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DOHA
Development Round of the WTO
Press Release | IGTN
Statement | US Role
1)
Churches React to Collapse of Trade Talks
"The
world must be told that the pursuit of profits for a few at
the expense of the marginalized and the poor has paralysed
the trade talks," declared Rev. Dr. Mvume Dandala, General
Secretary for the All Africa Conference of Churches, "People
must come first and trade must be harnessed to serve justice.
Trade must have a human face!"
[Read
the Press Release]
2)
WTO Collapse
The
collapse of the Doha negotiations creates an important opportunity
for those representing the interests of civil society to challenge
and influence the current international trading system. [Read
the International Gender and Trade Network's full statement
on the collapse]
3)
US Role in Collapse
"...it
was the intransigence of the US which scuttled the talks after
newly-assigned US Trade Representative Susan Schwab walked
out of the G6 meeting on Monday when it could not accept to
cut down its domestic farm support to US$12 billion as proposed
by the G20..." [Read the perspective from
Asia]
Press
Release: For Immediate Release - 25 July 2006
Hope betrayed - churches react to collapse of trade talks
"The
world must be told that the pursuit of profits for a few at
the expense of the marginalized and the poor has paralysed
the trade talks," declared Rev. Dr Mvume Dandala, General
Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, "People
must come first and trade must be harnessed to serve justice.
Trade must have a human face!"
Dandala
was speaking as negotiations were suspended in the Doha Development
Agenda at the World Trade Organization. Faith-based groups
across the globe mourn the final loss of this opportunity
to make trade work for people in poverty.
Poor countries
desperately needed a fair trade deal so that they could grow
out of poverty and not rely on hand outs," said Dr Claire
Melamed, senior trade analyst at Christian Aid in the UK.
"This tawdry squabbling at the rich world's high table
has now put paid to that."
She added,
"It is no good flicking a few crumbs of comfort via aid
and debt relief front with one hand, while the other is slowly
squeezing economic life-blood out of poor countries."
At the
launch of the round of negotiations in 2001, WTO members and
officials declared that the needs of developing countries
would be at the heart of the round. There was, briefly, a
hope among many trade justice campaigners that trade could
genuinely be put to the service of lifting millions out of
poverty. But they noted that it soon became business as usual
in haggling between the rich and powerful and have long pointed
out that the development dimension has been missing from the
negotiations.
"We
are not happy about this failure in the Doha Round, but we
strongly feel that no deal is better than a bad deal,"
notes Danuta Sacher, head of policy and campaigns at the German
organisation Bread for the World. She explains that in order
to protect food security and to fight hunger, a fair deal
would mean a high level of protection of the special products
of the least developed countries. "We know from our partners
that export subsidies and the highly subsidised
food-production in the EU and the US are threatening the daily
survival of many poor people."
Campaigners
warn that the collapse of the talks, though, may herald harder
tactics ahead. Malcolm Damon, director of the Economic Justice
Network based in the churches of Southern Africa, says, "The
great danger of this collapse at the multilateral level is
that it drives vulnerable countries into bilateral negotiations
where they can more easily be bullied into accepting a bad
deal."
It's a
warning echoed by Matt Griffith of CAFOD in the UK: "The
WTO allows developing countries the opportunity to stand together
for a deal that works for them. In smaller groups they will
have less power to stand up to rich countries."
In the
lead up to this collapse at the WTO, the talk from the WTO
Director General, Pascal Lamy, and negotiators of major developed
countries, had been that the Doha negotiations should deliver
a goal of "real market access", in apparent disregard
that the negotiations were supposed to deliver on development.
"Once
again the WTO has shown that it is less concerned about the
needs of developing countries than about facilitating market
access for their own products," said Clarissa Balan at
the World YWCA
The basis
of the WTO negotiations has always been a straightforward
equation between liberalisation - opening markets - and achieving
economic growth. This assumption is questioned by many economists
and, furthermore, campaigners highlight, rich countries' rhetoric
is not being matched by their actions.
Peter
Prove, who heads international affairs and human rights at
The Lutheran World Federation, points out that "The sincerity
of developed countries' commitment to the free trade agenda
has been tested, as they were asked to do what they prevailed
upon others to do. The collapse of the talks suggests that
what's good for the goose is not so good for the gander."
As the
focus shifts to bilateral negotiations, Balan affirms that
"As churches and ecumenical communities we need to continue
our efforts at promoting trade that is life-centred, where
it is people and notprofits that matter."
For more
information, contact Sara Speicher, sspeicher@e-alliance.ch,
+44 1524 727 651.
International
Gender and Trade Network Statement on the Collapse of the
WTO DOHA Negotiations
The
indefinite suspension of the WTO Doha negotiations exposed
the magnitude of the interest gap between developed and developing
countries.
Despite the deceptive call of G8 leaders to resume negotiations
and conclude the round, the select group of chosen members
called-in to negotiate – EU, U.S., Japan, Brazil, India
and Australia (named the G6) – failed to come to a common
ground and had no option but to bring all negotiations to
a halt. This standstill found an obvious “who’s
to blame” member, as the US was not prepared to make
steeper cuts in their farm subsides. Although Developing countries
negotiators, namely from Brazil and India, declared this as
a major setback due to their own domestic and market interests,
the fact is that the trade agreements which were at stake
did not correspond to the interest of developing countries’
populations.
The
current WTO deadlock reveals how the Doha Round, despite being
declared on the premise of “food sovereignty” and
“rural development”, never was what it proclaimed
to be: a “development round”. The round only reaffirmed
its blatant bias to serve private interests subordinating
the needs of women and men in developing countries to corporate-driven
profits. IGTN believes a real development round is one which
takes into account the fact that there can be no development
without employment, income for local populations, in general,
and women in particular. Negotiators should not forget the
preamble of the Marrakech agreement: stability, sustainable
economic growth and employment. Losing perspective on these
issues would mean losing perspective on development, thus
undermining it.
The
collapse of the Doha negotiations creates an important opportunity
for those representing the interests of civil society to challenge
and influence the current international trading system. NGOs
and social movements should take advantage of this crucial
window of opportunity to engage in this challenge, not accepting
the “lesser evil” as an option. As it is also important
to remember that the current instability of a multilateral
trading system, like the WTO, raises concerns as it opens
the possibility for the resuming of bilateral FTAs (Free Trade
Agreements), which makes negotiations between countries with
different development levels much harder and uneven.
It’s
time to review past negotiations, analyse the flaws in the
WTO system in its entirety and conceive a renovated, truly
democratic system, which genuinely promotes fair, gender just
and sustainable development. As mentioned before, this international
trade policy must be constrained and bound by existing international
agreements that promote human rights and women’s rights,
ecological sustainability, human dignity and must aim to end
poverty and promote well-being.
The
US and only but the US…
Excerpted
from Naty Bernardino, July 2006, International Gender Trade
Network-Asia
Although
not expressed on the floor during the WTO General Council
meeting, many Members share the view that it was the intransigence
of the US which scuttled the talks after newly-assigned US
Trade Representative Susan Schwab walked out of the G6 meeting
on Monday when it could not accept to cut down its domestic
farm support to US$12 billion as proposed by the G20 (led
by India and Brazil) or at least to US$15 billion as proposed
by the EU. She returned home being hailed as a heroine by
almost everyone in Washington who believed that “no deal
is better than a bad deal”.
News
reports have earlier indicated that the US trade negotiating
team is handcuffed by clear domestic priorities and considerations
before it could move politically into the negotiations. One
is the strong domestic lobby by farm groups against cutting
US government farm subsidies whose interests many members
of the US Congress including the Bush administration would
not risk compromising in view of the upcoming elections in
2008.
Second
is the expiration of the US trade promotion authority in June
2007 which provides authority for the Bush administration
to negotiate trade deals without the Congress amending or
emasculating trade agreements. This is the officially unstated
reason for the previous rush by which the WTO wanted to have
the Doha Round concluded by the end of 2006. Although such
law could be extended by Congress, many analysts think that
the Bush administration would not risk its political lot on
something that it’s not sure to get from Congress at
a time that many of its members would not also risk offending
farm lobbies a year before the scheduled US elections in 2008.
Third,
the US Farm Bill is set to be re-authorized next year. For
the same reasons as above, Bush and majority of the US Congressmen
would not want a Doha Deal coming in the way of their “political
policy space” to either do little cuts or retain, if
not increase their current levels of domestic farm support.
By
all indications, the resumption of the Doha talks appears
to be heavily dependent on the political decision of the US.
It could well be what Lamy referred to as the “ripe political
conditions”. Some country negotiators said that if the
talks do not continue in five to six months, the impasse may
take longer, like from three to four years. Others think that
it may continue only after the US elections in 2008.
Download
the IGTN July 2006 Bulletin 
GENDER
AND TRADE RESOURCES INTERLOCKING FEATURES OF TRADE, GENDER
AND POVERTY
Liepollo Lebohang Pheko, June 2006 – GENTA
GENTA's
presentation on Trade, Gender Poverty at Oxfam's Intraregional
workshop in Addis Ababa from the 21st to 24th of June 2006.
The paper
sets the context of trade, it's transition to “free trade”
scenario and what that means in terms of trade agreements.
Lebohang then assesses poverty in the context of gender and
trade relating it to trade theory, hence developing a gender
analysis of trade policies and economic growth its consequences
on women and social
development.
Available at the International
Gender and Trade Network Web site
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