Posted on 9/12/01

WTO Change More Form Than Content
by Aziz Choudry

"Power is nothing without control" reads an advertising billboard for a
multinational tyre company close to Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Walking past it on the final days of the World Trade Organisation
ministerial meeting in Qatar, PirelliTs slogan rang true for the way in
which the major powers manipulate the rules of world trade in their own
economic and political interests.

Visiting the country of incoming WTO Director General, former Thai Deputy
Prime Minister Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi I was struck by some parallels
between New Zealand (former home of current WTO head Mike Moore) and
Thailand. On November 9, two days before I went to Thailand, I attended a
march and rally against the WTO in Christchurch, Mike Moore's hometown. At
the same time over 1500 Thai farmers, unionists, and HIV/AIDS activists
marched on the US Embassy in Bangkok. There, villagers burnt chili and salt
" a ritual which locals say brings bad luck to bad people. The
demonstration called for the WTO to get out of agriculture and an end to
the patenting of life and drugs. Supachai takes over from Mike Moore next
September.

In Bangkok I asked trade unionists, academics, journalists and others what
they thought about the changing of the guard at the WTO. One unionist told
me that he could not see that having a Thai as the figurehead at the WTO
would make any difference at all for Thailand or the rest of the Third
World. "He will just be a puppet for the powerful countries like the USA"
which dominate the WTO. A researcher said that Supachai is a "smooth
operator" " a far more polished performer than Mike Moore, and a respected
economist with a PhD in development economics from Rotterdam.

Moore has irritated many Third World governments by his consistent
unwillingness to listen to their concerns about the impacts of trade and
investment liberalization on their countries. Thai farmers are outraged
that germ of ThailandTs famous jasmine rice is in the hands of US
researchers. Jasmine rice grows well in drought conditions and saline soils
so it suits farming conditions of North East Thailand. Most of it is
produced by five million farmers whose meagre livelihoods depend on it.
According to Deputy Commerce minister Suvarn Valaisathien, the Thai
government is preparing for a legal action aimed at preventing a US
ricebreeder from patenting a new rice variety being developed from genetic
material from Thai jasmine rice.

But those I spoke with doubted whether the Thai government would really
act. Concerns about the WTO include the way in which TRIPS - its
intellectual property agreement - strengthens the hand of private companies
in claiming monopoly rights and getting huge benefits from biopiracy.
Private sector researchers, agribusiness and pharmaceutical corporations
are appropriating indigenous communitiesT heritage for private profit,
while those who developed and nurtured them receive no benefits. Many Maori
also oppose such practices and the patenting of life.

No commitment to change this controversial agreement was made at Doha Also
present at the Bangkok anti-WTO protest were unionists from Thai
International protesting at the restructuring and further privatisation of
the airline. Privatisation was a key condition of the IMFTs US $17.2
billion aid package to bail out Thailand after the 1997 crisis, caused
largely by financial liberalization. At a roundtable session with
independent trade unionists and labour activists, State Railway Workers
Union of Thailand officials asked me about the effects of privatizing New
Zealand Rail on communities and workers. An Australian company is poised to
buy ThailandTs Railways. Rail privatizations in New Zealand, Britain and
Australia have been held up as success stories to sell the idea. Many Thais
are already painfully aware of what comes with privatizing state-owned
assets " mass layoffs, higher prices, and less access to public services
for the poor " in a country where there are no social safety nets.

Whatever emerged from Doha had to be sold to the world as a success for the
WTO or else it would be condemned as an irrelevant forum, incapable of
achieving anything. US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick boasted: "We
have removed the stain of Seattle" The Financial Times was far less upbeat:
"Reaching a deal required so many compromises and caveats that the final
agenda is almost meaningless." The key points of the Doha Declaration
contradict the interests of developing countries.

It seems that the Quad countries, the USA, the EU, Canada, and Japan,
bludgeoned their way into making gains for their interests on almost every
issue on the agenda. At Seattle, Third World governments had resisted
pressure to accept a trade agenda shaped primarily in the interests of the
rich and powerful, scuttling a Millennium Round of trade talks. Internal
divisions within the WTO were probably as marked going into the Doha
meeting, if not more so. But as one non-governmental observer put it, this
meeting was characterized by "highhanded unethical negotiating practices of
the developed countries " linking aid budgets and trade preferences to the
trade positions of developing countries and targeting individual developing
country negotiators".

After all, what is power without control?