Member countries of the WTO launched a new round at 15:30 GMT. The texts (Ministerial Declaration, Decision on Implementation-related Concerns, and Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health) are available online at
http://www.ictsd.org

WTO fails again: the first time was farce, the second time is tragedy

Report from the Coalition of Civil Society groups in Doha

The coalition of civil society groups in Doha laud the
courage and determination shown by developing
countries in defending the trade system from an
imposition of the US' and EU's corporate agenda on the
developing world. The troika of the US, EU and the
WTO's Director-General mounted enormous pressure to
massively extend the tentacles of the WTO into new
areas of the global economy such as investment. They
failed.

The lessons of the Seattle debacle in 1999 were
ignored. The negotiations process in Geneva was
untransparent and deeply unfair to the majority of WTO
members. The inequities continued in Doha. The much
criticised "Green Rooms" used in Seattle were used
again, and the powerful role of unelected facilitators
of informal groups resulted in them being
characterized as "Green Men". Civil society
representatives in Doha exposed unethical negotiating
practices by some governments of the rich world, such
as linking aid budgets and trade preferences to the
trade positions of developing countries, and targeting
individual developing country negotiators. The
approach of the major trading nations in the rich
world was arrogant, as if they could agree an agenda
and then impose it on the rest of the world.

In Doha, trade deals continued to be negotiated on the
basis of commercially-oriented deal making and an
ideological commitment to trade liberalisation, rather
than a full assessment of the impacts of past policies
on the poor, the environment and human rights. As a
result, the trade system has lost the confidence of
many of its members and the wider public. There needs
to be a far-reaching an independent review to ensure
that the WTO embodies internal democracy towards its
members, real engagement with civil society and
accountability, through its member governments, to the
wider public in their societies. We look forward to
the leadership of the Director-General Designate to
establish the independence, accountability and
legitimacy of the WTO Secretariat.

The tragedy of Doha was that the proposals for fairer
WTO rules, repeatedly made by developing countries
since 1999, still have not been fully considered, let
alone agreed and implemented. As the Minister of Trade
and Industry of Tanzania, Mr. Iddi Simba said this
week, the problems of unfair trade are costing people
their lives. Most at risk are the millions of people,
especially women and children, without basic rights
and opportunities. This Ministerial conference in Doha
should have started to redress the deep imbalances in
trade rules. But the much-hyped 'Development Round' is
empty of development. The Doha Ministerial has failed
the world's poor.

The WTO member governments have again failed to
address the deep concerns about the impact of trade
rules on the poorest people and the environment. Most
of the positive proposals from civil society have not
been considered. These include protection of the
rights to development, promotion of local economies,
food security, social, cultural and labour rights, and
protection of the environment. These proposals
recognize that the competence of the WTO must be
limited to trade, and that conflicts between trade and
other international agreements must be resolved
outside the WTO system. Reform of the global system
must also include regulation of the main actors in the
global economy, the multinational corporations.

Civil society is calling for the start of a process
that would lead to proper regulation of the global
economy, based on UN agreed standards, to be taken
forward in fora taking place this year, such as UN
Financing for Development, the Food Summit and the
Earth Summit + 10. But the attention of civil society
groups in Doha, and the hundreds of thousands of
people who mobilized in major actions in over 35
countries, will remain firmly on the WTO. We and the
thousands of our civil society partners who could not
attend this meeting, will renew our public awareness
raising and mobilisation during the ongoing and new
negotiations. We continue to do so until trade rules
serve the aims of sustainable development, poverty
reduction and human rights.

Annahid Dashtgard, Organizer
for the Common Front on the WTO (CFWTO)
Phone: 416-53-cfwto (532-3986)
Fax: 416-532-6191
Email: cfw...@sympatico.ca
Website: www.wtoaction.org/cfwto