WTO Ministerial Section • Volume 2 • Number 18 • 18th May 1998

Clinton endorses call for high-level WTO meeting on trade-environment and calls for WTO openness

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President Bill Clinton called for a high-level meeting of trade and environmental ministers to provide direction to future WTO environmental efforts, echoing a suggestion of the European Commission to the same effect. The quadrilateral (US, EU, Japan, Canada) coordination mechanism (commonly known as “the Quad”) had already announced endorsement for the proposal two weeks ago.
In his address to the WTO Ministerial Meeting on Monday, 18 May, the President of the US said that the trading system of the 21st century must never become a race to the bottom in the fields of environmental protection, labour standards and consumer protection. Referring to the WTO agreement’s preamble which explicitly adopts sustainable development as an objective of open trade, Clinton said that more must be done to harmonise the goal of increasing trade with that of improving the environment. President Clinton also referred to the need to modernise the WTO by opening its doors to the scrutiny and participation of the public. He commented that since the WTO was created for the welfare of ordinary citizens, it should listen to them. “I propose the WTO, for the first time, provide a forum where business, labour, environmental and consumer groups can speak out and help guide the further evolution of the WTO. When this body convenes again, I believe that the world’s trade ministers should sit down with representatives of the broad public to begin this discussion,” he said. In this context, he also reiterated the US’s commitment to make the WTO dispute-settlement process more transparent (see related story in the April-May issue of Bridges monthly). President Clinton also expressed the US wish to see the WTO and the International Labour Organization working more closely together, and called for a high-level meeting to discuss these issues. “Our goal must be to help more people benefit from the possibilities of the new economy even as we ensure that the forces of technology and new trade patterns do not aggravate inequality or reinforce poor labour conditions,” said Clinton.

ICTSD INTERNAL FILES, May 1998.