WTO Ministerial Section • Volume 2 • Number 18 • 18th May 1998
Pre-ministerial NGO meetings discuss agriculture, workers’ rights, and the MAI
This past weekend, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) each held separate workshops in Geneva, Switzerland in preparation for the WTO Second Ministerial Conference and the 50th anniversary celebration of the multilateral trading system.
The IATP workshop on agriculture, trade and the WTO was attended by over one hundred NGO and farmer organization representatives. It concluded that food security must take precedence over trade liberalization and that deregulated and liberalized agriculture is destroying livelihoods and food security all over the world. Participants listened to the experiences of small farmers and peasants, and focused in particular on the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. They looked at where the agreement had reinforced existing problems and created new ones for food production and consumption in developed and developing countries. They outlined opportunities for changes in policy and strategies to move their agenda forward. Spokespersons from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNCTAD, the World Council of Churches and the South Centre provided inputs on how they saw the upcoming negotiations taking shape, what issues needed to be addressed and how NGOs could move the process forward.
On Saturday May 16, over 90 trade unionists and members of NGOs from 33 countries met at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) Conference to discuss the impact of world trade on union rights and the 15 million children worldwide who produce for the export market. ICFTU General-Secretary Bill Jordan encouraged Ministers at the WTO Meeting to look at means of linking labour standards with trade to ensure that abuses such as child labour are not allowed to continue. The meeting included debates with WTO’s Director General Ruggiero; UNCTAD’s head Rubens Ricupero; and Michael Hanssene, Director General of the International Labour Organisation, among others. During the WTO Second Ministerial Conference the 125 million-member- strong conferedation lobbied government to ensure that trade does not ignore workers’ rights.
On Sunday May 17, more than 45 civil society organisations (CSOs) from over 25 countries met under the auspices of WWF to strategise about the delayed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). They represented diverse national or international coalitions whose work over the internet and in capitals contributed to the recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) decision to delay negotiations on the issue until at least October.
At the meeting, organisations claimed that “the MAI is not dead, but rather going underground,” referring to potential negotiations and talks on investment in the World Trade Organisation, to International Monetary Fund’s operations, developing regional cooperation agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the New TransAtlantic Marketplace (NTM). National campaign reports from coalitions in the US, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, France and other OECD nations conveyed a sense of urgency and flexibility. The organisations are committed to a plural approach and developing an updated joint NGO statement. According to Tony Clarke of Canada’s Common Front, “in the next critical five months we will work on all tracks and in all fora to stop the MAI.”
ICTSD INTERNAL FILES, May 1998.