[CTC] WTO Ministerial in Nairobi: What's at Stake?

Mon Dec 14 14:16:11 PST 2015

On the WTO for the 10th Ministerial occurring this week in Nairobi, Kenya
and recent civil society activity! Hope it is useful to you.

http://www.alternet.org/world/major-summit-could-put-worlds-poorest-inhabita
nts-corporate-chopping-block

Major Summit Could Put World's Poorest Inhabitants on Corporate Chopping
Block
The ministerial meetings for the WTO must deliver on food security and
development for the world's poor.

By Deborah James/AlterNet
December 13, 2015

Last week, 453 civil society groups including trade unions, farmers,
environmentalists, public interest groups and development advocates from
over 150 countries wrote an urgent letter to members of the WTO to ³express
extreme alarm about the current situation of the negotiations in the WTO.²
This is the largest number of endorsers on a letter about the WTO in the
last decade and is a signal of the dire situation. Coordinated by the global
Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network, the letter is available in
English 
<http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/signon/global-civil-society-letter-n
airobi-ministerial-world-trade-organization-wto> , Spanish
<http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/es/signon/carta-sociedad-civil-acerca-c
onferencia-ministerial-organizaci-n-mundial-del-comercio-omc-rea>  and
French 
<http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/fr/node/add/signon?translation=24666&la
nguage=fr> .

The 10th Ministerial meeting of the WTO, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from
December 15-18, is occurring against a backdrop of accelerated
³mega-regional² comprehensive pro-corporate ³trade² deals like the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP). At the same time, mostly rich countries are also
expanding the corporate liberalization model in certain sectors like
services (through the proposed Trade in Services Agreement or TiSA), and on
goods (through the proposed Information Technology Agreement, or ITA and the
Environmental Goods Agreement or EGA).

The WTO meeting is also occurring immediately after a global deal on climate
was struck in Paris, which many call a step in the right direction but also
acknowledge that it is not nearly ambitious enough to resolve the global
climate crisis. 

A bit of background: when the Doha Round was launched in 2001, developing
countries only agreed to the new round on the basis that it would address
the problems of the bad deal that created the existing WTO. Thus the
negotiation mandate focused on development, including specific changes
proposed to the WTO in what¹s called the ³Special and Differential Treatment
(SDT)² agenda. Most of these proposed changes would give developing
countries more flexibility from WTO rules, thus reducing the intrusion of
the WTO into their domestic sphere, to enable them to enact development
policies in line with their national interests.

Major emphasis was also placed on agriculture, on reducing the subsidies and
tariffs used by rich countries
<http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2015/ti151204.htm> , which harm
developing country farm production and food security. Poor countries have
been fighting to be able to protect their farmers¹ livelihoods, food
security and rural development from surges in imports of subsidized
products, through what¹s called the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM
<http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2015/ti151120.htm> ). This is because
rich countries have still refused to limit either their domestic (point of
production) subsidies or the advantages they provide to agribusinesses at
the point of export. Developing countries are also fighting to be permitted
by WTO rules to invest in their own agricultural production and strengthen
domestic food security programs
<http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2015/ti151109.htm>  that are currently
permitted for rich but not developing countries
<http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/JPi4o78XnwziAnsbzTHgrJ/Destruction-of-US-cr
edibility-at-WTO.html> , not even for Least Developed Countries (LDCs)!

Unfortunately, it seems that developed countries never intended to deliver
on those development and agricultural reform promises, and have spent the
last 14 years of the Doha Round sidelining development issues and instead
working to expand the WTO¹s neoliberal dictates on services, goods,
agriculture and other issues. At the same time, they have taken their
corporate wish lists to other forums, concluding the TPP and negotiating the
TTIP, TiSA, ITA and EGA mentioned above.

These developments have drastically reduced the leverage developing
countries have in the WTO to achieve their developmental agendas. In effect,
because rich countries have never agreed to any proposals by developing
countries or LDCs, and are now focused on attaining their interests
elsewhere, they are now attempting to formally abandon any ³development²
mandate in the WTO.

This effort, which is the main fight in Nairobi, is even more pernicious
because their goal is two-fold: abandon the development mandate, and then
open up space to introduce all the new corporate issues they have been
negotiating in the TPP, TTIP and other deals into the WTO, including
investment, government procurement, disciplining state owned enterprises,
and others. Many of these issues are not permitted to be on the agenda in
the WTO while Doha is still being negotiated.

After 20 years of the WTO¹s corporate model, and the massive displacement of
farmers, increased inequality, financial crises and massive climate crises,
civil society is clear: the current WTO cannot be allowed to continue in
terms of business as usual. There are immediate changes that must be made to
the worst aspects of the current WTO. These should be the urgent priority,
as a first step towards the transformation of the global trade system
towards one that works for sustainable development, jobs, and food
sovereignty. Simultaneously, the WTO must not be allowed to expand the scope
and breadth of its privatization and deregulation agenda through ³new
issues.² 

In their letter, civil society highlighted that success in Nairobi must mean
³[f]ulfilling the development mandate by strengthening SDT for all
developing countries, removing WTO obstacles to food security, and
operationalizing benefits for the [LDCs].² They specified that the WTO
Ministerial will be a failure from a development perspective, unless the
agriculture rules are changed in four ways. Poor countries must be allowed
to invest in food security through public stockholding programs; rich
countries¹ domestic supports and export competition policies that hurt poor
country markets must be reined in; poor countries must be allowed to protect
their farmers from subsidized imports; and cotton subsidies
<http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2015/ti151201.htm>  must be slashed,
along with other concerns of the Least Developed Countries.

They also highlighted what agenda items must not be incorporated, noting
that ³introducing a corporate wish list of Œnew issues¹ must be off the
table at Nairobi,² and that the ³WTO Ministerial will be a failure from a
development perspective if Œnew issues¹  including under the sneaky rubric
of Œdiscussions on global value chains (GVCs) or the digital economy¹  are
agreed to in Nairobi as part of the post-Ministerial agenda.²

They concluded that: ³[f]or the Ministerial to Œwork¹ for food, jobs, and
sustainable development, the necessary outcome is clear: the transformation
of the gross inequities in the global agricultural system must begin,
including: removing WTO obstacles to public stockholding for food security;
a concrete and workable SSM; and disciplining domestic supports and export
competition. Across the WTO, development demands must be met, including the
full scope of the G90 proposals for all developing countries, and the
operationalizing of the LDC package. The corporate and rich country
government agenda of permanently abandoning the development mandate must be
forestalled, along with the imposition of a set of already-rejected or
ill-defined non-trade Œnew issues¹.²

The letter echoes many concerns raised by civil society throughout the
history of the WTO, including a letter sent by 345 organizations in July
<http://ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/signon/letter-civil-society-regarding-fu
ture-agenda-wto-negotiations> , as well as the OWINFS Turnaround Statement
<http://notforsale.mayfirst.org/en/signon/wto-turnaround-2013-food-jobs-and-
sustainable-development-first-statement>  that includes an extensive list of
transformative policy changes, and the original Shrink or Sink! manifesto on
the Doha Round. 

The whole world watched as representatives of nearly every country on the
global negotiated a landmark climate deal in Paris last week. Experts have
detailed how governments won¹t be able to implement many aspects of the
deal, however, if agreements like the TPP
<https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/uploads-wysiwig/d
irty-deal.pdf> , TTIP
<http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/GC91Dec15Ackerman.pdf?utm_source=GDAE+Sub
scribers&utm_campaign=c991138ef4-AckermanTTIP_12_1_2015&utm_medium=email&utm
_term=0_72d4918ff9-c991138ef4-49688253>  [PDF] or TiSA
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-james/climate-deception-non-bin_b_872
4014.html>  come into force. Much the same could be said about the WTO.
Developing country unity and North-South peoples¹ solidarity will be
essential to a positive outcome at the WTO. Let¹s make sure that the United
States, the EU, Japan, Australia and others realize that the imperative of
development and public interests must come before corporate profit. A good
deal should be struck in Nairobi. But if not, then no deal is better than a
bad deal. 

Deborah James, djames at cepr.net, facilitates the campaign on the WTO for the
Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network. OWINFS is a global network of
NGOs and social movements working for a sustainable, socially just, and
democratic multilateral trading system. www.ourworldisnotforsale.org
<http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org> .

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