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Saturday, December 07, 2013

WTO's KO

Ministers from 159 countries have reached a deal intended to boost global trade at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia. The World Trade Organization's first comprehensive agreement involves an effort to simplify the procedures for doing business across borders. The core of this agreement is what is called trade facilitation. This is about reducing the costs and delays involved in international trade. It is often described as "cutting red tape"

Nick Dearden of the World Development Movement said: "If the US and EU really wanted to tackle global poverty, they would have made the least-developed-countries package much stronger."

Other critics say WTO rules may hinder countries from setting their own priorities in environmental protection, workers' rights, food security and other areas. And they say sudden reductions in import tariffs can wipe out industries, causing job losses in rich and poor countries.

Getting this deal has involved introducing some extra flexibility into the existing WTO rules on farm subsidies. India led the campaign, by insisting that it should be allowed to subsidise grain under its new food security law. [SEE SOYB HERE]  A "peace clause" has been agreed, under which members agree not to initiate WTO disputes against those breaching the subsidy limits as part of a food-security programme. But it only lasts four years and there is criticism from campaigners.

John Hilary executice director of War on Want, a UK-based group, said: "The negotiations have failed to secure permanent protection for countries to safeguard the food rights of their peoples, exposing hundreds of millions to the prospect of hunger and starvation simply in order to satisfy the dogma of free trade."
He is quoted as saying “Any suggestion that there is a deal to celebrate from the WTO talks in Bali is absurd. The USA and EU continue to channel billions in subsidies to their richest farmers, yet seek to destroy other countries’ right to protect their poorest citizens from starvation.”

Nick Dearden, director of the WDM, said: "On the positive side, developing countries have forced concessions on to the pro-corporate agenda of the US and EU. However, those concessions are only the minimum necessary to get through what remains a deal for corporations, not for the world's poor. He continued "The aggressive stance of the US and EU means that we have moved only a little, and shows again that the WTO can never be a forum for creating a just and equal global economic system." Dearden said a succession of planned bilateral deals on a range of goods and services threatened the WTO and represented "the biggest shift of power from people to corporations that we have seen in 10 years" and must be "halted in their tracks." The EU has recently begun talks with the Obama administration on a wide-ranging trade deal outside the confines of the WTO"

"The food security fix is something out of 1984, George Orwell would be proud," said Simon Evenett, professor of international trade at the Swiss University of St Gallen. "The food security text is so contradictory that there must be an informal understanding among the big players as to what it really means.".

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