Posted by WTO Watch Qld on November 9, 2001 at 00:31:58:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Time changes everything and the distance between Seattle and Doha appears long.
But the problems remain the same."
The Nigerian delegation commenting on the WTO's draft Ministerial text for Doha
.THE NEW ROUND---November 9-13
a) WTO Meeting Endangered by its Own Draft Declaration, Not Bombs
b) A Mockery of a Multilateral Trading System. Who is Accountable?
Comments on the New Round
c) Developing Countries
1) India
2) Thailand
3) Nigeria
d) Animal Welfare
e) Consumers
f) The Environment
g) Web sites for New Round documents
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a) TRADE: WTO Meet Endangered by Own Draft Declaration, Not Bombs
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Oct 30 (IPS) - The authorities in Qatar have 12,000 uniformed
agents ready to protect the delegations to the fourth ministerial
conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) next week, but they have
no way to ensure harmony among the trade ministers representing the 142
member states.
The climate of international insecurity arising from the Sep 11 terrorist
attacks in New York and Washington, and the subsequent US-led military
strikes against Afghanistan, had raised doubts as to whether the
ministerial conference would be held at all.
But preparations are receiving their final touches for the meet in Doha,
Qatar's capital, for the confirmed Nov 9-13 event.
The organising committee has announced that it can guarantee the security
of the approximately 4,000 participants expected to arrive in the Persian
Gulf emirate next week.
However, no one is providing any assurances about the political success of
the gathering, and even less so since the release this week in Geneva of
the final draft of the conference's declaration, which is to be submitted
to the ministers for debate, and ultimately their signatures.
The text presented by Stuart Harbinson, chair of the WTO General Council,
triggered a chorus of protests, some considered exaggerated - coming from
the European Union and other industrialised countries -, and some that were
to be expected - coming from the developing South and from the group of
Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in particular.
The declaration also came under fire from non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) specialising in trade issues, charging that it is biased in favour
of industrialised countries.
The draft document produced by Harbinson, Hong Kong's representative before
the WTO, needs improvement, say European officials, who want the
negotiations in Doha to cover a broad range of issues in order to dillute
and counterbalance the difficulties they are facing in debate on the key
area of agricultural trade.
The draft document covers the principal aspirations of the Europeans by
proposing the opening of talks on ''new issues,'' which include competition
rules, investment, transparency in public contracts and the faciliation of
trade.
But Pascal Lamy, the EU's trade commissioner, complained that the text does
not meet Europe's expectations on matters like the environment and the
relationship of the WTO with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as
far as basic labour standards.
The criticisms coming from the developing world, meanwhile, were expressed
in more general terms.
Speaking on behalf of the LDCs, Tanzanian negotiator Ali Said Mchumo stated
that the final document reflects the demands of industrialised countries.
''Overall, one could say the balance is tilted against developing
countries, and certainly against the views of LDCs,'' said Mchumo.
Along the same lines, the Nigerian delegation before the WTO said the text
is ''unsatisfactoy because it is one-sided... and accommodates in total the
interests of developed countries, while disregarding the concerns of the
developing and least developed countries.''
A Latin American trade negotiator observed that Harbinson's final draft of
the declaration is a variation on the previous version, as the items of
greatest interest to developing countries are now expressed in potential
terms, replacing the imperative tone of older drafts.
As far as the relationship of public health and trade-related intellectual
property rights, a matter developing countries consider particularly
important, the chair of the WTO General Council failed to come up with a
compromise text, so he presented two versions of that chapter.
One version incorporates the demands of African countries, and of Brazil
and India, in favour of maximum flexibility in access to medications,
allowing governments to supercede the patents held by pharmaceutical
laboratories in cases of health emergencies - like the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The alternative version of the chapter represents the position of the
industrialised countries, which are home to the big pharmaceutical
transnationals, pointed out Mchumo.
Oxfam International, a non-governmental humanitarian group based in London,
says the United States, alongside Japan, Switzerland and Canada, ''are
obstructing attempts to strengthen health safeguards in the WTO agreement
on patents, putting at risk the lives of millions of people living in
poverty.''
The drug industry ''has been lobbying on an unprecedented scale to stop any
threats to the sanctity of their patents,'' stated David Earnshaw, director
of Oxfam's campaign for access to low- cost medications.
Meanwhile, the Global Citizens Movement, consisting of 13 NGOs, charges
that the United States ''has led unbending opposition to the implementation
agenda,'' referring to another key demand of developing countries: wealthy
nations must enact the trade treaties they have left pending.
The Nigerian delegation stated that ''all implementation issues should be
addressed and resolved at Doha, in accordance with an earlier decision of
the General Council.
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b)
(ED: This is a very long article which I have shortened. The full text-well worth reading-is available on request.)
A MOCKERY OF A MULTILATERAL TRADING SYSTEM: WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE?
By Shefali Sharma
IATP-Geneva
October 29, 2001
An initial look at the unarticulated and non-transparent process leading up
to the 4th WTO Ministerial Meeting. Many developing country delegations in
Geneva blame the blatant biased role of the Secretariat (Director General
Mike Moore promoting negotiations on a much broader agenda than all its
members are willing to accept) and the bilateral power used by the Quad (EC
and US in particular) both in Geneva and in capitals to change country
positions and break developing country coalitions. The Secretariat says it
is member driven, yet the Director General (DG) has consistently campaigned
for a "New Round" of negotiations in spite of vast disagreement and no
consensus on this issue by WTO members. Why did the first drafts of the
ministerial texts released on 26 September, create such and uproar by many
developing countries? What was the process that led up to that draft and
the one that will be released today or tomorrow? Who is Accountable?
This article highlights certain processes and events leading up to the 4th
Ministerial Conference of the WTO in an effort that Civil Society may begin
to piece together and critique a vague and mysterious process of an
organization that has sweeping implications on domestic policies of 142
Nation-States. The article shows how even blocks of Southern Countries and
their repeated and clear statements have not reflected the final outcome of
key decisions in this multilateral institution. The next drafts for Doha,
released late in the evening of October 27, have yielded the same results.
The "consultation process," as was suspected, has indeed failed to present a
bracketed text that represents fairly the opinions of a large majority of
WTO members.
PART I
A Deeper Look at the Green Rooms and the