By
Alan Griffiths
Information
Pack on the WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION
Australia’s
Joint Standing Committee on Treaties public inquiry into Australia’s
Relationship with the WTO
Dear friends,
this information pack is to assist you in making an informed
submission to the federal Joint Standing Committee on Treaties public inquiry
into Australia’s relationship with the WTO. In Section One I’ve compiled
information on the main agreements that are most likely to seriously threaten
Australia’s environment, workers, indigenous, cultural, democratic and/or civic
rights, etc.
In
Section Two I’ve detailed how the WTO’s legally enforceable trade rules could
affect Australia. It is important to bear in mind two things;
1.
That all the rules in
Section Two apply to the application of all the agreements described in Section
One.
2.
That the rules
described in Section Two brought about the demise of the MAI (Multilateral
Agreement on Investment). In other words the WTO is on very shaky ground.
Given
the time constraints, in Section Three I’ve only touched on some viable
alternatives to the WTO. If you require a more detailed analysis, please don’t
hesitate to contact me.
Now
that the inquiry has formally set its’ parameters you can visit their official
web site www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct
For those of you who wish to write a
submission but don’t feel confident enough in presenting a written or verbal
statement, then please don’t hesitate to contact me & I’ll be only too
happy to assist you. I hope to have a standard submission ready soon for anyone
who is interested.
Yours
sincerely,
Alan
Griffiths
Vic
WTO Watch
142
Gold St
Brunswick
3056
Tel
(03) 9380 6414
http://home.vicnet.au/~gcforum/VicWTOWatch.htm
SECTION ONE
World Trade Organisation agreements:
GATS
(General Agreement on Trade & Services)
Two years ago the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) was
defeated in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). OECD
Secretary General Donald Johnston said there were lessons to be learnt for the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) from the failed MAI negotiations at the OECD. He
believes that the pressure brought to bear on governments by civil society was
the single most important reason for the ceasing of the MAI negotiations.
The
MAI is being negotiated at the WTO under a different agreement known as GATS
(General Agreement on Trade and Services). The WTO web site says:
‘The GATS is the first multilateral agreement to provide
legally enforceable rights to trade in all services... And it is the world's
first multilateral agreement on investment, since it covers not just
cross-border trade but every possible means of supplying a service, including
the right to set up a commercial presence in the export market.’
How
could this affect Australia?
Governments
will no longer be ‘democratically accountable’ to their constituents nor
responsible with the allocation of ratepayers funds to serve the needs of their
community, ahead of new rights for foreign corporations.
GATS
is designed to cover:
·
Cross-border trade.
Services spanning across the borders of all 138 members of the WTO from one
territory to another, ie. International air transport, electronic commerce,
transnational education, etc.
·
Consumption abroad
– service consumers using the service from another country, ie. Education.
Overseas students, the consumers, use Australian Education services.
·
Commercial presence
ensures the right of market access for any corporation in any WTO member
country to establish a commercial presence in the services field, ie. foreign owned hotels, hospitals,
universities and /or utilities, etc.
*Distribution including wholesale, retail and franchising.
*Construction, buildings, architecture, decoration, maintenance. *Civil,
mechanical and other types of engineering. *Financial services, banking and
insurance. *Research and development.
*Real estate. *Rental, credit and hire purchase. *Postal services,
telecommunications or audio-visual. *Tourism, travel, hotels, restaurants.
*Environmental services, including road construction, maintenance, rubbish
collection and sewerage disposal, delivery, protection of the landscape and
urban planning. *Recreational, cultural and sports services including
entertainment, library, archives and museums. *Publishing, printing and
advertising. *Transportation by every imaginable conveyance.
What
activities will GATS challenge, eg:
·
programs earmarking economic
development funds, loans or subsidies for local businesses, women, indigenous
and/or cultural activities, etc;
·
share allocations to local
residents or consumers, with special ownership restrictions on local government
enterprises or activities which are privatised or contracted out;
·
preference to local companies to
run roads, rubbish, recycling, buses, community services etc;
·
allocation of contracts without
full competitive international tender;
·
cancelling proposals to contract
out activities (eg due to local pressure not to go ahead with a privatisation)
unless compensation is paid to potential overseas investors for costs already
incurred from lost opportunities;
·
imposing new regulations on
prices or shareholdings because of the exploitative behaviour of a foreign
corporation or financial institution;
·
zoning changes that could
restrict the use of land including historic designation.
State
and local governments are not ‘parties’ to the GATS, yet are subject to the
full extent of the obligations. The current GATS proposal will make national
and local governments and their equivalents elsewhere automatically bound by
the GATS once their national governments have signed.
GPA
(Government Procurement Agreement)
The
GPA would remove any influence future governments may wish to employ over GATS
and the following agreements described below. See on p.9, Section Two for
details. Luckily however, after 25 years of negotiations, the GPA has not been
agreed to.
Canada
is currently challenging France through the WTO over its ban on asbestos.
‘While
the SPS Agreement currently forbids countries from enacting some of the most
effective safeguards that could minimise bio-invasion risks, the U.S. and other
countries are advancing proposals that could make even existing safeguards
challengeable (illegal) and a barrier to trade’ (Victor Menotti, Director of
the International Forum on Globalisation Environment Program).
Listen to what
India’s author, academic and activist Vandana Shiva has to say about the SPS
Agreement from her recent BBC Reith Lecture. ‘… new health and ecological
hazards are being forced on Third World people through dumping of genetically
engineered foods and other hazardous products.
Recently, because of a W.T.O., ruling, India has been forced to remove
restrictions on all imports. Among the unrestricted imports are carcasses and
animal waste parts that create a threat to our culture and introduce public
health hazards such as the Mad Cow Disease.
The US Centre for Disease Prevention in Atlanta has calculated that nearly 81
million cases of food borne illnesses occur in the US every year. Deaths from
food poisoning have gone up more than four times due to deregulation. Most of
these infections are caused by factory farmed meat. The US slaughters 93
million pigs, thirty seven million cattle, two million calves, six million
horses, goats and sheep and eight billion chickens and turkeys each year.
Now the giant meat industry of US wants to dump contaminated meat produced
through violent and cruel methods on Indian consumers. The waste of the rich is
being dumped on the poor. The wealth of the poor is being violently appropriated
through new and clever means…’
TRIPs
(Trade Related Intellectual Property agreement)
The
TRIPs guarantees bio-tech companies the right to patent any form of DNA,
whether it derives from plant, animal, human or a combination thereof. Through
TRIPs, bio-tech companies will be able to take an idea from any indigenous
culture, whether it be a formulae for illnesses, or a recipe for cooking or any
type of mixture or concoction that has taken indigenous peoples hundreds of
years to craft. In other words the indigenous people are the inventors. The
western bio-tech companies steal it and patent the idea. These patents cost
around $US 100 000 per patent. Corporations own over 5 million patents already.
TRIPs guarantees the patent owner exclusive rights to grow &/or reproduce,
manufacture, distribute & sell this patented idea worldwide. Meanwhile the
indigenous people who crafted this idea no longer retain the right to use it.
If however they continue to use their original idea the new patent owner can
sue them for expropriation through the WTO.
Bio-tech
companies are especially interested in indigenous people who display unique
genetic characteristics. This has caused grave concern amongst indigenous
activists. Take for instance Aroha Te Pareake Mead’s article ‘Resisting the
gene raiders’, published in the New Internationalist of August 1997. In
this article Aroha states that
‘Scottish-based
PPL Therapeutics is conducting research into Maori and Aboriginal peoples, in
some cases to ascertain genetic pre-dispositions to what are essentially
socio-economic conditions – alcoholism, lung cancer and domestic violence.’
Take
what happened to the Hagahai people who first came in contact with the ‘outside’
world in 1984. Due to this first contact many of them died from external
diseases and viruses. At risk of extinction they made contact with a foreign
researcher who provided inoculations which saved their lives. Unbeknown to
them, he also took samples of their DNA, which was sent back to the US. The
Hagahai seemed to be immune to leukemia and degenerative neurological diseases,
which persuaded the US researchers to take out a patent on the genetic
qualities of a Hagahai individual. Thankfully the resulting public outcry
stopped this from happening. However, through the WTO this would be guaranteed
to continue.
One
would have to question that if someone else owns your DNA, what rights do you
have if you wish to pass on your own genetic material which would then evolve
into its’ own unique DNA? In other words, if you wish to have children, does
this mean you have to seek permission first and would you be better of
patenting the DNA of you child to protect its’ rights?
As
absurd as this may sound, some governments have actually brought this a step
closer to reality. Take for instance Iceland, who has negotiated with Roche
Holding Limited, a bio-tech company, to sell the rights to its entire
population’s DNA for a $US 200 million five-year-deal to develop new drugs from
the data (Traders Tales, number 68, Autumn 1999).
And
what of the threat to Australia’s own indigenous people & culture? You only
have to watch ‘Bush tucker Man’, or go bush in the Grampians after it has
rained, to witness the abundance of bio-diversity. Sooner or later our
indigenous nations will have to face this reality if we are to stay in the WTO.
And what of our own
rights now? A vast majority of Australians polled have demanded that their food
be labelled. However, Australia is willing to trade away the wishes of the
majority of its population to having their food labelled for possible GM
(genetically modified) additives. ‘ACF
understands that the Australian Government is seriously considering support for
a GMO trade deal as part of its efforts to see agriculture liberalised.’
November 30th
Press Release, Anna Reynolds, ACF
Australia
has been desperate to gain American support to help prise open access to the
heavily subsidised European agricultural markets.
The
Codex Alimentarius Commission is an immensely powerful and secret lobby
group embedded deep within the WTO administration and it is the driving force
behind these 2 agreements. Its make up consists of some of the worlds top trade
lawyers who represent the worlds largest bio-tech industries. The Codex
Alimentarius Commission incidentally is not only opposed to mandatory labelling
of GM foods but voluntary labelling schemes as well. Take for instance a Dutch
initiative for an eco-friendly wood-labelling scheme on wood imports. The WTO
deemed this as a ‘non-tariff-barrier’ to trade and therefore illegal. It was
stopped before it even got of the ground.
The
Accelerated Tariff Liberalization Initiative (ATLI)
Although
halted last year thanks to the protests in Seattle, the ‘Quad’ consisting of
Canada, US, Japan and the EU are pushing for its incorporation into the WTO
process. The ATLI aims to privatise everything on this planet. It would ensure
the right to acquire any business or property or resource in any sector,
anywhere globally, including natural resources & strategic industries, ie
communications & defence.
The
ATLI also includes the Global Logging Agreement that came out of APEC.
This
threatens the worlds remaining native old growth forests & most of the
world’s bio-diversity by increasing the world’s total output of timber
production by 9%. ‘WTO investment rules would institutionalize “cut-and run”
logging around the world and prevent governments from favouring local entities
which may tend to be more accountable to the land and its inhabitants’ (Victor
Menotti).
Initiatives
such as eco-friendly certification of forest products have also been ruled as
‘non-tariff-barriers’ to trade and deemed illegal.
SECTION TWO
THE
AIM of WTO IS MARKET ACCESS
The
World Trade Organisations Rules for Market Access to Another Countries
Resources & Labor.
Most
Favoured Nation (MFN) treats all WTO member
countries as equal trading partners. Countries cannot discriminate between
their own and foreign products, services, persons &/or corporations. This
forbids consumer boycotts against companies or countries that abuse human,
environment &/or indigenous rights, etc.
National
Treatment ensures that foreign products,
services, persons &/or corporations are treated the same as domestic ones.
Foreign transnational corporations (TNCs) have the same rights of access to
funding on par to locally run community organisations. Countries can not, for example, place
special restrictions on what foreign corporations can own, produce, transport
or sell; maintain economic assistance programs for the pure benefit of
ecologically sustainable development or require that a corporation hire a
certain percentage of local personnel.
Market
Access denies countries the right to
distinguish between national and foreign products, services, persons &/or
corporations. By their sheer size and power this could give foreign
corporations more leverage in gaining access to both our export and home
markets.
Expropriation
The
GATS (General Agreement on Trade & Services) is modelled on the discredited
MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment), which inturn was modelled on an
already existing treaty between Canada, the US and Mexico, called NAFTA, the
North American Free Trade Agreement.
In
early April 1997, the Canadian Parliament acted to ban the import &
inter-provincial transport of an American company Ethyl Corporation’s product,
MMT, a gasoline additive designed to replace lead. Canada wishing to deem MMT
as a dangerous toxin both to their constituents’ health and environment, was
mairly following the lead of some US states that had applied their own ban on
MMT.
On
April 14, 1997, Ethyl responded by filing a $251 US million lawsuit against the
Canadian MMT ban, claiming that this violated the provisions of NAFTA and
sought restitution of $251 US million to cover losses resulting from the “expropriation”
of both its MMT production plant and its “good reputation”.
Under
the WTO’s new definition of ‘expropriation’, any new government measures
to protect forests (or anything in the public interest) could be challenged as
an illegal ‘expropriation’ that requires full cash compensation to the
foreign corporation. Known by critics as the ‘Pay the Polluter’
principle, this would send a chill over new environmental protections across
the globe (Victor Menotti).
In
response to the publicity generated in Canada around its lawsuit, Ethyl also
claimed that the legislative debate itself constituted an expropriation of its
assets because public criticism of MMT damaged the company’s reputation. In
response to the Ethyl legal challenge, the Canadian Parliament backed down and
2 legislatures had to perform the ignominious duty of retracting their MMT ban
in parliament and award Ethyl with $13 US million in compensation for its
potential loss in earnings. Not its actual loss, but potential loss.
‘Expropriation’
under the WTO could eventually lead to
legally enforceable speculation. Any corporation could file suit against any
government against any law that stood in the way of them making potential
money. The inevitable outcome envisioned by the ‘free trade’ believers
would be a ‘level playing field’, where corporations and financial
institutions could come and go anywhere they please on their own terms, and
therefore play one country against another for the most favourable ‘climate’
for investment, leading to a downward spiral of labour & environmental
standards.
Expropriation
is legally enforceable through the WTO’s own tribunal and it has the ability to
override national institutions. This court appoints three anonymous judges who
are not obliged to know anything about the country of origin that the
transnational corporation is challenging. They are not required to posses any
prior knowledge or training on the likely affects the WTO may have on local
communities that are most susceptible to harm imposed by the open market
economy. The country in question appoints a representative for defence, but
their respective aggrieved community in question is unable to represent let
alone defend themselves. The problem here obviously is that the member country
has already agreed to the principles and enforcement rules of the WTO, while
its’ internal communities the country represents have not. The ruling is
absolute & there is no room for appeal.
List
of Reservations
To
help with the transition from a democracy to an oligarchy, each country is
allowed to submit a list of reservations that it wants protected from the WTO.
These agreements are what is known as ‘bottom-up’, meaning, that any
country can place areas of its’ economy, environment and/or civic processes
etc, in a list of reservations. These reservations are then protected from the
WTO. However, once submitted the country is then barred from adding additional
areas to this list. The problem here is that if any indigenous nations in Australia,
for instance, win a land claim that is not covered by Australia’s list of
reservations, they then face the threat of losing this land claim through the
WTO. Ie, if a mining interest or any corporation wishes to gain access to their
land for its resources, then it can use the threat of ‘expropriation’ to
do so.
The
main flaw with this List of Reservations however, is that any area that
Australia deems unnecessary to protect from the WTO, will then be unprotected
forever. What if Australia refuses to place its’ air traffic control services
in this list of reservations? If we loose power over our air control this will
inevitably lead to a brake down in the quality of service it was otherwise able
to offer through public accountability. There will inevitably be a massive
public outcry with any loss of life. But under the WTO all future governments
will be powerless to enforce consumer protection ahead of the rights of
transnational corporations. The only fear these corporations have is the loss
of value in their share market price.
Unfortunately
however, Australia is already pushing ‘ahead with a controversial plan to
privatise air traffic control services as part of an overhaul of aviation
regulation.’ (The Age, Friday 5, November 1999).
Australia’s
list of reservations are yet to be made public, in fact details of a similar
information submitted under the now discredited MAI negotiations have been
deemed too sensitive to be released, even after the Australia Conservation
Foundation applied for them through a FoI (Freedom of Information) request.
France
is adamant in protecting its culture. America wishes to protect all levels of
its government from beneath the federal line, down to local city councils. And
Australia, in regards to the TRIPs (Trade Related Intellectual Property
agreement), wants to protect its indigenous population (David Spencer, Deputy
Secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, DFAT). As far
as I know DFAT has not consulted any representatives from the indigenous
nations of Australia.
Performance
Requirements on Investment
The
WTO aims to ban all performance requirements on trade and
investment. Performance requirements form a basis for the protection of our
rights enshrined in our democracy. These are especially important to protect
the rights of all communities in each country ahead of TNCs. These include:
1.
Content requirements
on all investment and business practises including the;
a.
hiring of local
staff,
b.
hiring of local
management who in turn may be accountable to community needs,
c.
buying from or
contracting out to locally run business services,
d.
implementation of
training schemes, apprenticeships or scholarships,
e.
technology transfer,
f.
implementing
sustainable practises into the workplace,
g.
cleaning up dirty
practises &/or re-investing in cleaner technology, etc
2.
Although the WTO has
yet to push through the Government Procurement Agreement, it intends to ban all
content requirements on all levels of Local, State &/or Federal Government
procurement programs, especially regarding our publicly run, utilities, health
and education institutions, etc. Requirements may include;
a.
transparent processes
of contractual agreements,
b.
Australian curriculum
facilitated, run and owned by Australians,
c.
commissioning
research,
d.
supporting Australian
Culture, ie, film, music, public broadcasting, etc,
e.
the protection,
respect, education and promotion of indigenous values,
f.
the ability to
promote local artistic endeavour,
g.
promoting Australian
business including community based firms,
h.
accountability to
community input and consultation,
i.
the ability to
implement consumer boycotts, ie, Melbourne’s Moreland City Council ban on the
use of GM food, to list but a few.
Rollback
& Standstill
Australia’s
‘reservations’ are also subject to the ‘rollback’ clause, meaning they can
expire, they have a use by date. They propose to do this over a three to
five-year period. After repealing all legislation found to be offensive to
TNCs, all future local, state &/or federal governments will be powerless to
renew or enact new legislation to protect the interests of their communities
ahead of the unelected rights of TNCs. This is what was known as the Standstill
clause. Known as ‘deep integration’ there is no withdrawal process from
the WTO. Once you’re in you’re in.
The
WTO also refuses to include legally binding language that can protect labor
& environmental rights. This is actually a standard practise according to
the Washington based Preamble Centre for Public Policy. Negotiators site that
there are other organisations better equipped to enforce these rights, such as
the ILO, International Labour Organisation. The problem here is that the ILO
has no teeth. It possesses no mechanisms to enforce its agreements. Therefore
these rights can only act as guidelines, so there is no obligation on part of
the corporations or countries to respect these rights.
SECTION 3 Australia
must withdraw from the WTO
There
are 40 parallel negotiations going on at any one time, 24 hours a day, either
on line by computer, or in Geneva, the WTO headquarters. Geneva is an
exceedingly expensive city to stay in. Purely by its price restraint, most 3rd
world countries don’t share the same rights of access to negotiations as with
their western counterparts. There is a lot of double-dirty-dealing going on. So
what are the alternatives?
On
the 17th of December, a couple of weeks after Seattle, the WTO met
in relative secrecy in Geneva. There was no Bill Clinton, mass protests or
media. And the 3rd world blocked the same agenda that failed to get
through at Seattle. Three months ago at their alternative summit to the IMF in
Havana, the G77, representing 80% of the world’s population, declared their
solidarity with the IMF & World Bank protestors. They also called for a
kind of new Nurenberg Court such as the International Crime Court to prosecute
the persons in the IMF responsible for crimes against humanity. On Tuesday, May
30, 2000, a call went out for an alliance to be formed between the Global
Resistance Movement & the G77 group of countries.
In June 2000 the ACTU
rejected free trade for fair trade. Sooner or later, the International Council
of free Trade Unions consisting of over 120 million members will take up the
same stance. A fair trade deal negotiated between all the representatives of
the world’s people is looking increasingly likely. Before we do this we need an
international agreement to regulate the power of transnational corporations.
The most likely institution equipped to do this is the UNCTAD (the United
Nations Council of Trade & Development).
Any
future trade negotiations must be done outside the WTO. The WTO has demonstrated
why it must be dismantled. Its whole architecture is fundamentally flawed
& is only useful for TNCs in getting their way. It is too late to reform.
The WTO must go!