The collapse of the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico, last Sunday, Sept. 14, was
an event of historic proportions.
Cancun has several massive implications.
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Indigenous Peoples Protest WTO at Cancun
Photo: Amalia Anderson
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First, the collapse represented a victory for people throughout the
world, not a "missed opportunity" for a global deal between North
and South. Doha was never a "development round." And what
little promise it offered for development had been betrayed long
before Cancun. Not even the most optimistic developing country
came to Cancun expecting some concessions from the big rich
countries in the interest of development. Most developing country
governments came to Cancun with a defensive stance. The big
challenge was not that of forging a historic New Deal but that of
preventing the US and the EU from imposing new demands on the
developing countries while escaping any multilateral disciplines
on their trade regimes.
In this regard, it was not the developing countries that brought
about the collapse, as US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick
implied in his final press conference. That responsibility lies
squarely with the United States and Europe. When the second
revision of the draft of the ministerial text appeared early on
Saturday, September 13, it was clear that the US and the
European Union were not willing to make any significant cuts on
their high levels of agricultural subsidization even as they
continued to intransigently demand that the developing countries
bring down their tariffs. It was also clear that the EU and US were
determined to disregard the Doha Declaration's stipulation that
the explicit consensus of all member states was required to begin
negotiations on the "Singapore issues."
Negotiate on our terms or not at all: that was the meaning of the
second revision. Not surprisingly, developing countries could not
lend their consensus to a framework of negotiations so detrimental
to their interests.
Second, the WTO has been severely damaged. Two collapsed
ministerials and one that barely made it-Doha-recommends the
institution to no one. For the trade superpowers, it is no longer a
viable instrument for imposing their will on others. For the
developing countries, membership has not brought protection
from abuses by the powerful economies, much less serve as a
mechanism of development. This is not to say that the WTO is
dead. There will be efforts to bring the WTO back from the brink,
like the US and the EU did at Doha. But the likelihood is that, with
lack of momentum from a successful ministerial, the machinery will
slow down significantly. Zoellick was correct in doubting that the
Doha Round will be finished by its deadline of January 2005 and
European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy was simply
trying to put a bright face to a bad situation when he said that the
WTO had completed 30 per cent of the Doha agenda.
Aside from the loss of momentum and the impairment of the basic
functioning of the organization's machinery, growing protectionism
in the rich countries, a global economy plagued by long-term
stagnation, and the unraveling of the Atlantic Alliance owing to
political differences do not provide a favorable climate for the
WTO's serving as the main mechanism for trade liberalization and
globalization. The WTO may eventually suffer the fate it helped
inflict on the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development): surviving but increasingly ineffective and irrelevant.
This raises the question: even as we rejoice in the failure of a
ministerial that was loaded against the interests of the developing
countries, should we welcome the weakening of the WTO? After
all, some have argued, the WTO is a set of rules and machinery
that, with the appropriate balance of forces, can be invoked to
protect the interests of the developing countries. Partisans of this
view say that one is better off with the WTO than with the bilateral
trade deals that US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said at
his final press conference would now receive Washington's
priority after the failure of Cancun.
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Women Protest WTO at Cancun
Photo: Amalia Anderson
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The truth is that this is a false choice. The WTO is not a neutral set
of rules, procedures, and institutions that can be used defensively
to protect the interests of weaker players. The rules themselves-
the main ones being the supremacy of the principle of free trade,
most favored nation principle, and the principle of national
treatment-institutionalize the current system of global economic
inequality. What weapons the weak countries have are few, and
far between. The principle of special and differential treatment for
developing countries has a very weak status in the WTO. Indeed,
in Cancun, the US and the EU completely banished from
negotiations the special and differential treatment agenda that had
been mandated by the Doha Declaration. The WTO is not a truly
multilateral organization. It is a mechanism to perpetuate the US-
EU condominium in the global economy.
Third, global civil society was a major player in Cancun. Since
Seattle, the interaction between civil society and governments on
trade issues has intensified. Non-governmental organizations
have assisted developing country governments in the political
and technical aspects of negotiations. They have mobilized
international public opinion against the retrograde stands of rich
country governments, as in the drug patents and public health
issue. They have emerged as strong domestic coalitions that put
their governments' feet to the fire to stiffen them against any further
concessions to the rich countries. If many developing country
governments resisted pressure from the US and the EU in
Cancun, it was because they feared political retribution from civil
society groups back home.
With peoples' movements marching in the city center and NGOs
demonstrating hourly inside and outside the convention hall from
the opening session on, Cancun became a microcosm of the
power of global dynamics of states and civil society. The suicide
of Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae at the police barricades warned
everyone at the convention center that they could no longer take
the plight of the world's small farmers for granted, and this was
acknowledged by the governments with the one-minute moment of
silence they observed in his memory. Truly, the collapse of the
Cancun ministerial was another confirmation of the New York
Times' observation that global civil society is the world's second
superpower.
Fourth, the Group of 21 is a significant new development that could
contribute to altering the global balance of forces. Led by Brazil,
India, China, and South Africa, the new grouping stalemated the
EU and US drive to make Cancun one more sad episode in the
history of underdevelopment. The potential of this group was
indicated by Celso Amorin, the Brazilian Trade Minister who has
emerged as its spokesman, when he said that it represented over
half the world's population and over two-thirds of its farmers. US
trade negotiators were right in discerning that the Group of 21
represented a resumption of the South's push for a "new
international economic order" in the 1970s.
However, much lies in the realm of possibility, and the potential of
this new formation must not be overestimated. It is now mainly an
alliance focused on radically reducing the subsidies of northern
agriculture. And it still has to meaningfully address the desire for
comprehensive protection of smaller farmers in the smaller
countries that are mainly focused on production for the domestic
market. This is understandable since the Group of 21's most
vocal members are large agro-exporters, though most have
significant domestic-market-oriented, peasant based production
as well.
Nevertheless, there is no reason that a positive agenda of small-
farmer-oriented sustainable agriculture cannot be placed at the
center of the group's advocacy. There is also no reason why the
Group cannot extend its mandate to forging a common program
on industry and services as well. Even more exciting is the
possibility that the Group of 21 can serve as the engine of South-
South cooperation that goes beyond trade to coordination of
policies on investment, capital flows, industrial policy, social
policy, environmental policy. Such formations of South-South
cooperation centered on the priority of development over trade
and markets provide the alternative to both the WTO and the
bilateral free trade agreements now being pursued by the US and
the EU.
In articulating its agenda, the Group of 21 will find a natural ally in
global civil society. With the US and the EU determined to defend
the status quo, this alliance must be moved from potential to reality
as soon as possible. It will not be easy of course. Progressive
civil society groupings may be comfortable dealing with the
Brazilian government headed by the Workers' Party, but they will
be ill at ease with the Indian government, which is fundamentalist
and neo-liberal and with the Chinese government, which is
authoritarian and neo-liberal. Nevertheless, alliances are forged
in practice and no government must be automatically categorized
as impossible to win over to the side of people-oriented
sustainable development.
To conclude, shortly after the Doha Ministerial, a number of civil
society organizations said that the interests of the developing
world would be best served by derailing the coming ministerial in
Cancun instead of trying to convert the ministerial into a forum for
reforming the WTO. As Cancun approached, the intransigence of
the powerful countries stalemated discussions with the South on
almost all fronts. By the time Cancun came around, there was no
more talk of reform. Things had become crystal-clear. With the
EU and US determined to get their way, no agreement was better
than a bad agreement, a failed ministerial was better than a
successful one that merely served as one more nail in the coffin of
underdevelopment.
After Cancun, the challenge for global civil society is to redouble
its efforts to dismantle the structures of inequality and to push for
alternative arrangements of global economic cooperation that
would truly advance the interests of the poor, the marginalized,
and the disempowered.
Focus on the Global South can be accessed at http://focusweb.org