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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #27-99 Democracy for Sale: The WTO Phillip Babich: This week on Making Contact... Lori Wallach: Unless, literally, there is a piece of dolphin in the can. Dolphin-deadly tuna and dolphin-safe tuna must be treated the same under this trade over everything-philosophy of the WTO. Simon Billenness. The very fact that a local government official needs to be involved in international treaties is evidence of the absurd situation that we’re in. Phillip Babich: The World Trade Organization is entering its fourth year. Planners of its annual meeting in late 1999, including major corporations such as Microsoft and Boeing, hope to accomplish the boosting of free trade policies. But, the WTO's track record has sparked much opposition. On this program, we take a look at the WTO, its goals and how its decisions have affected the world's economies. I'm Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact, an international radio program, seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. Since countries began negotiating the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade fifty years ago, industrialized nations of the world have been pushing for increased access to foreign markets, as well as freedom to harness labor and use natural resources around the world. Out of the last round of GATT talks came the World Trade Organization, the WTO. Its primary function is to enforce GATT and to create and adjudicate international trade laws. Over the years, global trade policies developed by member nations of the WTO have gained strength. In many ways, WTO rules override national, state, and local laws in all signatory countries. The Massachusetts State legislature, for example, passed a law banning government agencies from contracting with companies that conduct business in Burma, which is ruled by a brutal military junta. That law has been challenged under WTO rules. For more on this, correspondent Chuck Rosina spoke with Simon Billenness, a member of the Burma Roundtable in Boston, a group which helped pass the Massachusetts Selective Purchasing law. Chuck Rosina: Japan and the European Union have challenged the law. Both governments have filed official complaints with the World Trade Organization. Simon Billenness is a member of the Burma Round Table, a grassroots organization based in Boston that supports federal and state sanctions on Burma. His organization spearheaded the campaign that resulted in the Massachusetts/Burma selective purchase law. He summarizes the bill passed by the state legislature. Simon Billenness: For a couple of years we worked to help enact the Massachusetts/Burma Selective Purchasing law, which was actually signed into law in June of ‘96. And what this law does, is that it effectively bars the commonwealth from buying goods or services from companies that do business in Burma. The law is inspired and modeled after similar laws that were passed during the anti-apartheid campaign. Chuck Rosina: Simon Billenness of the Burma Round Table explains what happened after the Massachusetts State Legislature passed the law. Simon Billenness: When this law was enacted in 1996, what caught the attention of European Commission and Japanese government was the fact that Massachusetts was now boycotting any company that did business in Burma, including not just U.S. companies, but also companies based in Europe and companies based in Asia, like Japan. And in order to implement this law, Massachusetts sent letters to companies that were doing business in Burma to inform them that this law was in place. But also to give them the opportunity to show to the state that they were no longer doing business in Burma. Those letters that went out to a number of Japanese and European companies caused quite a ruckus. In fact, by December of ‘96 the U.S. State Department received diplomatic communiqués from countries all over Europe and Asia asking, you know, what the hell Massachusetts was doing by boycotting their companies. And finally culminated in January of ‘97 with the European Commission sending a demarche or formal protest to the U.S. Government, stating that they believe that this law was in violation of a World Trade Organization side agreement, called the Government Procurement Agreement. And so we find ourselves in a situation where we were supporters of the first state law ever to be challenged at the World Trade Organization. And still the only one. And then the challenge for us was, how do you defend a law from a WTO challenge through grassroots political action. Chuck Rosina: It actually undermines democratic values for the sake of financial interests. Simon Billenness: Exactly. Its an attack of democracy on two levels. First of all, by attacking a law that was passed unanimously by the Massachusetts Legislature, and signed into law by Governor Weld, is attacking a law that was enacted through democratic process. And which, more importantly, it’s a law that was enacted in solidarity with the democracy movement in Burma, and whose leaders have specifically called for economic sanctions, whose leaders have specifically praised selective purchasing laws. And we’re talking about leaders who did win an election in Burma in 1990 but were not allowed to form a government by the military junta. Chuck Rosina: The tactic of selective purchasing laws in nothing new. Simon Billenness says similar laws were passed over 200 years ago. Simon Billenness: During the American Revolutionary War, town meetings, the predecessors of our city councils and state governments - town meetings would debate and frequently adopt resolutions boycotting goods made in Britain. And so, right from the revolutionary period, you see citizens directing how their cities, how their towns, how their local governments should spend their tax dollars. And making it very clear that the political and moral reasons are just as good reasons to determine how you spend your money, as purely economic. And so it really is an attack on the fabric and political culture of the United States to suddenly turn around and say, "Oh, no, states are not allowed to set moral criteria on how they spend citizens’ tax dollars." Chuck Rosina: Simon Billenness of the Burma Round Table, explaining the current status of the Massachusetts/Burma Selective Purchasing Law. For Making Contact, I am Chuck Rosina in Boston. Phillip Babich: Under WTO rules, virtually any tariff or what are called non-tariff trade barriers can be challenged by member countries. A non-tariff trade barrier would be regulations that place certain requirements on products or services, such as environmental regulations or labor standards. These challenges are heard by a WTO tribunal of three trade lawyers, typically chosen from the ranks of attorneys who have served GATT or member countries. One such challenge in 1995 involved the U.S. Clean Air Act. Part of this law banned gasoline that had high rates of emissions when burned. Lori Wallach, a trade attorney and director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, based in Washington, tells Making Contact's Laura Livoti that the WTO tribunal ruled against the U.S. Clean Air Act. This allowed gasoline into the United States from Venezuela that did not meet emission standards. Lori Wallach: Clean Air Act rules were changed. So in the cities that have the dirtiest air, where reformulated gasoline is required during the heavily polluted months, that’s correct. Venezuelan gasoline is now allowed into the U.S. at a dirtier level of contamination that was previously allowed prior to August of 1996, when the WTO ruling was implemented. Laura Livoti: I’m wondering if you can talk about another real world example. When I was in elementary school, my mom wouldn’t make me tuna fish sandwiches. She was boycotting tuna because of fishing practices that caused dolphin deaths. And then, the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed, and we saw tuna on the shelves of stores that was actually labeled ‘dolphin safe.’ I’m wondering, is our tuna still dolphin safe, and if not, how is the WTO implicated? Lori Wallach: Well, this is actually a really tragic story. I mean, we’ve given it a sort of sarcastic name because it really is depressing. We call it How GATTzilla Ate Flipper. That law was eviscerated and as of the fall of this year the U.S. market will once again be open to tuna fish caught by encircling dolphins with these dreadful purse-seine nets, that is know to drown and kill dolphins by the tens of thousands. How this came to pass was that several countries who wanted to use the encirclement fishing technique, challenged the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, which that law said, "you cannot sell tuna fish in the U.S. if it’s caught in ways that kill dolphins. It’s the same rule for your domestic fishermen or foreign fishermen. You just can’t sell it here if you catch it that way." And under the GATT, under the WTO, you’re not allowed to distinguish between the way something is harvested, manufactured, caught. Laura Livoti: I understand that the WTO is going to be holding its ministerial meeting at the end of 1999 in Seattle. I wonder if you can explain what the significance of that is? Lori Wallach: A ‘ministerial’ is a summit level meeting where the WTO countries’ top trade officials get together. And the reason why this particular Seattle ministerial is so important is because there has been a proposal by the Europeans (that the Japanese governments and the Canadians have supported), that is to do another whole round of deregulation talks, and to expand this trade uber alles philosophy to a whole set of new issues. And one of the real skunky agenda items is to try and put that MAI (the Multilateral Agreement on Investments), that beautiful, wonderful international citizen organizing, stopped a year ago...blew up...to try and revive that, and put the MAI right into the WTO. Laura Livoti: And you reference the possibility of expanding it by including the MAI, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Can you just briefly summarize for our listeners what some of the tenets of the MAI are? Lori Wallach: Basically, the way you look at this is to make the WTO more like NAFTA. NAFTA had these rules too, so MAI was basically NAFTA on steroid for the whole world. And what it means specifically is to take away, to constrain government ability to set policy in areas relating to investment. But investment is defined incredibly broadly. Plus, the MAI contained an incredibly controversial provision that was basically a global regulatory takings mechanism, which is to say it allowed any corporation to sue a government directly -- not is their courts, but in an MAI tribunal, to demand cash compensation for any domestic law that undermines that corporation’s expected profits. So, for instance, there’s already one example of this under NAFTA, where a company had a product which was banned in California, it was banned in other U.S. states, and the country of Canada decided to ban the stuff too. The company said, "Well, if you want to ban our product, you can pay us, because we have new investor rights under NAFTA. 351 million, please." (The product is called MMT, it’s a gasoline additive made by the Ethyl Corporation. And in the end, the government backed down. They were going to lose a $351 million dollar ransom basically, and they agreed to pay 14 million dollars for that company’s lost profits to date. Laura Livoti: I understand that the Summit in Seattle is to be funded by private corporations, and that the budget is nine million dollars being sought from corporations. Some that have already committed, include Weyerhaeuser, General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, and Boeing. Previous summits have been funded by member governments, I believe... Lori Wallach: Correct. Laura Livoti: ...and I’m wondering what you think of this new trend? Lori Wallach: Well, the serious answer is, amongst the many outrageous things I have seen in 10 years working on trade and globalization, this ranks up near the top. The sarcastically humorous point is, I guess the U.S. decided they should privatize everything, including our multilateral treaty negotiations. It’s really a scandal. The whole thing came to light when a letter went around, that we were lucky enough to get sent to us by a company who was on the mailing list, who was so offended just at the principle of literally this amount of crass access selling, that they faxed us the letter anonymously. And it was a letter that said it was from the two chairs of the corporate host committee putting on this ministerial allegedly government event are the CEOs of Boeing and Microsoft. So we get a letter from Bill Gates that says, "Hi, we’re putting on a party. And you need to pay. And here’s what you get:" And it has different levels of goodies for different levels of cash. So the ‘emerald level,’ $250,000 contribution, you get five seats to the official state dinner, you get six seats to this, you get access to that...special private planning meeting to set the agenda of the Ministerial with U.S. negotiators. On the other hand, if you didn’t have as much, at the ‘diamond level’, 150 thousand, you only got three seats at the state dinner. Footnote on the invitation said: "You will be seated next to high level officials, as requested, to the extent permitted by State Department protocol." No joke. They really sent out a letter like this. At least the crass selling of seats seems to be somewhat retracted, though it’s going to be the most corporate infested Ministerial known to man, to the extent that the European Union has sent a formal protest, saying, "We’re very upset about this. U.S. corporations will have better special interests than EU corporations." Of course it begs the question, what about the most of us who have to live with the results. Phillip Babich: Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch speaking with Laura Livoti. Stephanie Welch: You’re listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. This radio program can be heard across North America, in South Africa, and on the Internet. You can also hear us on Radio for Peace International Short Wave. It you want more information about the subject of this week’s show, call the National Radio Project. It’s toll free: 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs. Phillip Babich: When the WTO meets this November and December in Seattle, another trade issue that's expected to be discussed is agriculture. Multinational agriculture companies are pushing the WTO to adopt rules that will open up foreign markets and keep intact domestic subsidies. But as big agribusiness does its lobbying, rural farmers from developing countries around the world are organizing to reverse what's often called liberalization in the agriculture sector. Walden Bello is co-director of The Global South, a trade policy organization based in the Philippines. He's also a senior fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. Bello explains that as developing countries are flooded with cheap imported agricultural products, small farmers can't make a living. In Thailand, for example, some family members must migrate to urban centers, where they get low-wage jobs, to try and support their families. Bello says this essentially amounts to a transfer of wealth. I asked him how this was the case. Walden Bello: You had the World Bank, which basically has promoted for a long time this development model that was based on the priority of industrialization, particularly export-oriented industrialization. And as we all know, this was for a long, long time, and I don’t think it has changed, export-oriented manufacturing has been the policy that the bank has pushed on many of these countries, not only in Asia, of course, but in other parts of the South. And there have been other international players that have affected this, including big agribusiness and agricultural interests in the North. Just like many other OECD countries, or are many other developed countries, the United States subsidizes its agriculture. And because of the tremendous subsidization that has been put into agriculture in this country, there’s been so much production, and that production has demanded export markets, and East Asia, Southeast Asia, had been seen as very important in the U.S. Department of Agriculture scheme of things. Indeed, I understand that the plan is to have East Asia absorb about 60% of U.S. agricultural exports by the end of the century. Phillip Babich: I want to ask you how the World Trade Organization, the WTO, fits into this equation. How did they participate in, or even create the situation where they have transfer of wealth, or have countries that had farming sectors now dependent on export agriculture from the United States? Walden Bello: Well, the World Trade Organization is oftentimes pictured as a sort of agency of free trade in the world. It’s supposed to create the rules that will move the world faster into a global free market where there are no barriers to trade. But there are particularly two agreements that are really pushing monopolies, and that is the trade-related intellectual property rights which was really created to protect Bill Gates, and the Agreement On Agriculture, which was really what we in Asia call an agreement that was arrived at principally between the European Union and the United States - to be able to create the rules of engagement for dividing up world agricultural markets. So, the AOA, the Agreement on Agriculture, was never intended to dismantle monopoly. It was mainly created to be able to formulate the rules of engagement between the US and the European Union for the dumping of their surplusses on third world markets. So, basically, that is the role of the Agreement on Agriculture, within this larger body called the GATT/WTO. Phillip Babich: Interesting. Well, in May of this year, just to talk more about this and the WTO role, in May of this year agribusiness heavy-hitters in the U.S. pulled together a coalition called the Seattle Round Agriculture Committee, which has come up with recommendations for the WTO, which is holding its Ministerial later this year in Seattle, as you know. And the groups include the American Farm Bureau, Cargill Incorporated, the huge multinational agribusiness, Conagra and the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Did you hear about this gathering, and what are your thoughts on it? Walden Bello: Well, I’ve heard about the gathering, and I’m not surprised that they have come together, because the American Agricultural Lobby has been one of the most formidable in the world. You know, Cargill and its friends and colleagues. And, basically, these are the people who pushed through the Agreement On Agriculture back in 1994, when GATT was signed. And they were also able to push through, as a provision of the 1994 Marrakech Accord, which was the accord that institutionalized the WTO, that in 1999 and the year 2000 there will be new negotiations for further liberalization of markets. Agriculture and services are the two sectors in which there is an explicit mandate for new negotiations. So, basically, this body, working closely with the Department of Agriculture, and with the U.S. Trade representative, which has always been very much a body that has pushed the interests of these agricultural multinationals and exporters. You know, they’re coming together to be able to formulate an airtight game plan for further liberalization, as well as a strategy for dealing with the Europeans and Japan and South Korea. And they also want to eliminate those subsidies for European agriculture that continued after that GATT/Uruguay round, that they feel benefits the European producers in terms of the competition for Third country markets. But they are absolutely against the elimination of those significant subsidies for American agriculture. Phillip Babich: Walden Bello is co-director of The Global South, based in the Philippines. Typically, driving up profits means driving down labor costs. Nowadays, large companies scour the globe in search of cheap labor. In some countries, workers make less than $1 a day as they sew clothing or assemble electronic equipment for brand name multinational corporations. At the same time, corporations are relocating manufacturing operations from countries with relatively high wages, such as the United States, to cheaper countries. In recent years, big names such as Levi Strauss and RCA have shut down US operations and relocated to developing countries. That's why some sectors of organized labor have gotten involved in the anti-WTO fight. Erle Ingram is with the United Steelworkers of America. Erle Ingram: The WTO is more like a dictatorship, where you’re going to be governed by big business, and big business will rule all the countries. And a democracy is the people, themselves, electing their officials and saying what they want done. So I think it’s a step backwards when a group can take what big business wants and put that ahead of everybody else, and take away from the United States what we have as one of the biggest countries and one of the wealthiest countries, and take that and move it to other countries and leave us without. Without safeguards for the environment, safeguards for labor, or the people themselves. Phillip Babich: Ingram adds that protecting jobs here in the United States isn't good enough, though. Organized labor must stop this "race to the bottom," he says. Erle Ingram: It will pretty much make it almost like slave labor again. I mean, we had the sweat shops, and still do have sweat shops in Third World countries. It’ll make them more rampant, because when a company moves in, a transnational company like Ford Motor, for example. When they move a plant to another country, they aren’t concerned with environmental laws, they aren’t concerned with labor laws. They give the people the minimum that they can give them. And they pretty much ruin the environment of that country, and when they’ve depleted everything there, they’ll move on to somewhere else. Phillip Babich: Don Kegley, also with the United Steelworkers of America, says that the WTO is fundamentally un-democratic. WTO officials have said in the past that they want to "write a global constitution" for business, which would over-ride national, state and local laws. Don Kegley: Every American should be appalled that an organization that has no elected officials, that has a vested interest only in the wealthy, would say that they are going to write a global constitution for humanity. Everything about that is against democracy and decency. I’m pretty sure in that rewriting process, labor unions don’t even exist. Phillip Babich: There are counter-events scheduled to take place in Seattle during the WTO Ministerial Summit November 27 through December 2. For more information you can call toll free 877-STOP-WTO. For background information on the WTO, check out Public Citizens web site: www.tradewatch.org. That's it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at the World Trade Organization. Thanks for listening. We had production assistance from Stephanie Welch and Eric Hamako. Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law is executive director. Our production assistant is Shereen Meraji. Norman Solomon is senior advisor. Our national producer is David Barsamian. And, I'm your host and managing producer Phillip Babich. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, call the National Radio Project, at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. Making Contact is an independent production. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we’d like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter trio. ‘Bye for now. |