Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 15:53:23 +0000
From: "William G." <william@cedar.alberni.net> Subject: Here comes the WTO


November 1999

Here comes the WTO
A beginner's guide to the issues behind the acronym

BY NADENE REHNBY

TO HELP BEGINNERS UNDERSTAND the vast complexities of the World Trade Organization, Steven Shrybman turns to a very simple analogy: the environment. "To survive, ecological systems need to be diverse," he explains. "The model of globalization being put forward through regimes like the WTO is the opposite: it sees diversity as an impediment to free trade that needs to be removed."

In his new book A Citizen’s Guide to the World Trade Organization, the executive director of West Coast Environmental Law has set out in simple 
terms how the current direction of the WTO will negatively affect not just the environment, but jobs, health care, education, and just about every other aspect of Canadian life.

"This is world government operating with a bill of rights written by and for transnational corporations," he explains. "Given the very pressing ecological and human problems before us, the stakes couldn’t be higher. 
We need to really change the direction we have been headed in.

"At the very moment when this has become painfully clear, along comes a 
trade regime that will put pedal to the metal and throw away the steering wheel. We need to strengthen the capacity of governments to regulate corporations, not undermine their authority."

 

RIGHT FROM THE PREFACE OF HIS BOOK, Shrybman makes clear that remaining uniformed about what’s going on at the WTO is a luxury no democratic society can afford. "It is crucial, therefore," writes Shrybman, "that citizens demand full disclosure and public debate about current and pending international trade agreements."

To get that process going, Shrybman’s book contributes a clear and detailed analysis of the powers at play within the WTO, and introduces some of what we can expect from the new round of talks beginning in Seattle November 29.

Co-published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and James Lorimer and Co., the book was released across Canada in mid-October –
just enough time for activists to sort through the long list of acronyms, back room deals and side agreements so they can play a role in 
what will undoubtedly be the biggest anti-free trade protest the world has seen.

 

AS THE BOOK SETS OUT, the WTO is a vastly complex regime that is – some 
would say deliberately – impossible for the average Canadian to even begin to understand. But it is possible – and critical – that every Canadian keep informed and take action.

The book describes how the WTO was established on January 1, 1995. 
Located in Geneva, it is run by a secretariat of about 500 trade bureaucrats and officials. The WTO’s role includes administering dozens 
of international trade agreements, monitoring national trade policies, and operating as a forum for international negotiations.

Its real power, however, centres around its role in settling trade disputes between its 135 member countries. "The WTO is basically a world 
government – the first in human history," Shrybman explains. An essentially unelected world government, however, and one that is not accountable to the billions of lives it affects.

"It looks like democracy in structure," says Shrybman. Every member country gets one vote, and most decisions are made by consensus. "But in 
reality, most countries that belong to the WTO don’t have the resources even to follow the debate, let alone participate effectively in it."

And while the WTO has the appearance of being about nations, Shrybman is 
clear that it is much more about corporations. "The agenda was written behind closed doors by a handful of trade bureaucrats advised by an army 
of corporate lobbyists. This is no more and no less than an unadulterated corporate agenda of privatization, deregulation, and free trade."

Furthermore, as Shrybman explains in his book, most decisions aren’t made by the world’s nations, but by "the quad": the U.S., European Union, Japan and Canada. "My speculation is that Canada had to pay a price for a seat at the table."

To back this up, Shrybman points to Canada’s position on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which, despite outcry by critics in Canada and the sober stepping-back of other nations, Canada continued to 
aggressively advocate on the world stage. "It’s almost as if Canada’s membership in this club seems to have prompted it to become the most shameless advocate of the free trade agenda."

As Shrybman points out, Canada stands to lose a great deal for its seat at the table. "WTO rules set out a long list of things that governments can’t do to regulate corporations in the public interest. But there’s nothing there to regulate corporations."

In his book, he highlights Canadian public policies, laws and programs that have fallen because of international trade disputes, from fisheries conservation regulations to toxic fuel-additive standards. "These battles will increasingly be fought in the WTO arena," says Shrybman, "where no environmental or health regulation has ever withstood a challenge.

Despite these losses, the federal government continues to refuse to hear 
the concerns of Canadians, sticking to its role as defender and promoter 
of trade liberalization. "The trade decisions are so complicated now that the federal government can say whatever it wants about them and no-one really knows whether it is telling the truth or not," says Shrybman. "It may even claim victory, but it actually suffered defeat.

"The same is true of official pronouncements about the trade rules themselves. For example, Canada says water isn’t subject to trade disciplines, but water very definitely is.

"The split-run magazine case offers a good example of how misleading federal assurances can be," Shrybman explains. "Up until the very moment 
the WTO ruled against Canadian cultural measures with respect to magazines, this federal government and the preceding one said ‘Don’t worry, culture is exempt... All those people telling you that we’re going to lose our cultural sovereignty because of free trade are misleading you.’ Well, no-one bothered to tell the WTO that culture wasn ’t part of this new reality. When the WTO ruled againt Canada, we had to abandon measures to protect Canadian culture that had been in place since the late 1920s."

In the most recent case, the WTO now appears to be about to strike down 
the Auto Pact that has guaranteed Canadian jobs in the auto sector since 
1965. Other current disputes include Canada’s water export controls and 
film-distribution programs, and challenges to Canada’s dairy and generic 
drug industries.

To put these mechanisms in context for Democrat readers, Shrybman points 
to an NDP example, when the Rae government campaigned on the promise of 
public auto insurance for Ontario. "U.S. insurance companies threatened 
to claim hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation under NAFTA," explains Shrybman. The Ontario government backed down.

"That highlights another, more covert way in which trade rules reduce government options," says Shrybman. "This regulatory chill has led governments at all levels to simply abandon public policy options for fear of hefty penalties brought about through the WTO."

But Shrybman explains that Canada is not only a victim of free trade. 
For example, Canada challenged a European decision to ban beef produced 
with hormones. "Canada used WTO rules to force this unwanted product on 
European consumers, and has even resisted efforts to label food so that consumers can know and be able to consent to the food they eat."

Shrybman points out that this is not the only case where Canada took on other countries’ health and safety standards. On behalf of Quebec asbestos producers, Canada also challenged national health regulations 
in the U.S. and France.

"I suspect that most Canadians would be offended to learn that Canada is 
using its weight – and people’s tax dollars – to try and interfere with the rights of citizens in other countries."

 

SHRYBMAN'S BOOK not only outlines the disastrous turn the world is taking through the WTO, but also provides ideas for mounting an effective challenge. For example, Shrybman believes activists’ work at the November round in Seattle will make a difference.

The free trade agenda will be further promoted in Seattle with the call for a "Millennium Round" of talks to make headway in areas like agriculture and services – including health and education. But Shrybman said there is also a significant movement to pull back.

"The WTO is only four years old," Shrybman explains. "Very few people knew what it was when it was created. In the years since a lot of people have had their eyes opened." And it isn’t just environmentalists, social activists, and developing countries raising the alarm. "Several European parliamentarians have been asking why public concerns about food safety 
have had to take a back seat to the WTO.

"There are now a lot of people in senior positions in government saying ‘Well, hold on wait a minute, we didn’t know these rules were going to fundamentally undermine our sovereign prerogative to do the things that people elect us to do.

"There’s lots of concern, in both civil society and in government, and they will be meeting in Seattle for the first time since that awareness arose. They’ll be asking some very tough questions."

Shrybman also points out that, unlike international trade forums like the APEC meetings in Vancouver, there will be official engagement by civil society. "There are a lot of environmental, labour and social justice groups registered, and they will be participating in the official NGO/WTO proceedings," says Shrybman. Some countries – including 
Canada – will also have progressive representatives on their official national delegations.

In the streets of Seattle there will also be a large and noisy contingent of activists not engaged in the process – likely the largest mobilization of people against free trade that the world has ever seen.

And, as they did successfully with the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, Canadian activists will play an important role, says Shrybman. Despite an inability to change the free trade agenda of the federal government, it’s important to not overlook the successes of Canadian activists. "Much of the work that turned heads in Europe and the U.S. around the MAI was Canadian work," Shrybman points out. 
"The campaign was also bottom up in a way I’ve never seen before, starting in 
places like Squamish voting MAI-free. It had a huge impact.

"This is fundamentally a challenge to democratic process, and the way to 
defeat it is by flexing our democratic muscles," says Shrybman. "That means not discounting the work you can do in your local community. It means having the faith in democratic process making a difference. And there’s proof of that in the fightback around the MAI."

For Shrybman, this is exactly why he wrote A Citizen’s Guide to the World Trade Organization – his fundamental belief in the power of people 
to change the world. And the success of that activism is what has pushed 
him on since he began international trade activism in 1987, despite many 
defeats along the way.

"Sorry to sound dramatic about it," he says, "but it’s really a matter of survival, not just of democratic societies, but of people and the planet." And that – for Shrybman and the readers he hopes to reach – is worth fighting for. 

Nadene Rehnby is a Vancouver freelance writer. Her recent contributions 
to mobilizing Democrat readers include coverage of the MAI (February, 1998) and Third-World Debt Relief (July 1999).


Comments? E-mail the editor of The Democrat:  democrat@bc.ndp.ca