WORLD FORUM ON THE WTO
BEIRUT 5-8 NOVEMBER 2001
FINAL DECLARATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
NO TO A NEW ROUND IN DOHA
Between the 5th and the 8th of November 2001, on the eve of the 4th
ministerial meeting of the WTO in Doha, a world forum on globalization
and global trade was held in Beirut. The meeting was attended by civil
society representatives from 5 continents to take a position on the
Doha meeting of the WTO and its agenda. The meeting also discussed new
global developments and the atmosphere of militarization and war that
is currently dominating all aspects of life on the planet.
After numerous sessions and workshops, the participants declare the
following:
The importance of the Doha meeting is in the fact that it will be the
first global meeting after the September 11 attacks and after the
start of the war on Afghanistan. It is also held for the first time in
Arab country, not far from besieged Iraq and from Palestine, where the
Palestinian are facing a continuing Israeli occupation.
This new reality should make us cautious against pressures on
developing countries to make more concessions. We refuse any use of
global trade or its mechanisms as a tool in the current declared war.
Seven years since the creation of the WTO has given us ample time to
examine the promises of prosperity, development, opening up of markets
to the products of developing nations, and the numerous benefits that
the latter would have enjoyed from joining the organization. What
really happened was completely the opposite. Economic stagnation
spread to include more and more countries. Developing countries faced
huge losses in their economies and exchange. Protectionist measures in
the countries of the global north remained an obstacle to the products
of the South. Agriculture and food security was hit with tremendous
losses and damage. The technological divide between north and south
became unprecedented, while barriers to the transfer of technology
became stronger, and the workforce was barred from free movement.
The implementation of WTO agreements and its mechanisms has shown that
it is completely biased in favor of big multinationals and global
capital. The WTO does not give any consideration to international
justice, nor to the interests of developing countries, not to the
people of the global north themselves. It goes completely against
development, and peoples' rights of development, this explains the
emergence of a global movement opposed to the existence of the WTO,
its role and mechanisms.
The rhetoric of the free market is an ideology biased in favor of
global capital. What the WTO seeks is in complete opposition to the
principles of social justice, human rights, and international
charters. Our criticism of the WTO is based on what humanity had
agreed upon decades ago: the UN charters for human rights. The Human
Rights declaration of 1986 states, in its first article, that the
human right for development requires the complete implementation of
the right of self-determination. That includes the complete and
unconflicted sovereignty of people over their natural resources and
wealth.
The WTO aims to become a trading authority above countries and
nations, thus practically eliminating their ability to formulate
social, economic, and financial policies that achieve development. The
WTO also removes the authority of national legal systems in all areas
that fall within its scope. This drains the right for development, and
the majority of economic and social right of people and individuals,
from their meaning. It deprives people from political, institutional,
and legal tools that would allow them to create national development
policies and the means to achieve them.
The rules at work in the WTO aim to make trade an absolute and
comprehensive principle. They push development, human rights, and the
interests of people to the side, where they are readapted to global
trade and not the opposite.
The creation of a global organization with such power and authority is
a dangerous issue in itself. It becomes more and more ominous in light
of the current push to militarize globalization and the unipolar
hegemony on the global decision.
Based on the above, the participants in the Word Forum in Beirut, and
at the conclusion of their discussions, declare the following
positions to the 4th ministerial meeting in Doha on the 9th of
November 2001:
1) We refuse a new round of negotiations in the WTO and any inclusion
of new issues on the agenda, especially those connected with
investment, competition, government procurement, and other issues
that will overwhelm the meeting and puts the delegates of
developing countries in a position where it is impossible for them
to follow negotiations on all those issues at the same time.
2) We call for the reevaluation of previous agreements in light of the
practice of their implementation that showed a great bias against
the interests of developing countries. This includes the
reevaluation and the correction, or the annulment, of harmful
agreements, or those that where signed under pressure or
ignorance. Those being factors that eliminate will and corrupt the
contract.
3) We call for the cancellation of agreements on intellectual property
that inhibit developing countries from providing adequate health
care to their people; that block the transfer of technology, and
that protect the interests of supranational organizations and
facilitates their pilfering of cultural and genetic heritage of
developing countries.
4) We call for the exclusion of agriculture from the scope of the WTO
and the ban on dumping practiced by multinational
corporations. This means the lift of agricultural subsidies in
industrialized countries, and the opening up of their markets to
the agricultural products of developing countries. It also includes
the right of developing countries to create national policies to
develop and protect their agriculture and farmers. It also means
the refusal of any measures that aim to monopolize the production
of seeds through patents and genetic modification.
5) We refuse to include basic services (water, health, education,
etc.) in trade agreements, since these are connected directly to
the well being of people. These should remain under the control of
people through their national institutions and not market forces
and the purpose of quick gain.
6) We refuse the inclusion of labor standards in WTO agreements and
call for the adherence to the standards of the ILO.
7) We refuse any transgression of international environmental
treaties, and we call for the adherence of trade agreements and
practices to the respect of environmental safety and health
standards.
8) We refuse the internal mechanisms of the WTO, especially its
conflict resolution process, since they are neither democratic, nor
transparent, nor do they provide equal representation in the
decision-making process. We call for new mechanisms based on those
conditions and the abilities of developing countries.
Global economy and global trade should follow the bases of the
consolidation of global justice and equality. They should allow all
countries to benefit from economic, scientific, and technological
advancement. This way global trade will strengthen peace and global
stability and not become an instrument in the creation of conflict and
war.
Our world is not for sale and peoples' lives and well being are not a
material for trade.
The global protest movement that succeeded in stopping the meeting in
Seattle two years ago, because of the accumulation of the struggle and
coordination and solidarity between its components, is now capable of
stopping the new round in Doha and in enforcing the respect of
peoples' rights and the rights of developing countries in particular
to achieve development, social justice and peace.
Changing the location of WTO meetings from one country to another in
order to avoid what happened in Seattle in 1999 will not solve the
problem. What we demand is that the WTO changes its mechanisms and
content, not the location of its meetings. If the WTO does not do so,
then any meeting, wherever it may be, will become another Seattle.
Beirut, 8 November 2001
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 11-07-02 MET DST