10 Reasons to Dismantle the WTO

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Robert Weissman wrote:
> 
> 10 Reasons to Dismantle the WTO
> By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
> 
> Add a new constituency to the long list of World Trade Organization (WTO)
> critics which already includes consumers, labor, environmentalists, human
> rights activists, fair trade groups, AIDS activists, animal protection
> organizations, those concerned with Third World development, religious
> communities, women's organizations. The latest set of critics includes WTO
> backers and even the WTO itself.
> 
> As the WTO faces crystallized global opposition -- to be manifested in
> massive street demonstrations and colorful protests in Seattle, where the
> WTO will hold its Third Ministerial meeting from November 30 to December 3
> -- the global trade agency and its strongest proponents veer between a
> shrill defensiveness and the much more effective strategy of admitting
> shortcomings and trumpeting the need for reform.
> 
> WTO critics now face a perilous moment. They must not be distracted by
> illusory or cosmetic reform proposals, nor by even more substantive
> proposals for changing the WTO -- should they ever emerge from the
> institution or its powerful rich country members. Instead, they should
> unite around an uncompromising demand to dismantle the WTO and its
> corporate-created rules.
> 
> Here are 10 reasons why:
> 
> 1. The WTO prioritizes trade and commercial considerations over all other
> values. WTO rules generally require domestic laws, rules and regulations
> designed to further worker, consumer, environmental, health, safety, human
> rights, animal protection or other non-commercial interests to be
> undertaken in the "least trade restrictive" fashion possible -- almost
> never is trade subordinated to these noncommercial concerns.
> 
> 2. The WTO undermines democracy. Its rules drastically shrink the choices
> available to democratically controlled governments, with violations
> potentially punished with harsh penalties. The WTO actually touts this
> overriding of domestic decisions about how economies should be organized
> and corporations controlled. "Under WTO rules, once a commitment has been
> made to liberalize a sector of trade, it is difficult to reverse," the WTO
> says in a paper on the benefits of the organization which is published on
> its web site. "Quite often, governments use the WTO as a welcome external
> constraint on their policies: 'we can't do this because it would violate
> the WTO agreements.'"
> 
> 3. The WTO does not just regulate, it actively promotes, global trade. Its
> rules are biased to facilitate global commerce at the expense of efforts
> to promote local economic development and policies that move communities,
> countries and regions in the direction of greater self-reliance.
> 
> 4. The WTO hurts the Third World. WTO rules force Third World countries to
> open their markets to rich country multinationals, and abandon efforts to
> protect infant domestic industries. In agriculture, the opening to foreign
> imports, soon to be imposed on developing countries, will catalyze a
> massive social dislocation of many millions of rural people.
> 
> 5. The WTO eviscerates the Precautionary Principle. WTO rules generally
> block countries from acting in response to potential risk -- requiring a
> probability before governments can move to resolve harms to human health
> or the environment.
> 
> 6. The WTO squashes diversity. WTO rules establish international health,
> environmental and other standards as a global ceiling through a process of
> "harmonization;" countries or even states and cities can only exceed them
> by overcoming high hurdles.
> 
> 7. The WTO operates in secrecy. Its tribunals rule on the "legality" of
> nations' laws, but carry out their work behind closed doors.
> 
> 8. The WTO limits governments' ability to use their purchasing dollar for
> human rights, environmental, worker rights and other non-commercial
> purposes. In general, WTO rules state that governments can make purchases
> based only on quality and cost considerations.
> 
> 9. The WTO disallows bans on imports of goods made with child labor. In
> general, WTO rules do not allow countries to treat products differently
> based on how they were produced -- irrespective of whether made with
> brutalized child labor, with workers exposed to toxics or with no regard
> for species protection.
> 
> 10. The WTO legitimizes life patents. WTO rules permit and in some cases
> require patents or similar exclusive protections for life forms.
> 
> Some of these problems, such as the WTO's penchant for secrecy, could
> potentially be fixed, but the core problems -- prioritization of
> commercial over other values, the constraints on democratic
> decision-making and the bias against local economies -- cannot, for they
> are inherent in the WTO itself.
> 
> Because of these unfixable problems, the World Trade Organization should
> be shut down, sooner rather than later.
> 
> That doesn't mean interim steps shouldn't be taken. It does mean that
> beneficial reforms will focus not on adding new areas of competence to the
> WTO or enhancing its authority, even if the new areas appear desirable
> (such as labor rights or competition). Instead, the reforms to pursue are
> those that reduce or limit the WTO's power -- for example, by denying it
> the authority to invalidate laws passed pursuant to international
> environmental agreements, limiting application of WTO agricultural rules
> in the Third World, or eliminating certain subject matters (such as
> essential medicines or life forms) from coverage under the WTO's
> intellectual property agreement.
> 
> These measures are necessary and desirable in their own right, and they
> would help generate momentum to close down the WTO.
> 
> Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
> Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
> Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
> Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Common Courage Press,
> http://www.corporatepredators.org).
> 
> (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber
> and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or
> repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on
> a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us
> (russell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx).
> 
> Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve
> corp-focus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to corp-focus, send an e-mail
> message to listproc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the following all in one line:
> 
> subscribe corp-focus <your name> (no period).
> 
> Focus on the Corporation columns are posted at
> <http://lists.essential.org/corp-focus>.
> 
> Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to
> comment on the columns, send a message to russell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or
> rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx