[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

WTO gets grass-roots opposition



WTO gets grass-roots opposition
Threat is seen to local efforts against tyranny
Tuesday, September 7, 1999

By BRUCE RAMSEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

In May 1998, the Seattle City Council considered an ordinance to spend no
city money at businesses invested in Burma.

Massachusetts had already blacklisted the Chase Manhattan Bank, Johnson &
Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, Atlantic Richfield, Texaco, Unocal,
United Parcel Service and Northwest Airlines -- all to put pressure on
Burma's military regime to free democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Trade interests here, representing Boeing, Microsoft, Weyerhaeuser and the
Frank Russell Co., wanted no part of such a law, which invited retaliation
on them. They went to the Seattle City Council and argued against it. One
was that the proposed ordinance would violate U.S. obligations to the World
Trade Organization.

They prevailed -- by one vote.

Opponents of the World Trade Organization are rallying around the issue of
sanctions as they lay plans to protest the round of talks that open late
this year in Seattle. If trade treaties really do bar cities and states
from engaging in boycotts, they say, their ability to campaign against
oppressive foreign governments has been weakened.

"If the WTO had been in existence during the anti-apartheid movement,
Nelson Mandela could still be in prison," said Massachusetts state Rep.
Byron Rushing.

Consider the case of Massachusetts. Rushing, a Boston Democrat brought to
Seattle recently by the anti-WTO campaign, was the sponsor of the
Massachusetts anti-Burma law. The law was the same as one passed in the
1980s against South Africa. "We just took out the words, 'South Africa' and
put in 'Burma,'" he said.

The bill, signed into law in 1996 by Republican Gov. William Weld, was a
state government boycott. "It was not sanctions," argued Rushing. "If we
were to tell Gillette -- the biggest company in Boston -- that, 'You can't
do this,' that would be sanctions."

But Rushing said, "Clearly, we are trying to influence the United States
government." And they apparently did. In 1997, President Clinton ordered
all U.S. companies to make no further investments in Burma.

Then came the response. Japan and the European Union filed objections to
the sanctions -- not Clinton's sanctions, but Rushing's. Rushing had not
just targeted U.S. companies, as Clinton had. His law had also blacklisted
British Airways, Rolls-Royce, Guinness, Credit Agricole, Lufthansa,
Siemens, BMW, Japan Air Lines, Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Honda, Isuzu and
Fuji Photo Film.

That, said Japan and Europe, was an extraterritorial secondary boycott,
which the United States had agreed never to impose. The State Department
told Massachusetts it would defend the law -- but it would rather
Massachusetts repeal it. "They said it made the U.S. negotiating position
more difficult," Rushing said.

Rushing refused. Writing to the European Union ambassador in Washington, he
said the EU "should not attempt to intimidate the Massachusetts state
government. . . ."

Japan and Europe filed a complaint against the United States at the WTO in
Geneva.

What that would have achieved nobody knows, because the National Foreign
Trade Council, a group of U.S. companies that includes The Boeing Co., sued
Massachusetts in federal court. They argued that Massachusetts was enacting
its own foreign policy, which is forbidden by the Constitution. The
companies won in federal district court, and on June 22, in federal appeals
court. Massachusetts has appealed to the Supreme Court. For the moment,
state and local sanctions remain a dead letter only in New England. Seattle
could still enforce such a law, as Los Angeles has.

Such a law should be constitutional if similar laws were in the 1980s. But
there wasn't a ruling then. "American corporations could have made the same
argument during the anti-apartheid movement," Rushing said. They didn't;
the South Africa issue was too sensitive.

Burma is a less sensitive issue. The other thing that's different is the
involvement of the WTO. The United States is now bound by a WTO protocol
called the Government Procurement Agreement. In an effort to rule out
corruption and favoritism, 21 national governments have promised not to use
political criteria in the way they buy things.

That was the basis for the case the EU and Japan brought in Geneva. The
case was never concluded, but people on both sides say Europe and Japan
would have won it.

"I think the track record of the WTO dispute-resolution panels suggests
that would be very likely struck down," said Larry Dohrs, chairman of the
Seattle Burma Roundtable.

This is not to say that the WTO forbids all economic sanctions. The federal
sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s, were restrictions on American
private enterprises. Those are governed by a different WTO agreement, which
has existed for decades. It allows sanctions for reasons of national
security, a vote of the United Nations and some other reasons.

"This was in existence when we took action against apartheid, and it didn't
keep us from doing it," said Seattle trade consultant Bill Bryant of Bryant
Christie Inc.

Federal sanctions bar trade with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and
Sudan. Cuba is a member of WTO, but that hasn't kept the United States from
imposing sanctions against that country. In fact, said William Lash,
professor of law at George Mason University in Virginia, "no political
sanctions have ever been reversed" by the WTO.

Campaigners worry that certain sanctions might be prevented. The South
African sanctions were the result of a political campaign that went on for
20 years. Dohrs, who is leading a similar campaign on behalf of democratic
forces in Burma, said, "Our past experience shows that the way to build
international sanctions is to pass lots of local ones. It's a way to show
you have grass-roots support."

That's what runs afoul of the WTO protocol's ban on political criteria in
government procurement. "Normal citizens make decisions on non-economic
criteria all the time," Dohrs said, "and I think our political bodies
should reserve the right to make 'economic' decisions based on
'non-economic' criteria."

The Burma campaign continues. But it's more difficult now. Apart from
apathy about a small country very far away, there are constitutional
rulings -- and the threat of the WTO.

The opposition to the WTO, he says, "is a pretty big concern." 

P-I reporter Bruce Ramsey can be reached at 206-448-8391 or
bruceramsey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.seattle-pi.com/business/sanc07.shtml   .