The WTO Sets the Global Corporate Economic Agenda
By Steve Stallone

As national economies become more intertwined into one global economy, a handful of extra-governmental institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have quietly taken more and more control over national and local economies. But none has done so more insidiously--or with more danger to working people everywhere--than the World Trade Organization.

The WTO was established four years ago to devise and enforce global trade regulations. Like a world-wide NAFTA, it aims to eliminate all local or national "trade barrier" regulations, making the planet one large free-trade zone and a global economy of, by and for transnational corporations.

But while WTO supporters preach a philosophy of "free trade" and "free market" its regulations actually are designed to make the world safe for corporate-managed trade.

If they are carried out, the WTO's policies will hit the world the same way NAFTA hit North America. Well paying industrial jobs will be shipped to poor countries with lax labor and environmental standards. De-industrialized "developed" countries will suffer unemployment and underemployment. Underdeveloped countries will face super-exploitation of their workers and massive degradation of their environments

And the WTO plans to get its way. It has the blessing and backing of the governments of 184 countries, representing about 90 percent of the world's trade and, of course, all the transnational corporations. 

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Boeing CEO Phil Condit co-chair the host committee of the WTO's Seattle meeting. They are selling tickets to a dinner with WTO delegates the trade ministers and representatives of all 134 countries for a mere $75,000 each.

HOW IT WORKS

In 1947 the leaders of the victorious countries of W.W.II set up GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. GATT dealt with breaking down tariff protections, the laws regulating trade between countries. 

Having taken that as far as they could over the last 50 years before running into national sovereignty issues, the heads of governments and transnational corporations turned their attention to breaking down the laws countries developed to promote and protect their own economic interests. This gave birth to the WTO.

Its member nations gave the WTO authority to act like a planetary super-government, ruling over the economic activity of all nations. It legislates the new rules of the new corporate-managed global economy, then sits as judge and jury deciding what local or national laws in any country violates its dictates and finally it executes the punishment for those violations. It does all this with out a hint of democracy or accountability

The first new rules approved at previous WTO meetings dealt with trade in agricultural goods and textiles (eliminating import quotas and governmental subsidies), internationally traded services (like banking, telecommunications, air transportation) and what it calls "intellectual property rights" (copyrights, trade marks, patents and even the "ownership" of the genetic codes of plants and animals).

Although these agreements are supposed to be made by the representatives of democratically elected governments, the actual process is far removed from citizen voters.

The trade ministers of the WTO's four most powerful members--the U.S., Japan, the European Union and Canada--develop these policies in consultation with the largest transnational corporations in those fields. They of course, write rules that will favor their further domination of world markets.

The system set up to enforce these rules is simple. When one member nation decides that another has a law it considers a barrier to trade between them, it files a complaint with the WTO, challenging that law. A three-person panel of WTO "trade experts" reviews the case and determines whether the law in question violates its free trade rules.

The losing country has one appeal to a three- member panel of the Appellate Body appointed by the WTO, whose decision is final. If the offending law is ruled a violation, the losing country has three choices--it can reform the law, it can pay restitution to the complaining country or corporation or it can face trade sanctions.

The trade bureaucrats who sit in judgment of the rules are accountable to no one, their tribunals are held in secret and all documents, hearings and briefs are confidential. Yet with this power the WTO can destroy industries, local economies, countless jobs, public health and the environment--all in the name of' "free trade."

SOME KEY DECISIONS

Since 1995 about 125 complaints have been presented to the WTO for adjudication. One hundred of these are still in process and 25 have been decided. But these cases have set precedents and reveal how the WTO will continue to work. In every case where a public health or environmental law was challenged, the WTO ruled it illegal

In one of its very first rulings the WTO attacked an important environmental law--the U.S. Clean Air Act. In line with the law the Environmental Protection Agency set standards for the cleanliness of gas sold in the U.S. Venezuela challenged the law at WTO, claiming It created an unfair trade disadvantage for its gasoline, which was not up to the EPA standards.

The WTO sided with Venezuela. The Clinton administration, whose policy is to abide by WTO decisions, lowered the air quality standards set by the democratically elected Congress. The American people breathe dirtier air as a result.

Another recent WTO decision directly attacked public health and the right of governments to protect the health of their populations. In this case the European Union had banned the sale of beef treated with the artificial growth hormone BGH out of concern for its long-term health effects on people. The U.S. challenged that ban because it kept most American beef out of Europe.

In siding with the U.S. the WTO said there was not sufficient scientific evidence that the hormone was a risk to human health. This set a precedent that the WTO will not allow laws guarding against health risks unless they are backed by scientific proof of long-term effects--proof often unavailable until people have already suffered catastrophic illnesses.

Public health is losing out to corporate profits in other WTO regulations as well. The pharmaceutical industry heavily influenced the WTO's pact on intellectual property rights so it mirrors U.S. laws granting monopolies to individual patent holders for extended time periods.

Now Third World countries trying to purchase or develop generic drugs for internal consumption are being threatened with WTO action if they proceed. If governments want those drugs to save the health and lives of their people, they must pay whatever price demanded by the transnational corporation holding the patent.

Another ruling was an attack on the poor, devastating small farmers in favor of transnational corporations. As part of a "trade, not aid" treaty the European Union has with its former colonies, the EU guaranteed some Caribbean countries it would buy a certain amount of bananas from them. The U.S., on behalf of the Chiquita Banana Corporation, filed a complaint with the WTO claiming this guarantee was a trade baffler to it selling bananas in Europe.

The Caribbean growers, small-scale farmers who own and work their land, are hardly competition for Chiquita's large plantations, but the EU guarantee gives them a chance to make a decent living. Nonetheless, the WTO decided the practice was a trade barrier and imposed sanctions on the EU.

The fact that the U.S. grows no bananas--Chiquita's are grown in Latin America--shows that the WTO process is geared not to protect national interests, but the profits of transnational corporations.

In each of these cases and running through everything the WTO does, is the abdication of national sovereignty--each participating country gives up the right to make laws governing its own affairs.

It doesn't matter the people of a country vote a pass laws to protect their environment, health or local economy. a ruling by an obscure, nameless three person WTO panel on the the other side of the planet trumps their democratic decision.

While many of the proceedings of the WTO are secret, it does have a huge website with enormous documentation www.wto.org. But none of the summaries of the documents available tell you anything of substance.

To find that, you have to wade through thousands of pages of technical materials. The head of the WTO, Michael Moore, was only half joking when he quipped to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "If you have something to hide, the best way is to give out 5,000 sheets of paper and dare people to find it.

THE WTO's SEATTLE AGENDA

When the world's trade ministers meet in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3, they will be reviewing their previous agreements with an eye towards expanding them and considering new agreements to extend the WTO's reach to more sections of the world economy. Included in this will be a discussion of maritime services, including access to and use of port facilities.

Among other proposals under consideration at the Seattle WTO meeting are agreements limiting government regulation of investment and currency speculation, one expanding global consumption of forest products and another expanding restrictions on how governments can chose to spend their tax revenues.

The agreement on investments could include forbidding governments from considering a company's or country's human rights, labor or environmental records when making investment decisions; preventing governments from promoting local economic development by granting foreign corporations rights to enter markets; banning governments from insisting on certain investment "conditions" such as hiring local workers or requiring recycled or domestic content in manufactured products and forbidding governments from regulating speculation in their own currencies.

The agreement on forest products--known by opponents as the Global Free Logging Agreement-- would restrict governments from implementing pro-environmental policies to protect endangered forests, ecosystems and biodiversity

The agreement on government spending would restrict governments from taking political, environmental or social justice issues into account when deciding what companies to purchase goods and services from.

All the South Africa divestment ordinances passed by cities, states and countries against the apartheid regime in the 1980s would have been illegal under this plan. Similar ordinances against doing business with companies that do business with the oppressive military regime of Burma are now under challenge.

MOBILIZING FOR SEATTLE

Understanding that a corporate- managed world economy will ultimately destroy good union jobs, local economies, the environment and human and civil rights, more than 800 unions, environmental organizations, civil libertarians and human rights groups are organizing to take their concerns to the streets of Seattle when the WTO meets.

The major focus will be a mass demonstration in the afternoon of Tues., Nov. 30. The ILWU's International Executive Board has endorsed the demonstration and instructed all locals to do all they can to help send members to Seattle for the protest.

The ILWU has also signed on to a statement calling for a moratorium on any further WTO agreements, committing the union to campaign against any such proposals and calling for an in-depth review of the impacts of the current agreements.

Although the WTO appears to be an unstoppable, monolithic force, in many ways it is a house divided against itself and vulnerable to political pressure and the strength of organized workers. Its attempts to act as a united force for corporate profits carries the same contradiction as all of capitalism--for one side to gain, another must lose.

The biggest split in the WTO is between the industrialized "developed" countries and those still "developing" countries. Many of the poorest Third World developing countries want to slow the pace of the free trade policies that allow transportational corporations to take over their economies. They want to use tariffs and other projectionist measures to develop their own industrial base first. 

This is opposed by the First World transnational corporations that want to force those countries to concede control of their economies so the corporations can buy up all the privatized resources.

Other splits come from each country's desire to take advantage of its economic strengths and protect its weaknesses. For example, the EU and Japan want to protect their small- scale agriculture against foreign corporate competition. At the same time the EU wants to break down all government protections against foreign investments so its large banking interests will be able to dominate other countries' economies.

The conflicting interests are crack in the WTO's armor and weakness workers and other opponents of its free trade policies can exploit in the fight against corporate global domination.