Resolutions, Nuclear Disarmament Conference, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 18-20 February 2000: Resolutions

Resolutions, Nuclear Disarmament Conference, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 18-20 February 2000: Resolutions

Resolution I

The Conference, recognizing the link between nuclear power and military nuclearization, and being aware of the risks in safety and disposal of nuclear wastes, recommends that Bangladesh desist from plans for setting up a nuclear power plant at Ruppur. It is admitted that Bangladesh needs more power, but it should be secured from alternative sources available to it, including natural gas.

Resolution II

This Conference endorses and supports the proposal made by the Mayor of Hiroshima, Mr. Tadatoshi Akiba, that the survivors of the A-bomb attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Resolution III

The Conference urges all states to hold the UN Disarmament Conference immediately with a view to promoting denuclearization on the one hand, and demilitarization on the other, and make resources available for social development.

The Dhaka Declaration

More than 150 activists and concerned citizens from 14 countries of South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and the United States, representing a broad cross-section of peoples' movements, civil society organizations, professions and academic institutions, and belonging to varied linguistic, ethnic and religious groups, met at a conference in Dhaka from February 18 to 20, 2000 and deliberated on issues related to the spread of nuclear weaponry and its impact on society and security. The conference was organized by the Community Development Library (Dhaka) and Focus on the Global South (Bangkok and Mumbai). The participants adopted the following Declaration:

By conducting nuclear tests in 1998, embracing the doctrine of deterrence, and undertaking the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, India and Pakistan have gravely endangered their own and the region's security and set back the global nuclear disarmament agenda. This nuclearization imitates hegemonic states whose nuclear weapons represent the gravest danger to global security.

It is imperative that India and Pakistan cease all activity pertaining to the development, manufacture, induction or deployment of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. They must immediately dismantle these programmes and sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other restraint measures as steps towards nuclear disarmament, and as part of their return to the global disarmament agenda.

India's and Pakistan's nuclearization has made the entire South Asian region hostage to their mutual rivalry and compromised its security. Nuclear weapons will impose unaffordable social and economic costs upon India and Pakistan, considerably worsen the hardships of their poorest people, and lead to repercussions in the neighbouring countries.

The Conference deplores the hardening of nuclear postures in the region as expressed in India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine and Pakistan's announcement of a Command and Control structure.

Nuclearization has escalated mutual suspicion and hostility between India and Pakistan, as witnessed in the Kargil conflict. It has strengthened communal, militarist, authoritarian and centralizing political tendencies within the two countries. The rapidly worsening security environment
cannot be redressed by standard confidence-building and crisis-defusing measures. This is why the Conference calls for an immediate freezing and dismantling of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear and missile programmes.

India's and Pakistan's nuclearization has undermined regional cooperation and sabotaged SAARC. This must be immediately reversed. Meanwhile, the Conference calls upon the other members of SAARC to pressure India and Pakistan to enter into an effective dialogue for peace and security in the region.

As the strategic, social and economic repercussions of the nuclearization of India and Pakistan extend beyond their borders, the neighbouring states of Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka must use both their individual and collective influence to bring about the declaration of South Asia as a nuclear weapons-free zone. They should also explore innovative affiliations, such as the possibility of joining the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (the Bangkok Treaty).

The Conference calls on the US, Russia, U.K., France and China to honour their disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as re-emphasized by the 1996 World Court Judgement, and to ratify, and live up to the spirit of the CTBT by closing down their test sites and halting development of new weapons designs. They must also immediately undertake further steps towards disarmament such as the fissile materials treaty, taking nuclear weapons off alert and work towards a convention to abolish nuclear weapons. We oppose all proposals for ballistic missile systems, including research. The US and Russia must further the START process. Japan should cease cooperation with the US on Theatre Missile Defence systems. The Conference calls on the people of US, Russia, U.K., France and China to pressure their respective governments into adopting these measures and strengthening the call for global nuclear disarmament.

The Conference also appeals to civil society organizations in all South Asian countries to place nuclear disarmament on their agenda and build an effective coalition around this goal.

Nuclear weapons programmes have gravely damaged people's health and environment. Immediate steps must be taken to remedy this. The Conference is also aware that the abolition of nuclear weapons cannot be sustained without ending reliance on nuclear power generation which has damaging social and ecological impacts. It therefore calls for pursuing alternative, sustainable, energy paths in the region.

Nuclear Weapons are immoral, illegal and strategically irrational. It is imperative to adopt a wholly non-militaristic approach to security which is based on the fundamental and inviolable right of all South Asians to peace, sustainable development and justice.

'Peace Builds, Bombs Destroy'

Official Statement. UNCTAD and Civil Society: Towards Our Common Goals

We, organizations of civil society meeting at an NGO Plenary Caucus held in Bangkok on 7-8 February 2000, welcome the holding of UNCTAD X and would like to put forward a number of proposals that have resulted from our deliberations.

We wish at the outset, to make explicit the values, aspirations, and concerns that we share as civil society organizations, many of which are also shared by member governments of UNCTAD. It was such concerns that civil society and some governments had in common in the recent and historic processes in Seattle.

We oppose the promotion and imposition of neoliberal theories and programs incorporating liberalization, selective deregulation, privatization and the commercialization of all aspects of human life and endeavors. And we are opposed to the usurping of the roles of national governments and citizens'democratic rights by global institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO.

Instead, we propose the development of a system of global governance that respects local democratic prerogatives and is based on global conventions agreed to at the United Nations. The principles of such a pluralistic and participatory form of international governance must constitute the over-arching principles and regulatory frameworks within which all global, regional, national and local governmental institutions and corporations, and all people, should cooperate.

These fundamental principles must be based on the primacy of human rights obligations, which include the principles of non-discrimination, progressive realisation and non-retrogression. Such a system must also include the principles of diversity and holistic and integrated
development, based not only on economic but also political, social, gender, cultural and environmental dimensions. These must promote human cooperation and the basic needs of people, as opposed to the neoliberal promotion of untrammeled competition and a race to the bottom.

These principles promote institutional deconcentration and decentralisation of power and devolved decision-making at global, regional, national and local levels. They also seek to foster greater transparency and accountability. The methods and means are as important as the aims of all
development strategies. These means are not only intellectual efforts and policy debates, but include changing power relations in all institutions and sectors and at all levels of society. This, in turn, demands the empowering and mobilizing of ever wider numbers of people and the building of coalitions of popular organisations and international alliances.

A New Deal

1. Agriculture and Food Security

Food sovereignty is a fundamental right of each nation and food security - accessibility, affordability and adequate nutrition - the right of all people. For developing countries, food security is a matter of livelihood security. Therefore disciplines on agricultural trade which curb developing countries' ability to implement policies for food security should be taken out of the WTO.

Governments should uphold and protect peoples' right to equitable access and management of land, water and natural resources, including seeds. Life forms must not be commodified; therefore, we reject any form of Intellectual Property Rights on life. Sustainable forms of agriculture
should be promoted and cooperatives at the local, national or international levels strengthened.

In achieving these, we urge UNCTAD to recognise the negative social consequences of contract farming and oppose its continued extension by corporate agribusiness as a means of rural development.

The TRIPS agreement article, 27.3(b) encourages biopiracy. UNCTAD should provide leadership and capacity in the establishment of sui generis systems based on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in order to protect community rights over resources and the strengthening of national laws against biopiracy.

UNCTAD should lead developing countries in negotiating for adequate competition disciplines on agribusiness. It should also lead in providing a mechanism for protecting developing countries from the dumping of cheap food.

UNCTAD should strengthen the capacity of developing countries in tightly regulating trade in genetically modified organisms based on a strong precautionary principle and a biosafety protocol, through supporting the creation of national or regional technical bodies.

UNCTAD should promote regional or South-South cooperation and fair trade in agriculture and fisheries in order to encourage greater diversification, sustainability and self-reliance in food production in and amongst developing countries.

UNCTAD should constructively address the issue of the long-term decline in the terms of trade of commodities for developing countries.

2. Debt and Reparations

A new deal for developing countries has to be premised upon fundamental resolution of the debt crisis.

Existing proposals for debt "relief" do not release the indebted countries from debt bondage nor address the fundamental causes and recurrence of the debt problem. Instead, they further subject developing countries' people and economies to the pressures and dictates of creditor countries, institutions and corporations.

We reject the HIPC initiative, and the repacking and perpetuation of the IMF and the World Bank structural adjustment programmes under the guise of the growth and poverty reduction facility.

We support the move to build an international alliance among governments and civil society that would press for a new arrangement for the cancellation of all debt of developing countries which, in the judgment of civil society, is illegitimate, immoral or unpayable. We further demand that the control of the process dealing with debt be removed from the hands of the Creditors including the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club. A new independent, transparent arrangement accountable to civil society must be put in place. Such an arrangement must ensure full restitution and reparations to the people from those responsible for the human, social, political and environmental damage inflicted on developing countries and their people.

3. Finance

We urge UNCTAD to press for the abolition of IMF and World Bank stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes, whatever the name these go under.

In light of the failure of the G7 to seriously respond to the crying need for a transformed global financial architecture, UNCTAD should actively discuss and make proposals in this area and help forge an agreement among its member countries that would put such a system in place. This
architecture should involve capital controls at national, regional and international levels, including the Tobin tax. These innovations are necessary for global financial and economic stability. The design of this architecture must not be dictated by the policies or interests of the banks, hedge funds, the IMF, World Bank, and the finance ministries of the G7 countries. UNCTAD should also press for the abolition of tax havens in countries and territories.

UNCTAD should ensure that the dynamics of finance capital does not destroy the social, cultural and natural capital that supports, among other things, the achievement of food security.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that UNCTAD stand for the democratic transformation of international financial institutions which have impacted negatively on national economic sovereignty under the guise of rescuing countries facing economic crisis.

4. Labour

The current approach to trade and development has significantly worsened the situation of workers around the world. We strongly believe that UNCTAD member governments have the clear responsibility to guarantee the fundamental labour rights of their citizens, and we recognise our responsibility as civil society organisations to provide solidarity and to help strengthen labour movements of the South.

All UNCTAD member governments should immediately ratify and ensure effective implementation of the core ILO conventions, specifically Convention 87 (Freedom of Association), Convention 29 and 105 (Forced Labor), Convention 100 (Equal Pay for Equal Work), Convention 111 (Discrimination in Employment), Convention 98 (Organize & Collective Bargaining), and Convention 138 and 182 (Minimum
Age & Child Labor). UNCTAD member governments must recognize and allow labor to play a significant role in designing and deciding on all aspects of trade and development policy.

Corporate globalisation has caused a rapidly increasing trend toward the casualisation of labour and marginalisation of vulnerable groups of workers - especially children, working women, migrant workers, fish workers, commercial sex workers, home workers and other workers in the informal sector. Added protection and promotion of the fundamental rights of these vulnerable groups beyond the existing ILO tripartite system is urgently needed. Further, we believe that there should not be discriminatory misuse of labour rights in North-South exchanges for economic advantage.

UNCTAD and its member governments must recognise that respect for and implementation of fundamental labour rights have a strongly beneficial impact for sustainable development because they address critical development questions by improving equality, distributing income and increasing participation in development.

A new development paradigm must be established that recognises the key role of labour rights within a perspective of development and human rights.

We believe that UNCTAD should promote an understanding of the beneficial connection between labor rights, human rights, and sustainable development as a matter of priority.

The Challenge to UNCTAD

UNCTAD can play a critical role in shaping a more equitable and democratic world. UNCTAD's research and analysis has already played a key role in exposing the negative effects of globalisation and suggesting alternative policies for addressing them.

However, UNCTAD's approach must now be made more fully consistent with its development mandate. The core UNCTAD assumption that full, albeit gradual, integration of developing countries in the world economy as the way to prosperity must be questioned in light of the many negative consequences of globalisation - which are so painfully evident in many countries. UNCTAD's analysis must also incorporate human rights approaches to economic governance, and advances in ecological and feminist economics that propose a different paradigm from neo-liberal economics, by subordinating narrow efficiency to the values of social reproduction and solidarity, social and gender equity, and environmental integrity. In addition, UNCTAD should pay greater attention to the great diversity of existing economic practices that emphasise cooperation, rather than competition-driven economic relations.

In seeking external intellectual advice and input, UNCTAD should also reverse its tendency to consult mainly with experts based in Northern research institutions, and seek greater input from developing country-based researchers, scholars and thinkers.

UNCTAD must also focus on internal social transformation in the economies of countries in both the North and the South. In particular, it should encourage countries to ensure the right to a dignified and adequate basic livelihood income for each person. However, the implications of UNCTAD's analysis of growing inequalities not only between, but also within nations North and South, has not led to any meaningful political debate and initiative by its Member states. The absence of significant attention to internal social transformation owes itself to a simplistic North-South model of international relations that ignores social contradictions cutting across the North-South divide. UNCTAD must see itself as representing the interests of marginalized people in both the North and the South.

Proposals for UNCTAD

International trade and investment rules promoted by the dominant global economic institutions are aimed at creating a "level playing field" between all economic players, irrespective of their scale and economic power. This understanding of "non-discrimination" in national treatment provisions assumes that equal rules should apply to very unequal players. So far, this tendency has only been resisted through "special and differential treatment" provisions, which in the WTO, most often do not have contractual status and rely on artificial and arbitrary time frames unrelated to need and capacity.

We call for a human rights application of "non-discrimination", which is premised on the need for affirmative action by the state to protect and promote vulnerable groups and sectors to avoid discrimination and further marginalization. In other words, these measures are not a special favour granted to developing countries and their citizens, but are fundamental components of their right to development.

On this basis, and with the support of civil society organisations, UNCTAD could play a catalytic role in launching an international movement aimed at ensuring that international economic policies and rules are not allowed to supersede national, regional and international measures
designed to protect and promote all human rights - including the right to development and widely-held social and environmental objectives. It would therefore reassert its capacity to counter-act what are in effect "development-distorting" trade and investment policies.

For this to happen, UNCTAD should:

• Undertake independent monitoring and assessments, disaggregated below the national level, of the developmental, social, gender and environmental impacts of trade/investment liberalisation and globalisation, and formulate proposals for addressing these problems.
• Undertake, in cooperation with other UN agencies, independent impact assessments of intellectual property regimes such as TRIPs on food security, development, health and technology transfer.
• Undertake with the FAO and the WTO, a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture and its Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.
• Undertake independent analysis, from a development perspective, of new proposals in areas such as labour, finance, investment, government procurement and competition, building on its on-going work such as that of the Trade and Development Report (TDR).
• Ensure that its work on foreign direct investment (FDI), transnational corporations (TNCs) and financial flows, particularly the World Investment Report is more independent and critical of the development impact of FDI, and more coherent with analytical work in other areas like the TDR.
• Approach with extreme caution proposals for any multilateral, regional or bilateral investment agreement, given the frequently negative impact of FDI and other forms of capital flows on peoples' welfare, national sovereignty and development.
• Educate and encourage its Member States to frame national antitrust policy and laws that would serve to empower small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and protect consumers against excessive market power of TNCs.
• Promote improved corporate governance and corporate transparency by encouraging the use of acceptable standards for financial, environmental, social, and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting; and, in addition, call on all member governments to adopt effective anti-corruption measures.
• Address imbalances and inequities of existing trade agreements, as well as problems relating to the implementation of such agreements, with a view to achieving the best options for the developmental and social needs of people in developing countries.
• Monitor the compatibility of trade agreements with other obligations undertaken by governments under UN treaties such as on human rights, environment, women and labour.
• Establish an Intergovernmental Group of Experts to discuss issues pertaining to consumer policy.
• Conduct an audit of the origins of the financial debts of developing countries and a parallel study of the historical and contemporary social and ecological debt owed by the North to the South.
• Encourage its Member governments to submit a formal request to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the legality of external debts of developing countries.

In all these areas, UNCTAD's work must be firmly rooted within its development mandate.

In order to strengthen the role, contribution and scrutiny of civil society in the work of the organization, UNCTAD must open up to civil society participation in its official deliberations including in the Trade and Development Board, the commissions and expert groups, on issues such as
competition policy, investment and consumer protection. To this end, UNCTAD must follow the lead of ECOSOC and review and extend its procedures and arrangements for granting consultative status to national civil society organisations.

In addition, UNCTAD should deepen and strengthen its commitment towards and report on the involvement of civil society as agreed at UNCTAD IX

Furthermore,UNCTAD could develop dynamic partnerships with civil society organisations to strengthen its outreach capacity at the national level, notably by fostering public and parliamentary debates around its policy proposals. This could be an important component to democratising economic governance in both developed and developing countries, and would contribute to making trade and finance ministries accountable to the wider social development objectives that economic policy should serve.

We hope UNCTAD X will consider the aforementioned recommendations, the implementation of which will contribute to the achievement of the common goals of equity, democracy, and sustainability that are shared by civil society, the Member governments of UNCTAD and its secretariat.