National
Doha: saving WTO, killing democracy
By Vandana Shiva
The Doha meet of the World Trade Organisation was described by the U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Robert Zoellick, as having ``removed the stain of Seattle''. Seattle stands as a historical watershed, through which citizens mobilised democratically to respond to free-trade treaties and agendas of corporate globalisation. The WTO, like the NAFTA and the FTAA, is designed to exclude democratic decision-making in economic affairs. At the domestic level, the WTO destroys economic democracy through rules that prevent people, Parliaments and Governments from providing economic security and livelihoods and jobs for the people. At the international level, the WTO is loaded in process and content by the agenda of the rich and powerful corporations and countries.
Seattle stopped the enlargement of this undemocratic structure and its undemocratic processes. People from across the world, and Governments of poor countries stopped a new round from being launched. The WTO's failure was democracy's victory. This victory of democracy is being described by Mr. Zoellick as the ``stain of Seattle''. Removing the ``stain'' of democracy is what Doha was designed for and achieved.
First, Doha was chosen as a venue to escape from popular response of citizens mobilising on a largescale as they did in Seattle, Gothenberg, Genoa. The democratic expression of civil society was attempted to be muffled by the location and restrictions on visas. The democratic rights of poor countries were extinguished by bulldozing, arm-twisting, undemocratic and non-democratic processes for which the WTO has become famous. Doha's success was based on democratic failure. The WTO which had been derailed in Seattle by the combined force of people and developing countries was, ``put on track'' in Doha, according to Mr. Pascal Lamy, the E.U. Trade Commissioner. During his trip to India immediately after Doha for the EU-India business summit, Mr. Pascal Lamy admitted that the WTO was a ``medieval'' institution in desperate need of reform, but a new round had to be launched before the reform process otherwise the WTO could have been destroyed. This is like arguing that an infectious disease must be allowed to spread because curing it might kill the infectious agent. Saving democracy should be the criteria, not saving the WTO.
Mr. Lamy has described the new round launched at Doha as a new global deal on trade, development and environment.
It is a ``deal'' in which the rich grab more from the poor instead of giving more. Development has been reinterpreted to mean trade liberalisation and environment is being reinterpreted to mean free trade in natural resources. Unfortunately, the very meaning and content of ``development'' and ``environment'' are being forced to undergo a change. After Doha, the slogan of ``trade, not aid'' has been altered to ``aid for trade'' which in effect means using taxpayer's money as subsidies for exports and conditionalities for trade liberalisation.
For Mr. Lamy and the European Commission, Doha was a ``development'' round. ``Development'' has been redefined as ``trade liberalisation'' and economic reform for corporate welfare and the welfare of the rich.
India has been reduced to its business people who can export goods and services to Europe. Its women, children, peasants, tribals, craftspeople, workers and their basic rights have all disappeared. Doha has formalised development as exploiting the labour and resources of the poor to provide cheap goods and services for the rich.
Unfortunately, though it was the Commerce Minister, Mr. Murasoli Maran, who fought the hardest against further liberalisation of trade and investment in Doha, his first announcement on returning was to accelerate the pace of economic reforms and liberalise investments.
The people of India reject the imposition of irresponsible commerce and corporate globalisation by the WTO, or by the Government, because the impact on the people is the same - more farmers committing suicide, more children dying of hunger, more violence against women and more workers without jobs.
Over the next two years, environment and development groups and movements need to build up enough public pressure and public opinion to promote environmental and sustainable development goal, and reform of global institutions and trade treaties to reach those goals. Transformation of WTO rules and structures will have to be an important part of this agenda. The work of Seattle needs to continue.
(The writer is Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi.)
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