WTO

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was formed in 1995 following on from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO aims to liberalise international trade in goods and services, through the removal of tariffs and subsidies, the restriction of government regulation and the reinforcing of intellectual property rights.

The WTO has attracted widespread criticism and protest for the neo-liberal free market policies that it promotes, along with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The neo-liberal model of development has encouraged the growth of free trade or export processing zones in developing countries, based on poor working conditions and low environmental standards, promoting a race to the bottom to attract investors .

The WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) promotes the right of transnational corporations to invest in essential services like health, education and water, and reduces the rights of governments to regulate such services in the public interest.

The neo-liberal model of development has promoted global agribusiness at the expense of sustainable local agriculture, contributing to the current global food crisis. This model has also promoted the deregulation of financial markets which led to massive market failure and the global financial crisis. Governments are now attempting to re-regulate the financial system, which should mean moving away from the neo-liberal model .

The Doha 'Development' Round

Launched in 2001 at its meeting in Qatar, the Doha round of negotiations have been going for seven years without agreement. The talks weredubbed the 'development' round because of  their stated claim to meet the concerns of the countries from the Global South. This claim however has not lived up to reality. The round has suffered four collapses, the most recent in July 2008.

Developing countries, including those with more bargaining power like Brazil, India and China , are refusing to agree to a bad deal. WTO rules are supposed to recognise the special needs of developing countries to protect their agriculture and their manufacturing industries to enable development. But in practice rich countries like the US and Europe are still insisting that developing countres remove those protections, while retaining their own unfair agricultural subsidies.

AFTINET believes the negotiations are unlikely to reach agreement without a change of approach.

We believe governments should take the opportunity to develop a fair multilateral trade system which gives real recognition to the needs of developing countries and is based on United Nations agreements on human rights, labour rights and the environment.