Posted by WTO Watch Qld on May 20, 2002 at 00:04:00:
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
'What we do now will matter forever.'
Young Australian of the Year, Scott Hocknull
'We would do well to remember that Earth can exist without an economy, but the ecomony cannot exist without an Earth.'
Rosie Caplan
Both quotes from the Autumn edition of OzPositive
email ozpos@linknet.com.au
1) CALL TO ACTION
2) GATS UPDATE
3) FOCUS ON THE WTO AND THE ENVIRONMENT
(a) The WTO and Multi-lateral Environment Agreements
(b) Press release--the WTO and MEA's
(c) Statement from World Wildlife Fund
(d) Global Warming and the Kyoto Protocol
(e) Antarctic Ice Shelves Collapse
(f) Tuvalu Is Sinking
(g) From the New Scientist
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1) CALLS TO ACTION
This is your opportunity to express any concerns you may have about the WTO and the GATS. The more submissions that go in, the more likely it is that government will begin listening. Remember, a submission does not have to be long and complex. A short letter briefly outlining your concerns is perfectly acceptable.
DFAT seeks submissions on WTO Negotiations by May 31
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is seeking public comments on Australian negotiating objectives for the new round of global trade negotiations launched at the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in November 2001 at Doha. These views will be considered as the Australian Government develops its positions for Australian participation in the negotiations. Comments are sought on general Australian negotiating objectives, specific aspects of the negotiations, as well as country and product specific issues. An initial task in many of these subject areas will be to identify appropriate negotiating methods (or modalities) to achieve liberalisation.
A background paper on the Doha negotiations can be found on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website at
www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/consultations_australians.html or can be obtained by writing to: Trade Policy Section, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, R. G. Casey Building, John McEwen Crescent, Barton, ACT, 0221
Public submissions on the negotiating objectives should be typed. They can be lodged electronically at wto.submissions@dfat.gov.au or in writing to:
Trade Policy Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
R. G. Casey Building
John McEwen Crescent
Barton ACT 0221
Comments must be lodged by 31 May 2002
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there is a call that can be signed for protests against the
commercialisatoin of education. you find it on
www.education-is-not-for-sale.org
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Global Whale Action Team Alert----from Greenpeace
We're now only weeks from a crucial meeting of the International Whaling Commission in late May in the Japanese whaling port of Shimonoseki.
If you are a citizen of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, or the United States, please take a minute to send a letter to your government challenging them to do more to oppose the pro-whaling campaign run by the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ). These supposedly conservation-minded countries have largely sat idly by while the FAJ has run an aggressive campaign to buy the votes of members of the International Whaling Commission in order to bring back commercial whaling. Only New Zealand has spoken out.
You can send the letter by clicking here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/aas/e?a=wlm2&s=blue2s_w
You can also contribute to our antiwhaling picture petition here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/col/get?i=383&sk=pic
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2) GATS UPDATE
What is the status of public services under GATS? This is the million dollar question.
The WTO, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the ALP and the Howard government all declare that public services are excluded from the GATS on the basis of Article 1.3(b),which states that 'services includes services in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of government authority.'
However the next Article 1.3(c) states that a service supplied in the exercise of government authority means 'any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers.' ref:http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/26gats.pdf
The government of British Columbia has done extensive research on the GATS and has concluded that, in order for a service to be excluded, both criteria must apply. That is, in order for the exclusion to apply, a service must be supplied on a non-commercial basis and its delivery must not be in competition with another service supplier.'
In Australia, private schools compete with public schools, private hospitals compete with public hospitals, private broadcasters compete with public broadcasters, many of us pay a fee for our water, and so on. So is the Australian public sector exempt from ther GATS.....or not?
In March, 2002, the Alliance to expose GATS met with DFAT and asked about the status of water with regard to GATS. In April, the Alliance received a reply from DFAT and I reproduce the relevant paragraphs below. According to DFAT........
"Water related sevices have not been a focus of GATS in its initial six years and it is unlikely to be in the future given that significant elements of water services will continue to be excluded as services provided in the exercise of government authority."
"Water distribution has not been an issue discussed during the current negotiations and there are no proposals suggesting market access on water distribution."
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade may well believe that water is excluded from the GATS as part on the public service exemption, but it seems that the European Union disagrees. As you will remember from a previous bulletin, the leaked EU draft negotiating document requests that Australia make GATS commitments, including market access commitments, in
' Water for human use & wastewater management---Water collection, purification and distribution services through mains, except steam and hot water.'
Clearly the European Union does not consider water collection, purification and distribution services to be public services! In the same document, the EU requests Australia to open postal services to international competition. So...if the provision of water services and postal services are not public services, the question arises....are there any public services which are excluded from the GATS? The other question which must be asked is.....do our trade negotiators have any idea what they are signing us up to?
The Alliance to Expose GATS has prepared the following letter. Please copy into a new email, add your name and address and send to mark.vaile.mp@aph.gov.au with a cc to S.Crean.MP@aph.gov.au
The Hon.Mark Vaile MP
Minister for Trade
Parliament House cc The Hon. Simon Crean
Canberra 2600 Leader of the Opposition.
Dear Mr Vaile
I write to express my concern about the negotiations on the WTO Trade in Services Agreement and Australia 's role in them.
Your government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade assert that public services are excluded from the GATS. This is clearly not so, as article 1.3 © of the GATS agreement states that services supplied on a commercial basis or in competition with one or more service providers are not excluded. A study by the government of British Columbia has concluded that the number of services excluded by this definition is in reality very small.
Proposed changes to the trade in services agreement include the application of a "necessity test "to government regulation of services. This would mean that regulation could be challenged under the WTO disputes process and possibly defined as barriers to trade. Your government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade claims that, under GATS, governments retain the right to regulate. However, according to the GATS, all regulation must be ‘least trade restrictive’ and ‘not unnecessarily burdensome.’ This is an unacceptable intrusion of trade policy into domestic policy making and is contrary to the public interest.
In addition,the recently leaked EU draft negotiating document requests that Australia
treat postal services purely as traded goods and open them to competition by private foreign companies.
remove the requirement of majority Australian ownership of shares in Telstra..
treat water services purely as traded goods. This would threaten most state governments’ policies of public ownership and price regulation of water services to ensure they remain accessible and affordable to all Australians.
abolish the right of the Foreign Investment Review Board to block foreign investment if it is not in the national interest. The EU claims this right is ‘discriminatory’.
abolish the requirement that at least two directors of all public companies operating in Australia be Australian residents.
The EU clearly believes that the provision of postal services and water are not public services.
I would therefore be grateful if you would provide answers to the following questions:
What services are included in your governments’ definition of ‘public services’, and will you give a firm commitment that public services, including water and postal services, will be excluded from the GATS?
Will your government work at the WTO to clarify the definition of public services in the GATS agreement so that they are clearly excluded?
What is your response to the requests made by the EU?
When will the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publish its list of requests to other countries?
When will the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publish its list of offers to other countries?
When will your government introduce full parliamentary scrutiny and voting on draft trade agreements before they are signed?
As Australia’s requests to other countries must be submitted by 30th June, 2002, I look forward to your early reply.
Yours faithfully,
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3) FOCUS ON THE WTO AND THE ENVIRONMENT----MEA's
a) Environmentalists have been concerned for a long time about the relationship between the rules of the WTO and Multi-lateral Environment Agreements (MEA's)
MEA's are agreements negotiated between national governments and they are designed to protect particular aspects of the environment. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, addresses the problem of global warming. The Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) seeks to ban international trade in endangered species (for example, the trade in ivory, which endangers elephant populations).The Persistent Organic Pollutants Convention seeks to eliminate POP's which are among the most dangerous substances in the world.
At the WTO's Ministerial meeting in Doha last Novenber, it was agreed to set up a working party to examine the relationship between WTO rules and MEA's.
The very fact that such a working party was necessary is an indictment of the WTO and its rules. A major criticism of the WTO has long been that it elevates trade above all other considerations.
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b)
Friends of the Earth International - Greenpeace International
Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) - Sierra Club - Third World
Network
PRESS RELEASE
April 3, 2002
JOHANNESBURG EARTH SUMMIT MUST AGREE
THAT THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO) WILL
RESPECT MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS
As governments meet in New York to prepare for the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg, Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace International, Northern
Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), Sierra Club and Third World Network
have issued a statement calling upon the Johannesburg Summit to ensure
that Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) are not subordinated
to or undermined by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The groups argue that there is an urgent necessity for governments to
save MEAs from WTO takeover: Several global agreements have suffered
from a *chill effect* as some governments have claimed that they are not
compatible with WTO rules. At the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in
Doha, WTO Members decided to launch negotiations on the relationship
between MEAs and trade rules. Negotiations will come to first results in
mid 2003, but it is not clear whether the outcome will be positive or
negative for the further development of MEAs.
With the forthcoming Word Summit for Sustainable Development, the NGOs
see a unique chance for governments to:
* reaffirm the authority and autonomy of MEAs; and
* clarify that the objectives, principles, and provisions of MEAs must
not be subordinated to WTO rules.
David Waskow of Friends of the Earth International said, "Multilateral
Environmental Agreements must be fully recognised and strengthened as a
countervailing force to WTO rules. At stake here is whether global
governance will in fact protect people and the planet."
Remi Parmentier of Greenpeace International commented, "Our hope is that
in Johannesburg, Heads of State and Government will agree where trade
ministries have failed, and get on with redefining a trade regime that
works for all, including the environment."
Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network said, "During and since Rio, a
number of major MEAs * including the Convention on Biological Diversity,
Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, Persistent Organic Pollutants Convention,
and Kyoto Protocol * have been negotiated with universal
intergovernmental participation. These agreements should not be
subordinated to WTO rules."
Pieter van der Gaag of ANPED said, "MEAs are not negotiated to undermine
trade rules. They are negotiated to solve the environmental problems we
face. Subordinating MEAs to the WTO would limit our ability to protect
our planet."
Ruth Caplan of the Sierra Club said, "MEAs are essential for sustainable
development -- we should not allow the WTO to weaken them in any way."
For the full statement see www.foei.org
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c) Statement from Word Wildlife Fund
(ED:Full text available from me. )
There is no doubt that the round of WTO negotiations launched in Doha contains a significant environmental dimension. One of the key issues for negotiation will be the relationship between WTO rules and trade measures in Multi -lateral Environment Agreements.(MEA's) For World Wildlife Fund (WWF), this negotiation offers several opportunities and entails a number of risks.
To achieve a successful outcome, WTO negotiations must acknowledge the diversity of MEAs and the diversity of goals sought to be achieved by trade measures. Today, around 200 MEAs exist to address transboundary and global environmental problems. Central to many of these MEAs are trade measures. Trade measures provide one essential policy instrument in the toolbox of policy measures available to governments. They are used in over 20 MEAs, including some of the most important and recently negotiated ones. These trade measures serve a variety of purposes. In some cases they regulate trade in environmentally harmful products. In others, they remove the economic incentives that encourage environmental destruction. In still other cases, they are used to ensure compliance with the MEA's provisions, and to encourage broad country participation thereby reducing the potential for non-parties to undermine the treaty's objectives. Without trade measures, the effectiveness of many key MEAs would be undermined, with serious consequences for human health and the environment. In light of this diversity, any outcome of WTO negotiations must ensure significant deference to measures negotiated among groups of governments to achieve environmental goals. In addition, they must refrain from seeking to prescribe the options available to environmental policy makers to address the fundamental and growing environmental problems facing humanity.
To achieve a successful outcome, WTO negotiations must also acknowledge the tendency of WTO rules to impinge on legitimate environmental objectives in a number of ways. The first problem confronting the WTO is that its rules are being used to undermine multilateral solutions to global environmental problems. As the economic implications of effectively implementing certain MEAs become more significant, a number of powerful countries are increasingly choosing not to join key conventions such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Biosafety Protocol, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Non-adherence to MEAs not only undermines multilateral efforts to address global environmental problems; it also puts parties to MEAs at disadvantage vis-à-vis free riders, creating an incentive to not join future MEAs. In the light of this reality, trade-related measures in MEAs are often designed to influence the behaviour of non-parties. Such measures directed to non-parties have proved enormously effective in the past; broadening membership of MEAs and removing the incentive to free ride (as the experience of the Montreal Protocol illustrates). Any clarification of the WTO-MEAs relationship, which does not address the treatment of non-parties to an MEA, would be inadequate and unacceptable.
Second, despite the central role of trade measures in many effective MEAs, there is still uncertainty as to whether trade measures taken pursuant to MEAs are compatible with the WTO. This uncertainty about WTO rules is seized on by countries, or coalitions of countries that are economically advantaged by weak MEAs. These countries use such uncertainty during environmental negotiations to protect or promote their trade interests by reducing the scope of MEAs, weakening their provisions and trying to subordinate them to WTO rules (through "WTO savings clauses"). The use of this uncertainty to chill the development of new MEAs, and their effective implementation once they are adopted, has been illustrated recently in the Biosafety Protocol and POPs negotiations. Any clarification of the WTO-MEA relation which does not remove the current 'chill factor' in the development of effective MEAs would be inadequate and unacceptable.
Third, over the last decades trade rules and environmental regimes have evolved in separate tracks, with minimum synergy and often in conflict with each other. The lack of dialogue and co-operation among trade and environment officials at all levels has not helped to improve mutual understanding and to create necessary linkages among MEAs and relevant trade processes. Ensuring that both processes produce new rules that are consistent with each other should be a primary focus for negotiators. Moreover, concrete linkages between MEAs and WTO rules and negotiations should be established, both with regard to specific issues and the regular participation of MEAs and UNEP in WTO deliberations. Mechanisms for enhanced co-operation and information sharing among the WTO, MEA Secretariats and UNEP need to be established urgently, also with a view to avoiding potential conflicts escalating into disputes. A positive clarification of the WTO-MEA relationship can only be credible and mutually supportive if co-operation and dialogue among trade and environment officials is enhanced at all levels
There is a legitimate concern among the environmental community that WTO negotiations risk approaching the clarification with MEAs in the wrong way. The WTO is not, and should not become, an environmental policy-making body. That is not its core competence, and therefore it should not attempt to replace or undermine the functions of MEAs and other international environmental governance structures.
Aimee T. Gonzales
Senior Policy Adviser
Trade and Investment Unit
World Wildlife Fund
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d) GLOBAL WARMING AND THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
In case anyone doubts the importance of these MEA's, I include here the latest information on global warming which the Kyoto Protocol seeks to address.
You will of course remember that, while most other countries agreed to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at the last Conference on Climate, Australia, by threatening to derail the whole process, came away with permission to INCREASE our emissions by 8%. Australia is the largest per capita producer of CO2 emissions in the world, and together with the USA has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
These facts come from the State of the Environment report for Australia which was released a few weeks ago.
"Most indices of environmental health are going backwards -
* Greenhouse gas emissions went up by
16.9% between 1990 and 1998
* The rate of land clearance has accelerated, with as much cleared during the last 50 years as in the 150 years
before 1945. Only four other countries exceeded the estimated rate of clearance of native vegetation in Australia in 1999
* About 26% of Australia's surface water
management areas are close to, or have exceeded, sustainable extraction limits
* Pressures on Australia's coral reefs continue unabated from
downstream effects of land use and other human activities (including global warming)
* Irreplaceable genes, species and ecosystems are
disappearing or are being depleted at an alarming rate."
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e)
More Ice Shelves Face Trouble
by Ray Lilley
Published Monday, March 25, 2002 by the Associated Press
http://commondreams.org/headlines02/0325-01.htm
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The Antarctic's huge ice shelves may
break up as ice flows across the frozen continent slow or even stop as
the global climate warms, a New Zealand climate researcher warned.
The collapse reported last week of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica
was "a wakeup call to expect more collapses," said Tim Naish, a senior
researcher at the government-owned Institute of Geological and Nuclear
Sciences.
Such collapses would have "a dramatic effect on global climate" by
disrupting ocean currents, he said.
The Larsen B ice shelf, a large floating ice mass on the eastern side of
the Antarctic Peninsula, has shattered and separated from the continent,
as revealed in a photo image was taken March 7, 2002 by NASA's Terra
satellite and released Thursday, March 21, 2002. The ice shelf, which
has existed since the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, collapsed starting
in January with staggering speed during one of the warmest summers on
record there, scientists say. The collapsed area was designated Larsen B.
The lost surface area measured 1,040 square miles, which would dwarf
Rhode Island. The collapse released 720 billion tons of ice.
Larsen B, made up of 720 billion tons of ice, disintegrated
after 50 years of sharp temperature rises on the Antarctic Peninsula
unmatched elsewhere in the world.
Ted Scambos, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University
of Colorado, one of three American researchers monitoring the Larsen ice
shelf by satellite, said other ice shelves were closer to the breaking point
than previously thought. Ice shelves form when ice sheets spread off the
land mass.
Naish said Larsen's collapse was a warning about the stability of
Antarctica's largest ice shelf, the Ross Ice Shelf, which at 332,000
square miles covers an area the size of France.
"It is becoming especially vulnerable as huge ice streams that feed it
from West Antarctica begin to slow or have stopped," Naish said in an
interview Friday.
Naish said even a partial collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf would be
globally significant, as it would "dramatically affect ocean circulation
and climate."
If average global temperatures continued to rise this century by up to 3
degrees Celsius, as climate models currently predict, he believes the
bigger Antarctic ice shelves - also including several in the Weddell Sea -
could become vulnerable.
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f) From The David Suzuki Foundation
TUVALU: GLOBAL-WARMING'S FIRST CASUALTY
By Eun Jung Cahill Che,
Honolulu Star Bulletin, August 19, 2001
IT'S TOO LATE for Tuvalu, a small island nation in the Pacific. Ten thousand people,
Tuvalu's entire population, are packing their bags as their homes among nine low-level atolls are being
swallowed by the rising sea. These are the facts of life: the earth is
warming, the sea levels are rising, and Tuvalu is quietly being erased from
the surface of the earth. Leo Falcam, president of the Federated States
of Micronesia, cautioned in a recent conference here that the Pacific
Islanders' "early experience with real consequences of global warming
has been considered analogous to the canary in the coal mine-providing an
early warning to the global community of its own impending doom."
The Tuvalu islands are only the first casualties of climate change. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a 50 centimeters to
1 meter rise in sea levels over the next century. Arise of 1m would
put under water 17.5 percent of Bangladesh, 6 percentof the Netherlands,
and 80 percent of Atoll Majuro of the Marshall Islands, according to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. Low-lying coastal zones of developed countries could also be
seriously effected. The panel is authoritative group of 1,000 experts and this
is the overwhelming majority opinion.
Rising sea-levels are only part of the problem. The 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius rise in temperature
over the next century will increase flooding, the intensity of storms, and droughts in
Asia and Africa and will change the distribution of rainfall. The disappearance
of Tuvalu introduces other questions. What will become of its territorial waters?
What happens when more of these islands disappear, displacing 7 million people? What are the economic and security
implications of disappearing exclusive economic zones? Can there be compensation for the loss of a country, its history, its culture, its way of life?
How do could a price be put on that? Who will pay it?
While developed nations quibble over details of the Kyoto Protocol, (ED: and the WTO decides whether the Kyoto Protocol
or WTO rules will prevail) Tuvalu islanders are literally losing their homeland.
Post script: New Zealand will ratify the Kyoto Protocol and has also agreed to accept large numbers of Tuvulu refugees.
Australia has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol and has refused to accept any refugees from Tuvulu.
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g). From New Scientist Magazine, 30 March 2002, pp. 15 and 11 respectively:
HOTTING UP
In Canada they are calling it the year without a winter. From the Amercian
Midwest to the mountains of Afghanistan, this past winter has been the
warmest on record. And across the planet as a whole it has been the second
warmest, according to the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. With a new El Niño likely to warm the waters of the Pacific
in coming months, many climatologists expect record-breaking global
temperatures for 2002.
................................
It's started . . .
A clear pattern of ecological change triggered by global warming is already
emerging, according to a worldwide review. And it can be seen from the polar
wastes to the tropical oceans.
Butterflies, birds and other highly mobile species are moving to new
habitats to survive. But creatures that can't move, such as corals, are
suffering. "The implications of such large-scale, consistent responses to
relatively low average rates of climate change are large," says Gian-Reto
Walther of the Institute of Geobotany at the University of Hanover in
Germany, who led the study. "The projected warming for the coming decades
raises even more concern."
Butterflies, which can flit cross-country, are proving to be among the
most sensitive indicators of global warming. Across North America and Europe
they have shifted their range northwards by up to 200 kilometres. Plants lag
behind, and larger animals are often hemmed in by cities and highways.
Another visible consequence of warming is the early arrival of spring.
This is an almost universal phenomenon, says Walther. Plants are blossoming,
eggs hatching and frogs spawning earlier. In Britain, spring butterflies are
appearing an average of six days earlier than they did two decades ago.
In many cases these shifts are causing ecological chaos. Migrating birds
are arriving in Europe too late to produce offspring during the height of
the caterpillar season, for example.
The disruption has hit wilderness areas everywhere. In places, the
planet is blooming. Mosses stretch across previously bare ground in
Antarctica. But since 1998 an estimated 16 per cent of the world's coral
reefs have died from bleaching, triggered by record temperatures.
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Terrie Templeton WTO Watch Qld gumbus@powerup.com.au