I do not agree that we should have no rules for trade. Any international system requires rules, but not these rules. 1200 organizations have signed the demand: no new subjects to be included in WTO agreements and a complete overhaul of the WTO before there are any new negotiations on any subject. There must be a full examination with full citizen participation. We want to see what the WTO has done so far to the environment, to working people, to democracy, to name a few. We want rules that will reward countries that try to do their best for the environment and for working people and for democracy. You cannot have free trade where some countries are making society pay for all of the costs and others cannot raise standards for their workers because otherwise they have no way of competing. We should let them compete while trying to promote sustainable development and the welfare of their workers.

Ilka Schroeder is a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, a member of the Parliament's Trade Committee and a student of economics.

In 1994, when the European Parliament decided on the first WTO negotiations, the Green Party Group protested against the foundation of the WTO. However, the larger parties did not take up these concerns. Five years later, there is a much wider, critical public debate, thanks to the protests around the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Five years ago the Green Group would not have even bothered to ask the Commissioner for Trade to come to us and talk. Yesterday, he came to the Group's meeting despite the fact that he did not open his mouth. This marks a small change in the attitude of the European Commission.

The decision-makers and negotiators, in this case the European Council of Ministers and the European Commission now pretend at least to be open and they use more fashionable language like 'sustainable development'. In the European Committee for Industry, Trade, Research and Energy, a Conservative member recently said, "We need to include more environmental topics in the new Round because the resistance against it will mainly focus on ecological issues". My interpretation is that if they use fairer, greener words this means less opportunity for critique and thereby weakens the resistance. The result will be no change for the world, but fewer people criticising. If the new agreement says that civil society should be involved, perhaps industry will set up its own NGOs and involve them in the negotiations.

The current Commissioner of Trade has announced that it is not the fault of the WTO that the gap between the rich and poor is growing. When asked whose responsibility it is, he had no idea. That means that the WTO architects and supporters are unlikely to have any solutions for the few problems that they have recognised.

The concept of the so-called 'global liberalised market' is full of contradictions. The WTO says that there should be the same rules for everyone. But that is like putting into a boxing ring a professional boxer with someone who is dependent on a wheelchair, only without the wheelchair. They are making developing countries dependent on their regulations, and then changing those regulations for the worse. It is presented as if it is the only model under which wealth is created for everybody. In fact, the system is most favourable to TNCs and not to people.

The most dangerous part of the TRIPs Agreement is the patenting of life. The question is who has access to the genetic information? 97% of the patents registered on plant seeds are owned by TNCs, whereas 90% of biological resources come from countries of the South. This can happen because globally applied standards on patent protection are based on a Western system of rights. Traditional knowledge is related to discoveries which cannot be patented, whereas the pharmaceutical industry that isolates the healing effects of part of the plant can apply for a patent. This tricky juridical construction leaves traditional healers without any protective rights whereas the industrial manipulators of plants can be protected. This is product piracy and protectionism. Yet these are two mechanisms, which, it was claimed, were deconstructed through the WTO.

The WTO promises to strengthen the economies of the 'Third World'. However, newly patented seeds are genetically manipulated in a way that they cannot reproduce themselves. Plus, when buying the seeds, farmers have to sign that they will buy the pesticides from those same companies selling the seeds. Dependency rises immensely.

Many people in Europe are politically apathetic. However, many do understand that these rules have an impact on their own lives and the whole world, for simply profit-driven motives. Let us make use of this new awareness from the MAI campaign and about genetically-modified food.

An official delegation of 12 MEPs from the European Parliament is going to Seattle, but probably no Greens will be included. However, six or seven Green MEPs will be going to raise the eight basic points that we have agreed upon.

Sarah Anderson is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington (USA), where she heads the Global Economics Project, and co-author of a forthcoming book Field Guide to the Global Economy , focusing on labour rights and corporations.

Watching a late night TV showing of a US Committee hearing recently, I saw three top US trade officials squirming in their chairs as they were faced with their failures. The defeat of the MAI is one. In another, with the help of activists around the world, we have been able twice to defeat the Clinton administration's attempt to get fast-track trade negotiating authority. This would give the US President the power to negotiate new trade agreements and then bring them back to the US Congress for fast-track approval, with no amendments and limited time for debate.

During the Committee hearing, the trade officials were attacked by US Senators from both sides - from the free trade critics for continuing to pursue the liberalisation agenda, and from the free trade supporters for the officials' incompetence. Our US Trade Representative candidly said that what is holding the US back from negotiating new trade agreements is not the lack of a fast-track authority but the fact that governments around the globe know that free trade is so unpopular in the USA. They do not want to waste their time negotiating a deal which would later be defeated. She acknowledged that public opinion is her big problem.

Their attempts to change public opinion have demonstrated astounding ineptitude. For example, our Commerce Secretary went on a bus tour around the USA to educate the public about the benefits of free trade. It was a complete disaster. He was confronted everywhere he went by people who felt that their own lives had been negatively affected by the policies of free trade. Also, he was followed by another bus full of steelworkers with banners saying, 'Free Trade is Bad for Workers'. He decided to cut the trip short.

The second blunder is to have the WTO Ministerial meeting in the USA. Clinton's idea is to bring together the world's trade leaders in an attempt to boost public support for free trade and in turn win fast-track authority. They picked the city of Seattle as a symbol of the globalised economy for the future. Seattle has many of high-tech industries and it is located on the Pacific coast facilitating a lot of trade with Asia. They failed to take account of the fact that this is a city with a very strong labour movement, a strong environmental movement, and a local government that is very sympathetic to these issues and constituencies.

So I predict that in two weeks' time they will have a debacle on their hands. They are bringing 134 trade ministers, while the labour unions, environmental and family-farming movements and so on, are bringing tens of thousands of people from around the world. Seattle harbour, which they had hoped would be a symbol of prosperity through export, will be shut down during the WTO meeting thanks to the Longshoremen's Union. Seattle skyscrapers, which they hoped would symbolise high-tech wealth, will likely be covered with a multitude of anti-WTO banners thanks to the training of hundreds of activists who have taught themselves how to scale buildings. The local government, instead of giving the WTO a warm welcome, has declared the city a 'MAI-Free Zone', just in case the ministers think about pushing for more investment rules. So instead of the glistening showcase for free trade that Clinton was hoping for, we anticipate a showcase for the citizens' backlash.

I would like to be able to report that the US NGOs are a unified, well-oiled machine and have come together in solidarity in preparing for Seattle. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The principle division is between those groups calling for no new round versus those proposing new rules for the WTO. To me, the positions are not as far apart as it may appear. If the WTO were eliminated, this would merely be a first step toward creating the new rules that we need to govern the world economy, to control corporations and to protect workers and the environment. The groups arguing for new rules say that if these are not adopted they will not support the WTO. Since it is unlikely that new rules will be adopted in Seattle, I think that in the end all these different groups will end up in the same place. I hope that when we are in Seattle we will be able to overcome these differences and present a united front.

It would be helpful if all groups working on the WTO could commit themselves to a broad agenda that includes the interests of the various groups. We get into trouble when we focus on very narrow goals. This happened recently in the USA when the President of the AFL-CIO trade union federation signed, along with 28 corporate CEOs, a letter to Clinton. It included one line about the WTO Working Party on Labor Rights. Otherwise, it was very much the corporate agenda with an overall message that the signatories support the Clinton line. It was a public relations disaster, with massive media coverage of leaders of NGOs and even some of the AFL-CIO's strongest affiliated unions criticizing the AFL-CIO. There was not even consensus in the labour movement. Unfortunately, it gave the impression that the AFL-CIO has only this one narrow goal whereas, really, it has a much broader agenda. There are efforts in the AFL-CIO to find common ground with other groups. Their agenda does include concerns for the environment and issues of not undermining national legislation through the WTO, economic inequality and financial instability.

We are in a new era. People realize we have power and are trying to figure out how much we have and how we should use it and particularly what we can really gain in this situation. I only hope that some lessons have been learned about the dangers of focusing on narrow goals. We are all fighting for citizens to have the power to write the rules for the new global economy in ways that will support workers, the environment and communities around the world.

Discussion

Susan George: In Europe we have an impression of competency in the office of the US Special Trade Representative, so I am happy to hear that Sarah finds them incompetent. Every time we, or the South, lose a case to the US, they bring another eight or nine. That place has been described as a 'war-room' where they are planning which countries and which sectors to go after and attack using the dispute resolution mechanism as a juggernaut to get the jurisprudence that they want so as to knock down one barrier after another. High subsidies to local education institutions have just been described as a 'technical barrier to trade' and that means our national universities. We see the US going after one thing after another, reading the script of the TNCs. How are they incompetent?

Sarah Anderson: They are incompetent in terms of changing public opinion in the US. They really believed that if they could win the banana case, they could win US public opinion to the WTO. That is how clueless they are. I certainly do not want to downplay their ruthlessness in putting issues of commerce above everything else, and in being very clever and strategic operators.

Gareth Api-Richards: Philippine NGOs should be congratulated for their comprehensive and concise set of demands including both long and short-term goals. US and European organisations of civil society, including trade unions, are calling for labour standards to be included as an ameliorative measure. What are the arguments of Southern NGOs on labour rights standards?

Audience Participant: Why is free trade unpopular in the USA? It is the major country of capitalism and free market economy. Is it true that free trade is unpopular on a mass scale or is this still a very isolated opinion? Secondly, what is the attitude of the WTO toward countries with a socialist economy?

Dot Keet: I am very proud to report from Africa. We have had a series of conferences, seminars and workshops, from Accra, to Dhaka, to Nairobi, to Manzini, to Johannesburg. They included Christian Councils of Africa, the economic justice network, the debt network, the environmental and development networks, and trade unions. We picked up the global CSO Declaration, endorsed it and added particular African points. Our Declaration, which is on the Internet, has three dimensions: the defensive, the proactive, and the radical.

• The defensive: no new round, no new issues, review and reform the Uruguay Round particularly for its effects on the least-developed countries, most of which are in Africa.
• The proactive - Four demands:
  • Agriculture, which has a fundamental and multifunctional role in Africa and least-developed countries, must be excluded from the WTO
  • TRIMs must be revised to allow local content towards industrialisation
  • Support the Kenyan and OAU position on TRIPs calling for the non-patentability of life-forms in defence of community knowledge and biodiversity
  • Defense of special and differential terms and their extension and consolidation in terms of coverage and timing.
• The radical: either reform the WTO and make it thoroughly democratic, accountable and appropriate for all countries of the world or take the functions away from the WTO that properly belong to United Nations specialist agencies and/or create agencies for those purposes.

We call on African governments to support us in our demands.

Jessica Woodroffe: It is important for the Northern NGOs to hear and understand the Southern NGOs' perspectives. The Philippines' position is a very clear one. It would be good to hear how you got to the thinking behind it. Secondly, I agree that trade rules are needed. What are the positive alternative trade rules?

Walden Bello: The meeting of NGOs in the Philippines was initially called to exchange ideas and to our own surprise we came to consensus fairly easily. It was decided to pull this together and call on the Government to work with us to push the agenda in Seattle. The only disagreement was precisely on the issue of labour standards. Both NGOs supportive of labour rights and many trade unions generally in the South, with significant exceptions, do not want decision-making power on linkages and dispute resolution to be in the hands of the WTO but taken up in another agreement in the ILO with its own dispute resolution mechanism. They are not against the linkage between trade and labour standards but argue that this should not be enforceable under the WTO regime. It is true that among a minority there is a suspicion that this is really a form of protectionism. However, I don't believe that many see this as the real essence.

Dot Keet summed up the elements of the strategy. Working both outside and inside will help to overload the system with demands so that it becomes non-functioning. This includes calling into question the character of the WTO because it is extremely undemocratic. 'Consensus' is really the rule of the four powers that dominate the WTO. There are many ambiguities and contradictions within the WTO that we should exploit. There may be some groups which are saying 'Bad rules are better than no rules". However, I think we are saying 'No rules are better than bad rules".

Susan George: What sort of rules do we want? There is a body of international law that has been established with great difficulty - human rights law, the Conventions of the ILO, the multilateral agreements on the environment.

The WTO should not be allowed to abrogate or reverse any of these bodies of law. Any decisions that the WTO makes, including that of the dispute resolution mechanism, should be subservient to these international laws and treaties. There should be a transparent naming of the people who make WTO decisions. They should be examined on their knowledge not just of trade law but also of other relevant subjects such as public health, the environment, etc. There are whole sectors, which have no business inside the WTO, such as education, health, culture, language.

I think that special and differential treatment for the South should be extended and maintained for a much longer period of time. The South has made many concessions and they did not get what they thought there were agreeing to in the signing of the Uruguay Round. The US is saying that they must conform now, after five years, but they need a longer period of time to adapt.

The only constituency, which is really heard by the WTO currently, is that of corporations or the TNCs. One might say that this is normal because TNCs control two-thirds of world trade directly or indirectly. But when the WTO meets with corporate executives in the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, for example, there should also be discussions with environmentalists, trade unionists, etc.

I also believe in positive discrimination. I do not believe that we can have 'free trade' when all the costs are externalised by some and when all the costs, internalized by others. I would encourage the internalisation of costs or the creation of a mechanism to establish a floor rather than a ceiling. At present, the WTO establishes ceilings for standards and norms. If we want sustainable development then we must have a mechanism that establishes floors and positive discrimination. So, for example, if we have two suppliers of an identical product we can give preference to the one that is doing the most to invest in sustainable development and working people. And we must reverse the burden of proof on the precautionary principle.

Ilka Schroeder: There are parallels on the trade and military fronts. The NATO intervention in Kosovo without UN approval was very dangerous. Yet there was little public outrage in Europe, and even now there is no review. I feel there are close linkages between a military implementation of a world police and the system of economic ruling from mainly the US over the rest of the world.

Sarah Anderson: Why are people in the US opposed to free trade? Most public opinion polls show this. Even though we have an economic boom, and record employment, people are feeling that the benefits of this boom are not being spread equitably. CEO pay has gone up 380%. The value of the stock market has gone up 200%. Average wages have gone up 28%, only slightly above inflation. Managers respond to workers asking for higher wages by saying they can move the factory to Mexico or hire others for one-tenth the wages. They rightly feel that globalisation is having a downward pressure on wages. A study including 600 unions around the country showed that in 62% of cases the managers threatened to shut down the plant and move to a lower wage country when workers requested higher wages.

NAFTA was a tremendous educational experience for our country. It was the first time that ordinary people were engaged in a debate about international economic issues. Many delegations from unions, churches, etc. went to the US-Mexico border and met with workers from a developing country and learned what their lives were like. It opened people's eyes also made them feel that they had the right to voice their opinions. It was no longer just within the realm of the economists and Wall Street to make these policies. Seattle, for those groups working around NAFTA in Mexico, Canada and the US, will be the culmination of the work that has been going on for ten years around free trade.

Myriam vander Stichele: Is it a good option to revert many issues to UN specialist agencies that are not very strong or influential? Should we also be looking at subsidiarity and what is truly international because it is traded? What are the various strategies and what is most appropriate at the regional levels versus at the national levels?

On the question of agriculture it is small farmers in the North and the South, which are losing out. To say that all subsidies in the North should be abolished is very dangerous. Rather, all export subsidies should be ended and we need clearly defined subsidies to make sure we have sustainable and healthy food production in the North as well.

Audience Participant: I work for an international coalition of organizations involved in health policy, including Doctors Without Borders and Health Action International, plus some other groups in the US. We are looking at the consequences of TRIPs on access to essential drugs in developing countries particularly. We are holding a conference in ten days time. Last week we sent an open letter to WTO members. We set out a strategy on two different paths, and I would like comments from this group.

On the one hand, we are saying that the present patent system under TRIPs needs a new approach. On the other, there are provisions within TRIPs that countries can use to increase their access to essential drugs thus ensuring the generic manufacturing, which will make use of parallel imports of cheaper drugs. At the same time, countries are bullied by the US and big pharmaceutical companies to implement TRIPs plus much more than the actual requirements of TRIPs if they want access to these drugs.

A student of international relations: What would happen while an overhaul of the WTO takes place? Who would rule world trade then?

Another student: What are the chances of something substantial even happening?

Jessica Woodroffe: I want to push more on the radical alternative. Some who argue for the
democratisation of the WTO are actually talking about the democratization of trade liberalization. We need to be clear about what we, and understand what others, are demanding.

Dot Keet: Our document is a tactical document. Each point leads on to the next. Our radical position is radical. We feel that too many things have been appropriated and pulled into the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO, which are not their appropriate domain. We do not idealize the UN agencies, but we must strengthen and democratize those UN agencies that need this in order to confront the WTO. UNCTAD X is taking place in Bangkok in February 2000 and should be an important focus for this kind of campaign.

There are five possible scenarios:

1. Worst case: full multilateral round and new issues coming in.
2. More likely but very problematic: some sort of multi-sectoral round under the cap of a 'development' round, with persuasive add-ons, and some or most of the new issues.
3. No immediate round, but suspended until a full survey and completion of the built-in agenda.
4. No multilateral round but on-going negotiations on specific issues in the built-in agenda.
5. Fundamental challenge to the WTO; new negotiations halted, and a full-scale review undertaken of the role, functioning and purposes of the WTO.

Too many things are being placed in the WTO and it is not the appropriate institution, not because of its modus operandi but because of the principles upon which it is based. Trade is a very crude instrument to deal with very complex issues. If the WTO is left with a function it should be a very limited function, such as anti-dumping and other technical matters.

Susan George: Since trade is almost entirely driven by TNCs, there is a dwindling share, which you can call 'national trade'. There is no empirical evidence that I can find, and even some neo-liberal economists agree, that there is any connection between welfare and trade, or even between growth and trade. There is no clear evidence that trade improves anyone's life.

I would suggest that the best thing to do is to bring economies much closer to the people, that we attempt to rehabilitate the local, to redirect the state's attention to doing what it can for its people, and that international trade should be the last resort, with appropriate rules.

But right now we are going in the opposite direction. The Agreement on Agriculture is saying that we need a big world supermarket where we all go to find our basic necessities rather than buy from local farmers. They are saying, our healthcare might as well be operationalised by the Health Management Organizations (HMOs) of the USA. So, our public services must be opened up to those bidding. The attitude is that everything, including public services, must be internationalised, globalised, and open for tender and I feel that there must be resistance. In France, we spent a lot of time on an alternative framework to the MAI and I feel much of this thinking could be applied to trade.

I am not terribly worried about how things will function while the WTO is being examined, as we had a world, which worked better before it was set up. We could go back to the GATT system, which did lumber along. We have goals and aspirations, and we don't have blueprints. But it is very rare than anyone ever does. Big questions, movements and revolutions are not decided upon with blue-prints. They evolve through interaction, discussion and solidarity. Pascal Lamy was quoted in a recent Financial Times, "The fallout from a breakdown could be serious. If some NGOs thought they had succeeded in destroying some further liberalization, we would be confronted with the real problem". So I want to invite everyone to create a real problem for Pascal Lamy.

Ilka Schroeder: We need to define what trade should be about. Trade should serve the needs of the people, and this is what is not happening. Subsidiarity is important. I think many people active against the WTO would agree with the need to regionalise economies and trade in addition to social and environmental issues. We do not need to oppose trade in general, but we need to consider what can be produced at a regional level, and if that is not possible then at national and then international levels. I think this would help solve a lot of problems.

Of course, it is always easier to criticise and find consensus on what we dislike, than on where we want to go, because there is no alternative economic system we can talk about. Capitalism is rarely challenged any more. It exists without having to prove or defend itself. It is harder for us to provide alternatives at this point in time. It is important however, to collect examples of alternative ideas and develop them further. We will see how a common approach is developed in Seattle.

I did not say that we should not have subsidies but I did say we should have subsidies within an ecological, regional and socially fair system.

Susan George: There is a huge fight within China now about whether they should join the WTO or not. Those who would like to join are ahead. Vietnam would also like to be inside. North Korea is not a member and, as far as I know, is not making any gestures to become one anytime soon.

Ilka Schroeder: It is true that democratisation of the WTO might mean democratisation of more free trade. So, we have to offer our solutions as a package. If only one element is implemented, it could make the WTO look better but not necessarily change anything. For example, if we include NGOs in the WTO, and that is the only change, then it does not necessarily help.

Sarah Anderson: On the question of subsidies, rather than all or nothing, perhaps a better way to look at this is to differentiate between good and bad subsidies. In the USA, subsidies now tend to encourage over-production, which hurts the environment and lowers prices around the world. If, however, we had subsidies that support a transition to organic agriculture or to set aside land for the environment, this would tend to increase prices.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about alternatives. We started with groups in Mexico and Canada around NAFTA, and expanded to groups in other countries of our hemisphere. There is a 50-page document, available on the Internet, which is an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It articulates the idea of trade as a means to achieve the goals we care about, like reducing inequalities between and within countries, and reducing financial instability around the globe, and not trade as an end in itself. It puts the goals first and tries to come up with rules to guide economic integration that would support them, not just increase corporate profits.

At first, the Americans and Canadian unions came in saying "We want labour rights in NAFTA". The Mexicans replied, 'Well, you can put that in, but if you do so you must put in our main concerns, like debt relief. If we don't get out of the debt burden, there will never be reduced incentives for US corporations to come down here to exploit our people. We will always be trying to attract foreign investment by any means necessary". So, when we talk about labour rights, we must also include debt relief, better ways of using foreign aid and reforming the IMF and World Bank. There is a clear need for a comprehensive package and to think holistically around these issues.

Walden Bello: I agree with what Myriam has raised about subsidies. We in the South are concerned about subsidies, which are the driving force of exports and about the very high level of subsidisation of corporate farmers and corporate interests that leads to the tremendous dislocation in trade and the suffering of small farmers.

The rise of the WTO cannot be separated from the hegemony of neo-classical economic ideology. Although theoretically the case for free markets and free trade leading to welfare for all seems, for some, to be compelling, there is no empirical data to support this claim. Yet, the forces that be have managed to ram it through. This is the point where ideology and interests must work together. It means that in any fight with the WTO we have to reformulate our values and our priorities. The notion of trade above everything else, leading to the greatest efficiency, as defined by the neo-classical theorists, is just wrong and has to go. We have to be very frank about our values, such as solidarity of communities, development, a whole set of human and social values which take precedence over trade. We need a paradigm, which re-embeds the economy back into the community, instead of having the economy drive the community, which has been so destructive.

We can also see the rise of the WTO as a reaction to the rise of the South and to UNCTAD. In the 1960s and 1970s, UNCTAD elaborated a set of principles that said that trade has to serve national objectives, welfare, etc. This was completely turned around by the WTO. The principles of UNCTAD, such as special and differential treatment, have become marginal principles in the WTO, instead of the other way around.

So we are moving toward reformulating and reclaiming these basic values. We are leading towards de-globalisation of the economies and a strengthening of the principle of subsidiarity. What can be produced locally should be because, when viewed holistically, it is more effective. It keeps societies together and keeps the economy serving the interests of the people.

In the end, Seattle will be a battle of values.