The Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the WTO 2001

The Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Doha, Qatar from 9 to 14 November 2001.

An Analysis
By Maude Barlow

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From November 9-13, 2001, trade ministers and negotiators from 142 countries came together in Doha, Qatar, for the Fourth Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although security concerns prompted calls to have the meeting moved from Qatar to Singapore, Qatari officials, who have spent more than $50 million (US) on facilities and hotel accommodations, would not relinquish the right to host the meeting.

On October 26, the WTO released its final Draft Ministerial Declaration which outlines the main agenda items for the meeting. A day later, the WTO released a "Draft Decision" on outstanding issues of concern to Developing Countries. What follows is an analysis of what was proposed by the WTO for the Qatar meeting and what it will mean for the citizens of Canada and other countries.

Background

The World Trade Organization was formed in 1995 at the conclusion of the "Uruguay Round" of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) negotiations. The WTO, using its status as a permanent institution with a huge secretariat, began to enforce the GATT and more than twenty separate agreements on services, intellectual property, agriculture and investment. Since the actual creation of the GATT in 1948, there have been eight "rounds" of negotiations, each consisting of a series of meetings spread out over several years to negotiate a fixed agenda of issues.

The first six rounds concentrated exclusively on tariff reductions. But the last two rounds, the "Tokyo Round" (1973-1979) and the "Uruguay Round" (1986-1994) began to target "non-tariff barriers" - the rules, policies, and practices of governments, other than those pertaining to tariffs, that can have an impact on trade. Governments began to negotiate for rules on "trade-related" items concerning agriculture, genetically modified foods, environmental regulations and financial and social services. A controversial body of rules on intellectual property rights and investment measures were put in place to be further expanded under the brand new WTO.

Operating out of Geneva, Switzerland, with a secretariat of five hundred, the WTO was mandated to enforce more than twenty separate trade agreements. It was given sweeping power to do so, with not only a body of rules governing the global economy but also with the powers and tools of a global government.

Unlike the GATT, which was effectively a business contract between nations, the WTO was given "legal personality" with an international status equivalent to that of the United Nations but with enormous enforcement powers denied to the UN. The WTO now has acquired the legislative, judicial and executive powers of a global governing body, including international trade tribunals to adjudicate disputes. As such, the WTO is the most powerful global institution of our time.

Under the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism, member countries can challenge the laws, policies and programs of other countries. The losing country must abide by the decision of unelected trade tribunals or face severe fines and permanent economic sanctions. In effect, the WTO has the authority to strike down any domestic law, policy or program judged to be in violation of strict business-friendly trade rules.

Although on paper all member countries are equal under the WTO, in reality, larger countries have the economic power to withstand trade sanctions from smaller countries, whereas smaller countries are always at a disadvantage in a dispute with a more powerful country. It is no surprise that of the 117 WTO challenges to date, the United States has initiated 50.

Seattle's Legacy

Given its new powers and the interest that the WTO was engendering among NGOs, labour groups, environmentalists and others in civil society around the world, it is no surprise that the stakes were very high for the WTO when it met in Seattle, Washington, in November, 1999, to launch a whole new round of trade negotiations. The agenda for the "Millennium Round" was extremely ambitious.

The United States and Canada, joined by other food-exporting nations, wanted to remove remaining trade barriers and subsidy programs in agriculture and to set rules that would force all member countries to import their genetically modified foods. The U.S and Europe were vigorously promoting a new round of negotiations that would strengthen intellectual property rights. Through "procurement" and "competition" negotiations, the powerful countries wanted access to government contracts, giving their corporations the right to compete with domestic companies for lucrative government projects. And, for the first time, the global services sector, including health care, education, culture and environmental services such as water, was on the table.

The talks broke down under three stresses. First, a growing anti-WTO civil society movement had taken deep root in many countries, and, through the internet, had come together as a formidable international presence. Members of this movement correctly observed that the WTO has no minimum standards to protect the environment, social programs labour codes or cultural diversity, and has been used to eliminate a number of key nation-state environmental, food safety and human rights laws. Thus, the WTO was directly and negatively affecting their work. Over 1,600 organizations around the world signed on to a "No New Round" pledge and many thousands of citizens took to the streets of Seattle during the meeting, vowing to shut it down.

Second, the European Union and the United States came to loggerheads over the issue of food security. Many European countries had developed strong regulations to ensure the safety of their food systems, especially after having lived with the terror of mad cow disease. North America and Europe were already locked in a WTO dispute over Europe's ban on nontherapeutic use of hormones in its food supply and its subsequent trade restrictions on North American beef and were heading toward disagreement over genetically modified foods. Europe was also committed to a more inclusive definition of agriculture, insisting that its "multifunctionality" characteristics, such as food diversity, the health of farming communities and environmental concerns, be considered in any WTO rules developed around food.

Third, the Developing Countries, deeply disappointed that their concerns from the last round of talks were not on the agenda in Seattle, rose up as one voice and demanded to be heard. Issues of market access to Northern country markets and the power imbalance between North and South had been promised them at the end of the Uruguay round. In fact, it was their understanding that no new major initiatives would be on the table until their concerns about such issues as intellectual property were dealt with. Once again treated by powerful Northern countries as second-class citizens, they basically called the trade talks off hours before President Clinton shut the whole meeting down.

A Rescue Operation

The WTO Millennium Round ended in disgrace. A mortified American Administration tried to put the best face forward on the collapse, as did the WTO leadership. But so complete was the rout that took place, there was even speculation that the WTO might disintegrate. However, powerful forces behind the scenes in Washington, London and Geneva and in corporate boardrooms fought back, and the WTO got to work in four key areas.

First, The United States and the European Union set out to mend fences between them. Their top trade bureaucrats, Pascal Lamy and Robert Zoellick, share a hardline position on trade and agree on the necessity of forcing Europe to abandon its high agriculture and food security standards. Lamy has convinced the U.S. to give Europe more time to take down the agricultural subsidies, but is basically in lockstep with the U.S. on global trade talks that will include agriculture.

This does not mean that Lamy can get all European governments onside, however, or that the disputes between the hardline trade bureaucrats and trade ministers on one side, and the health, agriculture and environmental officials and politicians on the other, have been resolved. There is still great potential for disagreement in Qatar around Europe's attachment to a different view of food and food security.

Second, Michael Moore, Director-General of the WTO, set out on a furious round of meetings with Developing country delegations, business leaders and politicians to mend fences. The message he brought with him was very aggressive; free trade is the Third World's best friend and the NGOs and labour groups in the North who protested in Seattle just want to protect their jobs and lifestyles and don't care at all about the world's poor. Moore promised that the WTO would treat Developing Countries' concerns as a top priority and succeeded in having this meeting called the "Growth and Development Round."

Further, the EU and the US aggressively sent their senior negotiators, including U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick and European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, to Third World capitals to meet with government trade ministers and leaders and impress upon them the urgency of the need for restored negotiations. This "capital based initiative" intensified in the last several months.

As well, the General Council of the WTO agreed on May 3, 2000, to study the concerns of Developing Countries and report with a series of recommendations before the next proposed Ministerial meeting. The text of this process, called "Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns" was released on October 27, 2001.

Third, WTO officials and national trade ministers and their bureaucrats have been meeting with select groups of NGOs and civil society organizations to try to enlist their support for a new round. Especially targeted have been development groups who have been given the same messages as Third world governments; trade is the only way to alleviate poverty and your sector must help us get it "right." In Geneva, there have been a number of high-level consultations which most groups who participated have termed "useless" and done for cosmetic reasons only.

In Canada, Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew has quietly held regular meetings with civil society, also targeting development groups with the same message. He and International Development Minister Maria Minna are now equating development with market access and supported the theme of "Growth and Development" for the new Round. They are arguing that, in the post September 11 recession, the only way to kick start the global economy is a new WTO Round.

Finally, citing trade in services as the only area in which there was no contention in Seattle, the WTO commenced services negotiations in earnest.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) had been established in 1994 and was one of the trade agreements adopted for inclusion when the WTO was formed in 1995. Negotiations got underway in February, 2000, chaired by Canada's Ambassador to the WTO (and former International Trade Minister) Sergio Marchi.

The common goal of Europe, the U.S. and Canada is to reach a general agreement by December, 2002 and much rides on concluding successful negotiations on services. Not only is this a huge and lucrative sector, with enormous amounts of money to be made by the powerful corporate forces in the services business, but coming to agreement over contentious issues for civil society such as social programs would be a real tour de force for the WTO against its detractors.

The New Round

Slowly the push for a new Round, or at least a high-level meeting, took root and the search was on for the location of the Ministerial meeting for November, 2001. At first the powers at the WTO rejected Qatar; they knew that the choice of a country that does not permit demonstrations or public expressions of political opinion would be roundly criticized by civil society groups. However, no other viable offer was forthcoming, as most governments didn't want a repeat of Seattle in their cities. So Qatar was reluctantly chosen to host the meeting.

In the leadup to setting an agenda for the meeting, the same old differences seemed to be emerging along the same lines of contention. Martin Khor of the Third World Network describes it best:

"The multilateral trading system, and the WTO, are at a crossroads. Decisions made this year at the WTO as we approach Doha itself, will have an important effect on which direction the trade system will head. The most important of the decisions is whether the next few years will see the WTO members doing their best to rectify the problems and imbalances in the rules and system, or whether the proposal for a 'new comprehensive Round' is accepted, in which case more new issues are added to the WTO which will distort the trading system and add on even more to the existing imbalances...