5 - 11 July 2001
Issue No.541
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 5 - 11 July 2001 Issue No.541 |
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WTO prospects
A seminar organised by the European Commission last week in Brussels brought together journalists from Latin America, Asia and, representing the Middle East, from Egypt. The purpose was to elucidate the position of the EU vis-à-vis the upcoming WTO meeting scheduled for November in Qatar in November, particularly as regards trade with developing countries.
At this point the European Commission has chosen to adopt a conciliatory tone. EU Trade Commissioner Pascale Lamy touched upon the EU's commitment to take on board the concerns of the developing nations when he addressed the seminar. Yet at a meeting with non-official parties, including trade union representatives, business people and members of the European Parliament, Peter Coldrick, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, insisted that the Confederation will work towards sabotaging the WTO unless a "working group" is put together to discuss labour issues.
Herein, perhaps, lies the root of the latent conflict between interest groups in the advanced economies of the West and the promising emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, not to mention the less developed nations of the world. Most of these countries, Egypt being among the leaders, have already displayed their commitment to liberalisation following the lengthy negotiations that preceded the GATT agreement and the Uruguay rounds.
Yet threats articulated by the stronger party are hardly a means to help progress. Rather, a dialogue is needed within which the developing nations are not viewed simply as passive recipients of the crumbs that might fall from the table of globalisation.
Trade, that endlessly repeated mantra, has brought in its wake a series of social, political, and even religious sets of norms which need to be evaluated by both sides. And those concerns, regarding labour, environmental standards and human rights, which Western trade unions and businesses evoke to enforce protectionist measures, must be exercised with discretion.
It is common, for instance, in rural communities, where the family is the nucleus of the economy, for children to accompany parents after school hours to work the fields, and for women to carry a large part of that burden. This is a far cry from child prostitution, or exploitation in sweat shops. And if such issues are to be contested by Western trade unions or pressure groups as violating labour and gender rights on the assumption that coercive measures will bring about change, the very basis of the contestation is misplaced.
Double standards, too, will have to be dealt with when expressing environmental concerns. Multinationals will have to stop dumping environmentally lethal operations, such as cement and steel factories, on the less developed economies. As for human rights, the wooing of China by multinationals, and the exuberant heralding of its impending entry into the WTO, has led the US administration in its latest annual report on human rights to turn a blind eye to the Asian giant's "human rights violations." Similar forgiveness has not been extended to less economically formidable powers in Africa, or the Middle East, with the US and the EU enforcing a rigorous double standard on economies desperately in need of economic support.
The US and EU also continue to subsidise their farmers while raising anti-dumping claims against the exports of developing countries premised on the fact they have been subsidised by their governments.
The new round of WTO talks, then, should not be regarded as a fight over more rights and privileges but, if it is to be successful, should endeavour to formulate a uniform criteria for all, as well as awarding much needed relative advantages to developing countries. Only then will the historic imbalance debilitating the position of the developing countries begin to be redressed. That imbalance, we will do well to remember, has its origins in the systematic exploitation of the Third World by the Western economies.
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