Moore Is Less
Posted 28th October 2000

Two high level meetings between representatives of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and United Nations multilateral environmental agreements were held this week in Geneva. The officials worked towards avoidance of conflict between free trade rules and the environmental treaties that will allow countries to take trade related decisions. Just as in the 1970's, a PR crisis is meet with a global spin campaign to re-take the hight ground lost recently during major setbacks for corporates in terms of public perception. It is unsettling for one's stomach to see Mike Moore leading the charge.

The multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) include treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, and the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. Each treaty has a secretariat made up of experts who administer the provisions of that agreement. WTO director-general Mike Moore and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Klaus Toepfer both maintained that the potential for synergies between the environmental agreements and the World Trade Organization is greater than the risk of conflict. A fact only discovered after massive world-wide protest. This week's meetings, one hosted by UNEP and the other by the WTO's Environment Committee, were organised as part of a confidence building process following the humiliating collapse of WTO talks in Seattle last year. Protesters from environmental groups and labor organizations took over downtown Seattle, preventing some delegates from entering the meeting hall, harassing others in the streets.

They maintain with plenty of evidence that globalization of trade under WTO rules is undercutting environmental and worker protections. On Tuesday, Moore called for greater cooperation and understanding between the WTO and multilateral environment agreements to help "maximize synergies and reduce potential tensions." Moore urged sensitivity to the needs of developing countries and vigilance against hidden protectionism. "This is in the interest of the environmental community itself, because if environmental measures are seen, or believed, to be hidden 'green protectionism,' it would set back your cause and ours." One must suspect that Mike Moore's true interests lie closer to home, his apparent mania for political prestige. Moore said there has been a change of mentality at the WTO since the phrase sustainable development was coined in 1987 by the Brundtland Commission. "Discussions have served to dispel important misconceptions and prejudices that used to prevail. It is now conventional wisdom that multilateral cooperative solutions based on international cooperation and consensus is the best and most effective way for governments to tackle environmental concerns. "In this sense, the WTO and MEAs are representatives of efforts of the international community to pursue shared goals, and due respect must be given to both," Moore said Tuesday. You're on the losing side Mike... again.