WTO and Ethical Trade
There is an in-built agenda for WTO meeting at Seattle and the subsequent Seattle Round. This is based on reviews of liberalisation particular sectors that were agreed as part of the Uruguay Round (e.g. agriculture and services). However, some Members are pressing for other issues to be included, for example, the EU, the US and APEC.
The process of setting the agenda for a Ministerial WTO conference is lengthy and involves several preparatory meetings and the presentation of proposals by the Member states. The official end of the 'proposal-driven' preparatory phase was July 1999, but there has been a steady stream of papers from Members since and there have been delays in setting the agenda because of the dispute about identifying the next director. However, it is expected that Members will have started drafting the mandate by the end of September. The European Union's General Affairs Council will decide on the EU's mandate for the Seattle Round on the 11th October.
Submissions by WTO member governments in the run-up to the meeting can be found at: http://www.wto.org/wto/minist/seatdocs.htm
Very helpful summaries of Member positions (and the views of various NGO and industry groups) are to be found at: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtrade/
Friends of the Earth have developed a table summarising the positions of Members on a variety of issues, including environment
http://www.foe.org/international/wto/govt.html
See Bridges, June 1999 edition for overview
As part of the European Union, the UK will be represented in negotiations at the Seattle Ministerial by the EU delegation. However, the UK government, led by the Department for Trade and Industry (but also with representatives from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development and Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions) has made statements with regard to its position on the Seattle agenda.
Eco-labelling
The UK government believes 'there would be some merit in securing some clarification' in the area of trade rules on labelling; and so it is considering whether to pursue this in the new trade round.
At the same time, it recognises the need to be 'sensitive' to the concerns of developing countries which feel that environmental standards in particular might be used to disadvantage their exports (Trade and Industry committee, 1999, para 17).
Social and labour standards
'The government agrees that it is important to ensure that labour standards are raised internationally. They key consideration is the question of where we can make the most effective progress at this stage. Since the WTO rules can be altered by consensus only it is impossible to make progress without a wide degree of international agreement. The WTO is not a standard-setting organisation; in the labour field that is the role of the ILO (Trade and Industry committee, 1999, para 7).
'The rules of the WTO are often portrayed as obstacles to the development of higher labour standards around the world. The Government does not accept this view. On the contrary, trade supported by the WTO's open rules-based system, makes a substantial contribution to the reduction of poverty, and hence indirectly to the improvements in core labour standards that we all want to see' (Trade and Industry committee, 1999, para 10).
Liberalisation
' It is the government's intention to press for full implementation of liberalising commitments that have already been made, and to argue for the maximum degree of liberalisation that can be achieved in a way that is consistent with our sustainable development objectives (DTI, 1999a)
http://www.dti.gov.uk/worldtrade/nextround.htm
A decision is to be made on final proposals for WTO at the General Affairs Council meeting due for the 11-12 October.
The European Union is pushing for the relationship between trade and the environment to be included in the Seattle Round. (Bridges, June 1999 3 (5), p. 6)
Specific papers on the subject of trade and the environment have been tabled by the EU, for example document WT/GC/W/194 that focuses particularly on:
In October 1999 the EU argued that the WTO should be involved in the devlopment of positive measures to support labour rights, in collaboration with other international institutions such as the ILO. The EU has advocated:
Enhanced co-operation between the WTO and the ILO and their Secretariats Support to the work of the ILO and its observership in the ILO
See the following Web page for the latest announcements from the EU
http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/
The EU's approach is for a comprehensive Round 1, i.e. all parts of the agreement are negotiated as a package.
The EU has made a commitment by the EU to undertaking a sustainability assessment of the new Round. The contract to undertake a sustainability impact assessment of the proposed new round of multilateral trade negotiations has been awarded to the Institute for Development Policy and Management, IDPM. See their project website for details
http://fs2.idpm.man.ac.uk/sia/text.htm
Environmental NGOs are calling for a sustainability assessment of the Rounds to date, in addition. The EU claims to have commissioned a study by external experts on the environmental impacts of trade measures and agreements (Trade and Environment Bulletin, Press/TE028, 13-3-99).
The USA is pursuing a relatively narrow agenda for the Seattle Round, especially compared to the European Union proposals. It is looking for sectoral agreements, for example as part of the APEC Accelerated Liberalization initiative. In this way the entire Round would not have to be completed before liberalisation measures were undertaken.
The US delegations does not want re-consideration of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement (SPS) or Trade Related Investment (TRIPS) and is against opening debate on production and processing methods and eco-labelling.
The US is almost alone in its calls for labour issues to be put on the Seattle agenda and proposes the establishment of a working group to address issues relating to labour standards, particularly child labour and the operation of export processing zones.
The Center for International Development, Harvard University, Global Trade Negotiations Home page provides a summary.
The US proposal on Trade and Sustainable Development calls on the WTO's Committee on Trade and the Environment to 'serve as a forum for the identification and discussion of links between elements of negotiating agenda and the environment and public health' and to identify 'win-win' opportunities, i.e. where trade liberalisation offers benefits for the environment.
APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) is promoting 'accelerated liberalisation' measures for 15 product areas (including forests and fisheries) in opposition to other Members' proposals for a 'comprehensive' round. The main difference between the comprehensive and accelerated approaches are that the latter would come into force once agreed rather than waiting for the completion of the entire Round of negotiations.
The APEC countries include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, United States, Vietnam, with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and PECC (Pacific Economic Co-operation) and SPF (South Pacific Forum) having observer status.
Important components of the APEC initiative are:
A group of southern countries led by India, Pakistan and Egypt is attempting to limit the talks to the built-in agenda (agriculture and services and the revision of some Agreements to ensure that they derive full benefit from existing commitments.
Issues of concern to many developing country states, academics and lobby groups include:
Some of these concerns, and others, have been raised in forums such as the
G15
G77
This was held at Bangalore, India 18-19 August
The G-15 include Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Jamaica, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The Chairman's summary of their WTO preparatory meeting highlighted the following:
First the full implementation of existing liberalisation commitments...Second the provisions for any special and differential treatment must be emphasised in recognition of the disadvantages faced by many developing countries by virtue of their low level of development....a revisiting and amendment of the TRIPS regime of the WTO in order to make the global intellectual property rights regime more sensitive to and supportive of development'.
(Chair person of the meeting, Clement, Rohee, foreign Minister of Guyana):
Southern based research institutions have presented proposals for the Seattle Ministerial, for example:
CUTS statement is at http://www.cuts-india.org/
Several NGOs have made statements on the proposed agenda for Seattle including:
Loaded against the Poor: World Trade Organisation - Oxfam GB Position Paper, November 1999
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/wto2a.htm