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Devinder Sharma on the outcome of the recently concluded WTO meeting
November 2001 : The World Trade Organisation (WTO) recently concluded their meeting at Doha by agreeing to launch a new round of trade discussions. At stake were a wide range of issues crucial to the lives of many in developing countries. Devinder Sharma discusses some of these issues. The day the World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence, January 1, 1995, The Indian Express had carried a pocket cartoon on its front page. It showed two people walking amidst high-rise buildings with huge billboards for popular multinational brands like Pepsi, Coke, Philips, and McDonalds. The cartoon depicted one of the people walking down the street asking, "What does WTO stand for?" The other man replied, "We Take Over." The "explicit" way the QUAD countries - the United States, the European Union (EU), Canada and Japan - bludgeoned their way into gains on virtually every issue on the agenda at the fourth WTO Ministerial, which ended at Doha, Qatar, recently, the world is certainly up for sale. The greatest tragedy of Doha is that the world's richest economies, which invariably swear by the name of democracy, used all "undemocratic" norms and arms to force a "consensus" down the throat of developing countries. In the bargain, the autocratic process of a takeover of the global economy puts at risk millions of people, especially women and children, without basic rights and opportunities, and hoping against hope. Such was the urgency to bypass WTO rules, repeatedly made since 1999, that the developed countries were not even remotely concerned about considering, let alone agreeing and first implementing, these before launching a new round. New issues on investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation, were aggressively pushed, causing the agenda to be redefined, even if in a limited way, to ensure that the economic takeover of the developing world is complete in the years to come. To achieve this, the QUAD group followed in earnest the principle of "divide-and-rule", something that the colonial masters had so successfully used and abused. After all, not long ago, it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. No wonder then, economic recolonisation through the WTO paradigm ensures that the sun never sets on the multinational companies either! Ever since the Uruguay Round (1986) was launched, developing countries have become accustomed to the arm-twisting and high-handedness that comes in the name of trade and investment. The Doha Ministerial was no exception. But what surprised the world, including civil society, was the defiant and valiant stand taken by India. In fact, India's Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran would have alone led to the failure of the Doha Ministerial, if it weren't for last minute "intervention" from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in New Delhi. That was clever politics, and not trade and economics. On the other hand, it was purely Maran's strong conviction that the "WTO is a necessary evil" which caused him to fight like a true soldier. He defied the global community by refusing to submit to unjust demands and pressures, only to relent at the final nerve-rattling moment, and that too under strict orders from his general. The other developing countries that could muster the political courage to stand up to "undemocratic" pressures found it difficult to hold on to the final whistle. One by one, they deserted India. Among these were Egypt, Malaysia, Tanzania and, finally, Pakistan. Interestingly, US Commerce Secretary Grant Aldonis reportedly offered to lower the restrictions on the import of bedsheets and pillowcases from Pakistan in return for its signing the draft text. In addition, he also indicated a US willingness to lift a 1998 quota on cotton yarn, even though the WTO had ruled in April that the US quota on Pakistan's cotton yarn exports was "illegal". As to why no concessions were made on textile trade, the Wall Street Journal reports that in a recent letter to US President George W Bush, 31 members of Congress, including four Republicans, had stated that "the US should make no further concessions on textiles and apparel in future trade agreements". As for America's antidumping rules, which protect domestic industries, such as steel, from foreign products, Senate Finance Committee Chairperson Max Baucus was quoted as saying, "Why would we agree to this? What do we gain?" This is true not only for textiles. In fact, everything that has been negotiated and renegotiated at successive WTO meetings, without exception, has been to the advantage of the rich trading countries. For the developing countries, all the WTO leaves behind are promises and promises galore. Much is being made out of the "concessions" wrested by developing countries on agriculture and medicines for public health. In fact, Maran, too, defends "the decision to yield some ground on environment to gain substantially in agriculture". What has been incorporated in the final agreed text is but a mere reiteration of what has been spelled in the Agreement on Agriculture. Agreeing to "a phaseout of agricultural subsidies", and to "take into account the development needs, including food security and rural development", is like dangling a carrot before the developing countries. In reality, agricultural subsidies in the QUAD countries are on an upswing. The richest trading block - the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - provides a phenomenal support of US$ one billion a day for agriculture. The US, under its new Farm Bill that is pending before Congress, has already promised its farmers an additional US$ 170 billion in the next 10 years. Developing countries, and also civil society groups, espousing the cause of the farming communities in the South, are refusing to read the writing on the wall. The mere mention of "food security" is no safeguard against heavily subsidised food imports, given the fact that developing countries, including India, have opened up their trade barriers by lifting quantitative restrictions (QRs), whereas the massive subsidies in the West keep on mounting. Unless the removal of QRs is linked to the removal of agricultural subsidies in the West, food security in developing countries cannot be ensured. Equally damaging is the "landmark" declaration on TRIPs (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and public health. To think that the decision to allow the production of cheaper generic drugs to meet any health crisis is "historic", is to ignore the ground realities. It is here that even the civil society groups have fumbled. The sordid episode of the HIV/AIDS (Human Immuno Virus/Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) drugs that were requisitioned by South Africa from India, and which resulted in the drug companies filing a court case against TRIPs infringement, is in reality a wrong case study. The Indian drug company was able to supply cheap generic version of the medicine was because India still does not have in place a new patent regime on the lines of TRIPs. Once the patent laws are amended to conform to the TRIPs Agreement, Indian companies will be forbidden from producing any cheaper version of generic drugs. And once the production of generic drugs stops, where from will cheaper drugs be procured? We are being unabashedly told that international trade can play a major role in the promotion of economic development and the alleviation of poverty. We are being told that the WTO recognises the need for all our peoples to benefit from the increased opportunities and welfare gains that the multilateral trading system generates. What it does not tells us is that global trade is being aggressively pursued by the rich industrialised countries to garner more economic benefits from the poor and marginalised societies. The new trade paradigm will eventually further the economic divide between the North and the South. It will not only usurp democratic traditions in the name of trade and sustainable development, as Doha has conclusively shown, but also lead to denial of human rights and economic and political freedom. Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, once said, "Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might."
| Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. Among his recent works include two books GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and In the Famine Trap |