By Geoff Winestock
Wall Street JournalNovember 2, 2001
When representatives of the 142 member countries of the World Trade Organization gather in Doha, Qatar, next Friday, the antiglobalization street protesters who severely disrupted the WTO's last meeting won't be there. But their demands could still threaten the talks.
The protesters will be kept at arm's length this time by the decision, made 10 months ago, to stage the meeting in the remote Persian Gulf state. Citing a shortage of accommodations, Qatar, an authoritarian country where trade unions are illegal, is issuing visas to only 300 or so accredited delegates from antiglobalization groups. Environmentalists have accused the WTO of going into hiding.
Where tens of thousands of labor unionists filled the streets of Seattle two years ago, only about 40 labor leaders are expected in Doha, and they are scheduled to hold just one meeting, in a conference room. In the most public display of protest, Greenpeace International will dock its boat, the SV Rainbow Warrior, and a crew of 30 will set up a few protest billboards on its deck.
Despite the lack of street agitation, however, Mike Moore, the WTO's director general, predicts that the environment and other issues tightly linked to the antiglobalization agenda could be "deal-breakers" at Doha. The meeting's participants are supposed to agree on the broad parameters of a future round of world trade talks, something global leaders have said is crucial to rebuilding confidence in the face of economic recession. Protesters against globalization -- who argue that closer trade ties between nations benefit big business at the expense of the poor and endanger delicate ecosystems with unrestrained promotion of industrial and commercial interests -- are still hoping to block that initiative. "Until the whole nature of the WTO is changed, we believe that it's wrong to launch a new round of trade talks," says Remi Parmentier, political director of Greenpeace.
Environmentalists are pressing for changes to WTO rules to ensure that international agreements on issues such as protecting endangered species always take precedence over free trade. They want to make it easier for governments to put warning labels on products such as those containing genetically modified organisms. And they want to make it easier to ban imports where they suspect, but cannot prove, a threat to health or the environment.
Since September's terrorist attacks on the U.S., the protesters admit, it has been harder to grab headlines with issues like these. Even before the attacks, the Bush administration had undermined the antiglobalization campaign on trade by reversing many Democratic priorities. For instance, back in Seattle, Bill Clinton wanted the WTO to let governments impose trade sanctions on countries that allow child labor or persecute labor unions. Now, the U.S. is cool to the idea, and labor unions are resigned to fudging the issue. At this point, it probably will be passed to the International Labor Organization, another Geneva group but one lacking the power to impose sanctions that makes the WTO a force to reckon with.
Yet the 15-nation European Union is still pushing all these issues hard, and France in particular has threatened to block any deal unless its demands are met. That means that antiglobalization will still be one of the make-or-break issues of the meeting. "It's more important now than ever to ensure that globalization takes place in a socially and environmentally responsible way," European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said in a recent interview.
The U.S., which has to placate environmental and labor interests in the Democrat-controlled Senate, is likely to try to avoid a conflict with the EU over the issue. But the U.S. biotechnology industry will oppose any measures that threaten trade in genetically modified organisms.
The dance will be delicate: The EU faces possible conflict both with the U.S., which opposes what it regards as overzealousness in protecting the environment, and with developing countries, which have rejected these environmental demands as a disguised form of protectionism. For instance, the EU's food-safety laws have been used -- detractors say with little scientific justification -- to keep out food exports from some African countries. Mexico is arguing with the U.S. over laws that penalize its shrimp exports because its fishermen kill endangered sea turtles.
"You should not assume that we share the antiglobalization movement's agenda," says Nacer Benjelloun-Touimi, Morocco's ambassador to the WTO. "They speak for the rich North."
That sets up a conundrum for the antiglobalization lobby, which sometimes claims to act on behalf of the world's poor. Greenpeace, for instance, has responded by stressing that its demands are consistent with the needs of developing countries. The crew of Greenpeace's protest ship will include traditional fisherman and tropical mangrove dwellers, who, it says, are being harmed by the shrimp industry.
The EU's negotiating leverage on the environment and labor is limited by its weakness in other key sectors, especially agriculture, where it is under strong pressure from the farm lobby to maintain protectionist subsidies and trade barriers. Equally, Mr. Lamy will be under pressure from the European business lobby, which has made it clear that it wants a new round of trade talks launched at Doha.
More Information on the World Trade Organization's Fourth Meeting
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