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PANUPS

 

PANUPS: Collapse of WTO Talks in Cancún

Mon, 29 Sep 2003 16:09:18 -0700

 

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P A N U P S

Pesticide Action Network Updates Service

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Collapse of WTO Talks in Cancún

 

September 29, 2003

 

The Fifth Ministerial session of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held in mid

September in Cancún, Mexico, ended in near-complete failure, signaling a new era

of Third World and popular resistance to the developing neoliberal international

economic and political order. The talks were derailed by new dynamics among

nations of the global South, with NGOs and grassroots protest actions playing a

highly visible role.

 

The inability to reach any substantive agreement revolved primarily around

issues developed during the 1996 WTO Ministerial in Singapore. These include

negotiations on rules for investment, competition policy, government procurement

and trade facilitation -- areas in which businesses from advanced and recently

industrialized economies stand to gain a great deal, but benefits to poorer

economies are at best questionable. Many developing countries demanded further

clarification of these issues before reaching the consensus required to begin

their negotiation. Proponents of the Singapore issues, principally the E.U. and

the U.S., failed to broker a deal in which investment and competition would be

dropped from the draft agreement text, leading to a walkout led by Kenya.

 

Issues surrounding agriculture were also contentious, with the U.S. and E.U. on

one side and the newly aligned " G21+ " group of developing countries led by

Brazil and India on the other. Among other concerns, poorer countries object to

double standards in which the richer agricultural countries maintain high levels

of subsidies to their agricultural producers, allowing them to export goods

often below the cost of production -- destroying the livelihoods of millions of

farmers in the global South. For example, the U.S. provides its cotton farmers

with US$4 billion in subsidies for producing $3 billion worth of cotton.

Insistence on the Singapore issues stymied discussion on agriculture, despite

many proposals on farm issues from developing countries.

 

Also controversial were exclusionary WTO decision-making processes. Once again a

" Green Room " procedure was used throughout the summit in which only small

numbers of negotiators were allowed to participate. In one crucial meeting on

the Singapore issues, only nine negotiators (from the U.S., E.U., Mexico,

Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Kenya and South Africa) were convened by the

Ministerial chairman, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez. Likewise,

revisions of the draft Ministerial declaration repeatedly failed to reflect

Third World positions. " Here we are with 70 or more developing countries

speaking up clearly in the consultations, having a consensus document with

language on the Singapore issues, clearly expressed, and the revised text just

ignores their position, " said a Caribbean Minister. " What kind of organization

is this? Who does it belong to? Who does the drafting? Who appointed them? " he

said.

 

Overall, this time the poorer countries were better prepared through their own

regional and national processes to engage in substantive debates. Complementing

these new dynamics, NGOs held alternative forums and provided analyses,

informational resources and consultations, and thousands took part in forceful

and creative protest actions in the streets of Cancún.

 

Organized by the Mexican campesino organization UNORCA (National Union of

Autonomous Regional Farming Organizations) and the global farmer movement Via

Campesina, thousands of Mexican farmers held an alternative two-day forum and

marched to the barricades separating the city of Cancún from the hotel district

where the Ministerial was held. Joined by a farmers' delegation from South

Korea, and more than a thousand activists from Mexico, the United States and

other countries, the barricade was torn down, although protestors were unable to

advance into the hotel zone. Lee Kyung-hae, a leader of the Korean Federation of

Advanced Farmers Association, took his own life in an extraordinary act of

sacrifice on top of the barricade, resulting in many moving vigils and a protest

encampment, and projecting his message that " The WTO kills farmers " around the

world. For several days, protestors marched to and disassembled the barricade,

with other large demonstrations taking place within the city

and smaller but spirited protests occurring in the hotel zone itself. Hundreds

of protests also took place in other countries.

 

The protests, which PANNA staff helped to organize, once again contributed to

the public critique of the impacts of the far-reaching WTO trade and investment

regime and reportedly helped embolden Third World delegations. They severely

hampered access to and prompted extreme security measures throughout the hotel

zone, making clear the powerful level of opposition to the WTO mounted by

peoples' organizations around the world. The protest actions also raised the

significant costs of hosting the unpopular WTO summits.

 

The breakdown in Cancún created a new playing field in the struggle over the

neoliberal, hyper market-oriented vision of global economic relations promoted

by many of the rich nations and the corporate interests they reflect. In the

post-Cancún stage, poorer countries are finding new alliances to advance their

interests and the reenergized anti-globalization movement continues to develop

effective forms of cross-cultural collaboration and creative resistance.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has suggested that it will now emphasize a more bi-lateral

and regional approach, focusing on agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the

Americas, Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Middle East Free Trade

Area, taking note, as Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said, " of those

nations that played a constructive role in Cancún, and those nations that

didn't. "

 

Sources: First-hand accounts by PANNA staff in Cancún; " Behind the Collapse of

the Cancún Ministerial, " Third World Network, 14 Sept 2003,

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twninfo76.htm; " The Meaning of Cancún, " Food

First, 19 September 2003,

http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2003/meaningofcancun.html.

 

Update: Our request for funds in the August 25th PANUPS, " Help Mexican Farmers

Stand Up to WTO in Cancun " netted $750, all of which has gone to UNORCA, the

Mexican campesino organization. Many thanks to all who contributed.

 

PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and reporting on

pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the mainstream media. It's

produced by Pesticide Action Network North America, a non-profit and

non-governmental organization working to advance sustainable alternatives to

pesticides worldwide.

 

You can join our efforts! We gladly accept donations for our work and all

contributions are tax deductible in the United States. Visit

http://www.panna.org/donate

 

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Back issues of PANUPS are available online at:

http://www.panna.org/resources/panups.html

 

Please note: responses to this message will not be read.

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PANUPS-

 

Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)

49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA

Phone: (415) 981-1771

Fax: (415) 981-1991

Email: panna

Web: http://www.panna.org

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