One
Very Big No: The WTO Stalemate in Cancún
By Soren Ambrose
Contents:
A Whiff of Democracy
The
Peninsular Mentality: From Seattle to Doha to Cancún
OUTSIDE: Demonstrations and a Death
INSIDE: Taking the Message to the Delegates
. . . and the Media
FURTHER INSIDE: Power Politics at the
WTO
Anatomy of the Final Standoff
What's It All Mean?
The Immediate Future
September
26, 2003 - The
World Trade Organization (WTO) is a paradoxical institution.
It was founded on the ostensible notion of "free trade"
improving living standards around the world, but its agreements
serve mainly corporate interests in North America, Europe,
and the developed Asia-Pacific region (Japan, Australia, New
Zealand). Its structure holds out the hope of democracy and
equal participation, but in practice it is the scene of tremendously
coercive political and economic manipulation. The most frustrating
irony is that for all the energy and resources spent on strategizing,
analyzing, and negotiating at the WTO, for the majority of
its member countries (and most of the non-governmental organizations
and street protesters who plague it), the outcome at the Cancún
summit (September 10-14) -- no agreement whatsoever -- was
the greatest triumph they could have hoped for. No wonder
politicians from India to Africa occasionally wonder just
why their governments stay in the organization.
With
the stalemate in September, Cancún looks destined to
join Waterloo, Stalingrad, and Seattle as one of those place
names that graduates to shorthand for a historic event. This
event, the second of the five summits to end in failure, will
likely be celebrated as the first time that developing countries
-- the Global South -- united to refuse the economic aggression
of the wealthy Northern countries, and in particular the United
States, the European Union, and Japan.
A
Whiff of Democracy
No
one would confuse the WTO with a democratic institution. Its
flaws, and in particular the unfair advantage that wealthy
countries have in the negotiations, have been explored at
length over its eight-year life. But some hope always flickered,
particularly because the organization makes decisions through
consensus of its 146-government membership. Practically speaking,
apart from the United States government, which is becoming
alarmingly adept at it, there is probably no single country
that would feel able to alone face down the rest of the world
to scuttle an agreement. But with sufficient mutual support,
even a group of poor countries could stop the WTO.
This
hint of democracy, of requiring the active consent of those
who will be affected by an agreement, would be nearly unthinkable
at, say, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), whose imposition of outlandishly destructive economic
policies on indebted countries helped set the stage for the
WTO. (Indeed, a week after Cancún, the two older organizations
refused to consider, at U.S. insistence, a proposal to slightly
increase African representation on their boards.) But to say
that the WTO is the most democratic of the multilateral institutions
is more a reflection of the lack of democracy in international
structures than a tribute to the WTO.
The
Peninsular Mentality: From Seattle to Doha to Cancún
Cancún
was not a re-play of Seattle, where well-organized protesters
both among the civil society groups inside the convention
center and on the streets outside combined with government
delegates embittered by the arrogance of the U.S. hosts to
shut down the effort to begin a new round of negotiations.
As it turns out, the leadership of the WTO did not learn much
in Seattle, but they have made sure to hold their bi-annual
summits in easily-controlled locations far from the turf of
tenacious protesters (such as the forest activists of the
Northwest U.S. who were more than happy to trek to Seattle
and teach others their tactics). The November 2001 summit
was held in Doha, Qatar, one of the principalities on the
Arabian Peninsula where freedom of expression is sharply restricted,
and the 2003 conference took place on a narrow, single-road
peninsula consisting entirely of resort hotels just outside
the city of Cancún, which is itself on the remote Yucatan
Peninsula in Mexico.
The
government delegates were, as a result, rarely disturbed by
demonstrations of public opinion. The great bulk of those
who came to Cancún to protest the WTO were kept in
the city and off the exclusive peninsula, where access was
controlled by a series of temporary metal barriers. But unless
you were traveling in a large group or with banners and placards,
you stood a good chance of getting to the resort area on the
abundant public buses, since the authorities, mindful of interfering
too much with business-as-usual in the most popular tourist
destination in the world, did not want to shut out the hotel
workers or the U.S. tourists that keep it raking in dollars.
The
protesters who got to the inner gates encircling the convention
center did banner-drops, mounted "street parties,"
and formed picket lines. They did not shut down the meetings,
but they were instrumental in reminding the delegates that
there was a world outside, one where the WTO is not very popular.
In tandem with the mass protests downtown and guerilla media
stunts inside the convention center, they provided the essential
context for the different kind of resistance that broke the
Cancún summit: the willingness of developing country
governments to step up and say, simply, "no."
OUTSIDE:
Demonstrations and a Death
Opponents
of the WTO came to Cancún from at least 40 countries.
The numbers were smaller than some predicted -- particularly
those influenced by the inflated-expectations game now a familiar
part of local authorities' fear and hype tactics at each "globalization"
gathering. Many articles had predicted 50,000 protesters,
with one or two doubling that number. But organizers on the
ground always knew that such numbers were unlikely to materialize
in Cancún, which is one of the most remote spots in
Mexico. There are many flights, but more affordable means
of transportation are scarce.
Indeed
Cancún today is largely a product of contemporary globalization.
Starting with a program funded by the World Bank 30 years
ago, massive and lavish resort hotels, now numbering over
100, line the peninsula on the beautiful Caribbean coast.
The hotel workers are mostly internal migrants who live in
the city, many with intermittent or no power or water provision
-- a sharp contrast to the unlimited supply on tap for the
tourists. The workers receive daily wages roughly equivalent
to the price charged for two 20-ounce bottles of water in
the Hyatt, Marriott, or Ritz Carlton resorts.
There
were approximately 10-15,000 people at the height of the protests,
which came at the time of the conference's opening ceremony
on Wednesday, September 10. The march that day was organized
by Via Campesina, the international network of small-scale
agricultural producers, and was both spirited and sober, conscious
of the gravity of the plight faced by most of the farmers
there, who are engaged in a losing battle with a rigged global
trading system that keeps commodity prices artificially low,
undermining non-corporate agriculture everywhere. Most of
the marchers were from Mexico, naturally, but there were farmers
from West Africa, Japan, the United States, India, South Korea,
and many Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Korean
delegation was particularly impressive -- nearly 200 people
from the other side of the world, most of them farmers, along
with a contingent from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.
The Koreans ended up surprising the other marchers by mounting
a charge against the main barricade, erected some 10 kilometers
from the convention center. The charge, with a battering ram
reported to look like a dragon, certainly heightened the intensity
of the action. But it was the action of a Korean farmer named
Lee Kyun-Hae a few minutes later that claimed the headlines
and set the tone for the rest of the protest actions in Cancún.
Lee climbed the fence with a sign reading "WTO Kills
Farmers" and stabbed himself in the chest, performing
a "self-immolation." Such suicides have become common
among small-scale farmers in Asia when they find they cannot
maintain their livelihood, and are not unheard of among U.S.
family farmers. By committing his suicide at the WTO summit,
Lee put the corporate-biased agricultural policies of the
WTO in the spotlight with undeniable pathos, a searing attack
on the WTO's human impact that no one could ignore.
Lee's death ensured the demonstrations carried a gravity befitting
their message, a tone which may otherwise have been lost in
media reports focused on comparing the turnout to the numbers
predicted by the authorities. Inside the convention center,
activists made sure that Lee's sacrifice was heard by mounting
an impromptu memorial service at the media center and taking
over an auditorium to hold an unscheduled press conference.
Saturday's march ended up being smaller than Wednesday's,
largely because most of the campesinos who had participated
in the first action could not afford to stay so long in Cancún.
But it was a well-organized expression of solidarity between
students and farmers, North Americans, Koreans, and Mexicans.
Its climax came when a group of women took wire-cutters to
the barricade, followed by a group led by the Koreans who
tied ropes to the crippled fence and pulled it down. The police,
who had additional barricades a few hundred yards up the road,
tolerated the action as a symbolic assault on the WTO. After
the barricade fell, the crowd adrenaline was high, but the
energy was turned inward, as the protesters turned away from
the barricade, sat down, and observed a powerful tribute to
Lee and the fight for justice for which he gave his life.
INSIDE:
Taking the Message to the Delegates . . . and the Media
In
addition to the protests going on in downtown Cancún
and the smaller actions on the streets just outside the convention
center, many activists penetrated meeting site itself -- all
entirely legally. The WTO accredited some 980 non-governmental
organizations to enter the convention center, though they
were not allowed very close to the rooms where the actual
negotiations took place. There were also well over a thousand
reporters using the media center, which contained generous
banks of computers, printers, fax machines, and DSL lines.
Indeed, the media center constituted most of the area that
the NGOs were allowed into. That overlap fostered dozens of
interesting actions.
Only
200 NGOs were given passes to the opening ceremony, but about
30 of them made good use of the opportunity, standing with
mouths covered by black tape as WTO Director General Supachai
Pantichpakdi spoke, holding signs with messages like "WTO
Obsolete" and "WTO Undemocratic." Security
guards isolated but did not accost them, so they chose the
moment of their departure, chanting "Shame! Shame!"
as they filed out of the hall. That action, more than any
of the officials' comments, was what made the news.
A
press conference on agriculture by the Deputy U.S. Trade Representative
was interrupted twice the next day by activists denouncing
the anti-farmer, pro-corporate policies of the U.S. government
and the WTO. A few hours later, a notice was affixed to the
video bulletin board scroll listing upcoming press conferences:
"Because of an incident on September 11, NGOs will no
longer be allowed to attend press briefings." This over-reaction
failed to recognize that many of the activists, including
at least two of those who interrupted the press conference,
had media credentials (which carry more privileges). In any
case, the rule was only applied at U.S. government briefings.
Some
reporters accused the activists of being opportunists who
were limiting the rights of government officials and journalists
to free speech. But perhaps opportunism shouldn't carry such
a negative connotation -- these press conferences were very
rare opportunities for citizens, even U.S. citizens, to get
the attention of inaccessible policy makers like the U.S.
Trade Representative. For that matter, it made the issues
hard to ignore for the mainstream media, which has become
gullible and incurious in this age of increasing corporate
control and reluctance to challenge received wisdom.
Perhaps
the most elaborate piece of street theatre inside the convention
center occurred when a man wearing a mask of Robert Zoellick
(US Trade Representative) and another man wearing a mask of
Pascal Lamy (his EU counterpart) began to make a ruckus. "Can't
you see who I am?" bellowed the pseudo-Zoellick, "I'm
Robert Zoellick, U.S. Trade Representative! Get out of my
way!" Stopping in front of the media's computer banks,
he exclaimed, "How are we going to get these fucking
21 countries [a reference to the group including Brazil, China,
India, and South Africa that declared its total opposition
to US/EU agriculture subsidies] to stop blocking our progress
here at the WTO?! Don't they know that the way to make everyone
richer is to buy our subsidized, genetically-modified foods?!"
Pseudo-Lamy agreed, if not quite as boisterously. They were
then confronted by a small crowd chanting "Stop betraying
farmers' needs with US/EU corporate greed!" Their chants
eclipsed the two trade barons' shouts and eventually forced
them to melt to the ground.
FURTHER
INSIDE: Power Politics at the WTO
The
skits mounted in the media center were pretty close to what
was going on, for real, elsewhere in the convention center.
The Group of 21 countries, or G-21, held a press conference
on the evening of Tuesday the 9th, with the foreign minister
of Brazil, the deputy trade minister of China, and trade ministers
from India, South Africa, Argentina, and Costa Rica on the
platform to announce the group's existence and its determination
to stick together throughout the conference. The meeting that
led to the formation of the group occurred just a few weeks
before at the WTO's Geneva headquarters, in response to the
WTO Secretariat's release of an "official draft text"
for the Cancún summit. That document was based almost
wholly on a joint submission by the United States and the
European Union, and was widely attacked for ignoring the concerns
developing countries had been expressing since the Doha ministerial
where the terms of the negotiating "round" were
laid down. At the press conference, the G-21 circulated its
proposed alternative declaration.
The
attitude on display was more important than the content of
the group's agenda, which was a fairly narrow one of insisting
on cuts in Northern countries' agricultural subsidies and
greater access to Northern markets. The speakers at the press
conference dwelt more on their determination not to succumb
to inducements or threats from the Northern governments designed
to erode their unity; the group's de facto coordinator, Brazilian
Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, said, "We will keep our
unity, which will be tested repeatedly, starting from this
very moment." They took comfort, he said, from knowing
they have "the support of our producing classes and of
world opinion in general." They also emphasized the significance
of the constituency they represented -- 63% of all farmers
and 51% of the world's population.
The
Northern negotiators were indignant: how could these countries
issue an ultimatum, essentially saying they would let the
whole summit collapse unless the European Union, Japan, and
the United States relaxed their "trade barriers"?
How could they be so intransigent -- didn't they come to negotiate?
And how could they be so demanding, without indicating what
they were prepared to offer in exchange?
It's
a wonder that no one on the Northern countries' delegations
collapsed from vertigo brought on by the dizzying levels of
hypocrisy and bad faith required to make such arguments. The
U.S. and its allies were being tested by their own rules --
for over two decades they have, through their control of the
World Bank and the IMF and through trade negotiations, been
demanding, successfully, that other countries liberalize their
economies and open their markets to products from the North.
And they always maintained that they did so not out of some
selfish quest for private profit that would be repatriated
to their countries, but because trade and investment liberalization
are the characteristics of a modern economy, and would be
the most effective ways to address the plight of the millions
of impoverished people living in the developing world.
The
seriousness of the challenge represented by the G-21 was made
clear by the intensity of the campaign launched by delegates
from the U.S. and the E.U. to discredit or split the group,
and to bribe other countries to pledge not to join. Central
American countries were offered increased trade quotas with
the U.S. to either leave the G-21 or to pledge not to join.
Colombia was reported to be wobbling from the start -- not
surprising, perhaps, given its complicated relationship with
the U.S. But by the end of the conference the only switch
that was acknowledged was the departure of El Salvador, its
right-wing government sufficiently bribed or threatened as
it faces its most serious challenge yet from the left in coming
elections, and the addition of Nigeria and Indonesia. Population
isn't everything, of course, but in adding up the numbers
after that realignment, the G-20+ (as it came to be called
with fluctuation in the ranks) certainly ended up representing
over 60% of the world's population (the list on September
15 was: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia,
Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South
Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela).
It
was clear at the opening press conference that the group saw
its actions in a historical context, beyond the economic aims
of their trade agendas. And it was clear that the leaders
of the largest Global South countries perceived the global
justice movement and the protests it has mounted as a key
part of that context, and one it wanted to claim for its side.
Amorim, the Brazilian foreign minister, concluded the session
by declaring that "it might previously have appeared
that the fight for social justice was going on outside the
WTO meeting rooms, while we focused narrowly on specific issues.
Now we hope you will see that we have brought the struggle
inside."
As
the negotiations dragged on, and after the talks collapsed,
U.S. officials blamed the G-20+, though seldom by name. According
to people who saw his final press conference, the lead U.S.
delegate, Robert Zoellick, was clearly driven to distraction
by the collapse of the talks. His threats to shift the U.S.
focus to bilateral trade treaties, such as those recently
concluded with Morocco, Singapore, and Chile, seem likely
to go forward, even though the E.U. and WTO officials say
they further complicate the global system. In fact, the U.S.
has already been adopting this strategy, moving forward in
negotiations for sub-regional pacts like the Central American
Free Trade Agreement and a Southern Africa Free Trade Agreement.
(The Free Trade Areas of the Americas [FTAA] is another matter
-- with Brazil at the center of it, it more closely resembles
the WTO talks than these smaller arrangements.) The U.S. has
nearly unlimited leverage in those sub-regional and bilateral
agreements, and can maneuver countries into giving in on more
issues than are brought up at the WTO. Chile, for example,
pledged to abolish its capital controls, which were long pointed
to as the model for Southern countries wanting to exercise
some control over "hot money" foreign investments
that can be quickly pulled out of a country at the hint of
panic.
Tempting
as it may be to see the governments of the G-20+ as warrior-heroes
facing down the evil empires of the North, we should not lose
sight of the fact that they are all political formations too,
many of them unsavory or at least as prone to self-serving,
corrupt actions as our own. India's fundamentalist-fascist
government is not likely to become a progressive model as
a result of being a leader in the G-20+, and China is not
going to adopt a new conception of human rights. Indeed, it
would be foolhardy to spend too much time trying to trace
the history and character of the G-20+ or create a fan club,
when the group itself may well shift form, split apart, or
evaporate in the relatively near future. Toward the end of
the Cancún meeting, there were rumors -- still unsubstantiated
-- that certain countries in the G-20+, including Brazil and
China, were eager to find a way to make some sort of deal.
A
case could be made that the real mavericks, the ones who would
not abandon their unity or their positions, were those in
what became known as the G-32 or G-33 (let's call it G-30+
for consistency). Drawn largely from the ACP group (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific,
from a trade treaty between the E.U. and the more impoverished
exporting nations), the G30+ was usually represented by Indonesia,
and did have other overlaps with the G-20+. But the bulk of
its membership was the poorest countries, particularly in
Africa. In distinction from the G20+ groups that sought cuts
in Northern subsidies and access to Northern markets, the
G30+ was focused on "special products" -- that is,
identifying a range of agricultural commodities, perhaps different
from country to country, that governments could protect without
penalty (e.g. prohibiting the importation of rice in a country
with rice farmers vulnerable to dumping of cheaper rice grown
in the U.S.). It was also fully committed to resisting the
"Singapore issues" that the E.U. and Japan wanted
to force into the Cancun statement.
The
G-30+ did not have the high profile of the other group, and
had a less active media strategy. But in political terms its
aims -- maintaining unity in the face of intense pressure
from the North -- were similar, and its success at least as
great. There were efforts to unite the two groups, and reports
on the fourth day that a large group of African countries
was close to joining the G-20+ as a bloc. Indeed, remarks
made by the Argentinean trade minister at the G-20+ debut
press conference -- that the group gave equal priority to
the "three pillars" of the Southern agricultural
agenda, namely market access, elimination of Northern subsidies,
and protection for farmers -- seemed part of the campaign
to lure the poorer countries over. In the end they were not
persuaded in time, but it did not matter a great deal. The
two groups were clearly cooperating strategically. The take-home
idea from Cancún will be, as intended by both the G-20+
and the G-30+, that the South will not be easily broken in
future trade negotiations at the WTO, and perhaps other fora
as well. Even if all the "Gs" become obsolete in
a matter of months, it is that specter that will haunt Zoellick
and his E.U. counterpart, Pascal Lamy, from now on.
Anatomy
of the Final Standoff
It
is one of the measures of the distortions of global trade
negotiations that in analyzing Cancún, few commentators
have questioned the notion that one of the Southern-country
blocs is responsible for the "failure" at Cancún.
In the sense that they acted out of (previous) character,
that's true, but that strategy was basically to roll over
and play dead. The implicit idea, made explicit by some, is
that all of the Southern governments have simultaneously been
captured by radicals; Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Josette
Shiner even went on the PBS NewsHour with Jamaica's chief
negotiator Richard Bernal and said she thought the developing
countries were getting poor advice from NGOs like Oxfam. Apart
from the bold effrontery necessary to go on national television
and accuse a high-ranking official from another government
who is seated next to you of borrowing his positions and strategies
from an NGO, Shiner seemed to be asking viewers to accept
that every Southern country from Mali to China was also content
to leave their strategizing and policy making up to Oxfam.
It is hardly the first time that the Bush Administration has
demonstrated a commitment to ideological positions so strong
that officials accuse, and even seem to actually believe,
that other countries could have no rational reason for opposing
U.S. wisdom, but it never ceases to be breathtaking.
It's
not that all the governments of the G-20+ and G-30+ were suddenly
infected with anti-imperialist fervor. Most of them want to
make trade deals with the U.S., E.U., and Japan -- many of
them are downright desperate to do so to get more hard currency.
But the recognition that the WTO, and indeed the entire global
economic system, is rigged to keep them in the role of suppliers
of cheap labor and cheap commodities has finally become undeniable
even for trade and commerce ministers trained at schools like
the London School of Economics or veterans of places like
the World Bank.
Whether
one considers the collapse promising or distressing, it should
be clear that the real obstructionists were the Northern countries.
The U.S. took the lead in remaining unmoveable on agriculture
concessions, and the European Union and Japan staffed the
barricades on the "Singapore issues." It was their
unwillingness to give any ground, not the new refusal by the
South to insist that they deal openly and fairly, that prevented
progress toward an agreement. Although agriculture got the
great bulk of the attention during the meeting, it was lack
of common ground on the Singapore issues that led the Mexican
hosts to declare the meeting over. And on those issues, the
G-30+ were merely standing by the terms agreed to at the 2001
summit in Doha; it was the E.U. and Japan (and, oddly, South
Korea, which swings between Northern and Southern identities)
which took a new hardline position and refused to budge.
In
Doha, under pressure to show support for the United States
in the weeks after the September 11th attacks and send a "reassuring
message" to the global economy, the countries of the
South were reluctantly drawn into an ambiguous declaration
initiating the "Doha development round" of negotiations
-- so named as an inducement to the South, which was told
that the rich countries would allow the development needs
of the poorer countries to weigh more heavily than the usual
imperatives of corporate profit during this round of talks.
In the run-up to Cancún, many commentators and Southern
country officials were complaining that the North had not
carried through on its promise; by the time they got to Cancún
the cynicism of that pledge was old news, and hardly even
mentioned.
Doha
ended in a chaotic jumble, after several extensions of the
final session (ultimately reaching 38 consecutive hours).
Having exhausted their counterparts from smaller delegations
and won a number of concessions, the U.S. and its allies finally
had to make one concession, by accepting the Indian government's
insistence that negotiations on the "Singapore issues"
-- the effort to agree on common rules for investment, competition
policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation (customs
procedures, etc.) -- could go forward only if and when WTO
member countries approved with "explicit consensus."
Such phrases, which have no precise legal definition, often
turn out to be the key to trade agreements. The object is
to come up with an expression that all parties think could
be interpreted to mean what they want to hear. Usually the
side with the best lawyers wins in the end, but in this case,
"explicit consensus" turned out to be vital to the
Southern position.
When
the WTO was created in 1995, at the culmination of the "Uruguay
round" of talks under the predecessor organization, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the U.S. and
its allies successfully insisted on the inclusion of a number
of issues which had been excluded from GATT talks. Notable
among those were agriculture, the General Agreement on Trade
in Services (GATS), which applies to commerce in everything
from insurance to water provision to postal delivery and has
yet to fully come into effect, and Trade-Related Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS), or patents, which has been the source
of the international debate on pricing of HIV/AIDS medications
and other life-saving drugs that can be manufactured cheaply
by producers of generics. That last controversy was temporarily
resolved just before Cancún with an agreement between
the pharmaceutical industry and the U.S., E.U., Brazil, South
Africa and Kenya -- an agreement widely, though not universally,
denounced by HIV/AIDS advocacy groups.
The
inclusion of each of those issues, which, with the exception
of agriculture, had not been considered part of "trade,"
in the new WTO was considered a significant concession by
many developing countries. Government procurement, competition
policy, trade facilitation, and investment were successfully
put off until the first WTO summit, held in Singapore (hence
the "Singapore issues").
Almost
no Global South countries declared themselves in favor of
opening negotiations on any of those issues. Coming into Cancún,
70 countries joined in an unequivocal rejection of taking
them up. During the course of the meeting that number swelled
to 90. It seemed that no one could possibly argue that "explicit
consensus" to go forward existed.
The
World Development Movement, a British NGO, clearly knew better.
The E.U. had made clear that it wanted all four issues to
go forward, so the WDM made badge holders -- the nylon necklaces
that hold picture-identification credentials at meetings like
the WTO's -- with the phrase "explicit consensus"
printed in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Hindi. They
were widely distributed, and became the subject of a ban on
the conference's fourth day. Security personnel were ordered
to confiscate them at all entrances for several hours, until
someone pointed out that the action would probably not pass
a Mexican constitutional test. A WDM t-shirt, with the words
"explicit" and "consensus" given simple
dictionary definitions, was less common, perhaps because demand
was so high: the Brazilian delegation was said to have ordered
ten of them immediately.
The
WDM folks weren't the only ones that arrived with props. From
out of nowhere a document from the government of Niger (sound
familiar?) which seemed to express interest in supporting
the Singapore issues started circulating; it was soon revealed
to be out-of-date and from a low-level bureaucrat. Then Togo,
a tiny country with the longest-reigning dictator on the African
continent, indicated it would support the new issues. The
rest of the African countries repudiated Togo's stand.
The
E.U. stuck by its position. Never addressing the question
of "explicit consensus," Pascal Lamy, together with
his Japanese and Korean counterparts, insisted that a commitment
to begin negotiations on the Singapore issues should be included
in the final declaration. A last-minute offer by Lamy to drop
the two more controversial issues, competition policy and
investment, was not enough. The G-30+, and many other countries
as well, saw the E.U. position as an unbearably arrogant dismissal
of clearly-articulated positions by a majority of WTO member
countries. After quick consultations with its African partners,
the Kenyan delegation was the first to say that there could
be no compromise with Lamy, and a member of the delegation
was sent down the escalator to the media center to tell the
throng of reporters "it's over."
What's
It All Mean?
The
simplest assessment is that it means no changes in the status
quo: the round is stalemated for now, though there will be
attempts, however faint, to revive it in Geneva in the months
to come. And it means the next WTO summit, set for Hong Kong
in either late 2004 or early 2005, could be the last gasp
of the Doha round. The WTO may become more of an administrative
body, interpreting treaties and adjudicating disputes rather
than hosting negotiations.
For
Northern governments it can be taken a sharp repudiation of
the coercive negotiating tactics they have used since Southern
countries first entered the GATT. There have been calls from
many parts of Europe for Lamy to resign. A different perspective
is offered by The Economist, the British weekly of the elite
classes: for its editors, Cancún is the most vivid
sign that Southern countries have been given
too loud a voice in international fora. It recommends following
the lead of the Bush Administration, with its firm squelching
of Africa's request for slightly expanded board representation
at the World Bank and
IMF.
For
Southern governments it is positive reinforcement for the
impulse to at last refuse the exploitation of the North. While
there may well be occasions to regret emboldening Southern
governments (like any
government), for the balance of the world economy, world peace,
world ecology, and the welfare of the people of the world,
a more assertive South and more equitable power relations
are necessities.
For
people in both the North and South, it's good news. It means
a greater chance for peace, fair trade, decent livelihoods,
dignity, healthy food, a more sustainable ecology, and a global
sense of
solidarity.
For
the global justice movement, Cancún takes its place
in the honor roll of victories that includes Seattle and the
freezing of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
in 1997-98. Ironically, it was the attempt to revive the MAI
in the form of the Singapore issues' investment provisions
that sealed the fate of the Cancún talks.
Cancún
should be publicized as a major victory for the global justice
movement even though the result was not precisely a direct
result of the movement's efforts. In fact, it is not too far-fetched
to say that that is the reason it should be celebrated. The
resolve of government negotiators in Cancún to stand
up to the Northern plutocracy was undoubtedly created, in
part, and significantly reinforced by the pressure mounted
by the movement. From the policy wonks at
organizations like Focus on the Global South, Third World
Network, ActionAid and yes, Oxfam, to the vivid, courageous,
and persistent street demonstrations proclaiming an abiding
belief in "people before
profits," the movement was indispensable to the triumph
in Cancún. It is a rare occasion when we can join with
government officials in celebration, but if the movement is
able to sustain the momentum and the
pressure, it may be the beginning of a positive shift in the
way governments deal with social movements, with their own
constituents, and with those who would exploit their people;
it may even be the start of the political paradigm shift so
many have been working for.
The
Immediate Future
Lest
the movement give into the temptation to euphoria, it should
immediately be said that history would suggest that preparing
for betrayals and buy-offs would be a good idea.
But
it should also be said that there are other indications of
a positive shift: in the same week as the Cancún meetings,
Argentina was able to negotiate a new deal with the IMF to
re-schedule its massive
debt to the institution. By exercising its power as a large
debtor (when you owe the bank $100 it owns you; when you owe
the bank $100 million, you own it), and wielding the support
of its neighbors and others, Argentina successfully resisted
most of the key demands made by the IMF, including dramatic
hikes in utility rates and increased mortgage foreclosures.
Such successful bargaining is practically
unheard of at the IMF, and together with the news from Cancún
it suggests that when the power of public opinion is brought
to bear on governments, governments will sometimes stand up
for their people. And the centers of the North's concentrated
power can be overcome.
Finally,
all eyes turn to Miami, where trade and foreign ministers
from around the western hemisphere will gather in mid-November
to continue negotiations on the Free Trade Areas of the Americas
(FTAA). Continued success is necessary there to preserve the
momentum from Cancún. The "buzz" about the
event across North America's activist communities is
probably the loudest it has been since Seattle, and promises
a very interesting few days (November 17-22). The key to Miami,
from the "inside" perspective, is the position of
the Brazilian government. With
Brazil's new president, Lula da Silva of the Workers Party,
there are reasons for optimism. But Lula has also made alarming
noises about wanting to have the FTAA in place by 2005, even
as other signals suggest
a desire to subvert the plan. Brazilian activists are uncertain
about where Lula will finally come down on trade with the
U.S. The stakes are very high this time: Miami will tell us
a lot about the future of globalization.
50years.org
