Global Policy Forum

WDM has joined other civil society groups around the world to demand democracy, transparency and accountability from the WTO at the 5th Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico. Below is the statement that WDM has signed.

Civil Society call to WTO Members for the 5th WTO Ministerial in Cancun

Development, labour, environment and other civil society groups are alarmed by the lack of democratic process at the WTO. This lack of democratic process, most evident in WTO agenda setting and decision-making, affects WTO outcomes. While we continue to advocate for equitable and sustainable policies in the areas of agriculture, intellectual property, services etc, we realize that unless the WTO decision-making process itself is addressed, we fail to get to the heart of the systemic problems facing the WTO. There is serious cause to consider any substantive outcome of the WTO as illegitimate and unjust on the grounds that negotiations fail to be conducted in a democratic, transparent, and accountable way.

We highlight six key problems of internal transparency that continue to threaten the democratic legitimacy of the WTO:

1. WTO draft decisions are formulated in a non-transparent and an exclusionary fashion. This results in draft texts that fail to reflect differences in positions especially between developing and developed country members e.g. in Ministerial Texts. The increasing use of "clean texts" or texts without brackets significantly delegitimises the consensus process.

2. The WTO is increasingly becoming a chair driven rather than a member driven organization with an increased reliance on chairpersons to draft "in their own responsibility" and thus in their own opinions, texts of high importance such as the agriculture modalities, draft ministerial texts etc. It gives unprecedented powers to individuals. The use of chairs' texts and his/her understanding of undocumented consultations results in biased outcomes, usually in favor of developed country governments.

3. The selection of chairs and "Friends of the Chair" in the WTO and at Ministerials and the agenda-setting of Ministerials is often conducted in an adhoc and non-transparent manner rather than in the open and more democratic forum of the General Council or the main negotiating plenary of the Ministerial.

4. The increased use of unrecorded informal meetings (in particular in the Ministerial preparatory process) makes the process non-transparent. Most countries are unable to monitor let alone engage in these meetings. Only selected countries are invited to attend many of these unrecorded informal consultations, rendering the process exclusive and marginalizing developing countries. Nor is this process conducive to sharing timely information with capital-based officials for proper and informed feedback.

5. Green room exclusive meetings have been "informally" institutionalized at the level of Ministers through "mini-ministerials" which are hosted by one country and to which only a few countries are invited. The mini-ministerial is not part of the official process of the WTO and de facto creates an unelected Steering Group or Executive Council to determine WTO matters. We consider this to be a breach of the multilateral process to which the WTO espouses.

6. The WTO Secretariat should be neutral when members are in disagreement, but this neutrality is often not maintained. At or before past Ministerials, senior officials including former Director Generals campaigned for "new issues" even though these were opposed by many developing countries. At past Ministerials, senior Secretariat staff were also involved in organizing the exclusive "Green Room" meetings and processes.

We believe that the above problems of process delegitimise the decisions and outcomes of the WTO.

Whilst multilateralism is supposed to protect the politically weaker Members, the WTO has a very poor record on outcomes that support the weaker Members. This is evident in the lack of progress on issues of concern to developing countries since the inception of the organization itself. Arguments are made that 146 countries cannot be expected to take decisions in an open and formal forum. However, our nations make decisions in parliaments, senates and congresses, the number of whose participants easily surpass the number of WTO members. Given the importance of WTO decisions on domestic policies ranging from food security, health, basic services, the environment and development policy making space, we find it imperative to address the democratic deficit at the WTO.

For this reason, we present the "Cancun Democracy Challenge" to the WTO Membership and in particular to the most powerful members of the WTO as a means to measure the democratic legitimacy of the 5th WTO Ministerial in Cancun. We believe that the 12 points highlighted in the Challenge are the basic and obvious building blocks for more democratic and just decision-making - which until now have been ignored or rejected. Failure to abide by each and every one of these basic procedures for democratic decision-making will continue to delegitimise the outcomes of the WTO.

The Cancun democracy challenge

WTO members have still not resolved a series of fundamental issues regarding decision-making processes at the WTO and at Ministerial Conferences. The negotiation process towards Cancun has been characterised by an increased lack of transparency, fairness and democratic decision-making. It is time for WTO Members, especially the most powerful, to meet the democracy challenge.

Do you believe in a fair, transparent, democratic and just world trading system? If so, will you advocate for the following key conditions for democratic decision-making for the 5th WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico?