World Trade Organisation ramble

This was a thing I wrote for a journalism course in November 2001, hence the dated references.

It's actually surprisingly relevent years later, despite the sneering lefty teenager tone.

So many 'quotes'.

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World Trade Organisation representatives met in Qatar this November. It's almost two years since protesters took to the streets of Seattle in December 1999. The World Trade Organisation had met there to discuss 'free trade', so why did thousands of people from all walks of life come out to protest against 'freedom'?
Despite its wide-ranging powers, a lot of people know very little about the World Trade Organisation and what it does. One suspects they might like to keep it that way, despite the presence of a bright, if uninformative, website.
The WTO is an un-elected multi-national organisation, set up in 1995 from the ashes of GATT (Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), a much weaker organisation originally set up to help the world economy after World War II. The WTO aims to open up trade routes around the world, and, according to their own press material, "to improve the welfare of the peoples of the member countries." Sounds innocent enough on the surface. The protests are a result of the way the WTO conducts its business.
The WTO has the power to settle international trade disputes when one member complains about the trading laws of another, and the power to force a member to change laws or face sanctions. In theory it is a regulatory body, but in practice it has as much power as the United Nations, if not more. For some, the WTO represents greater prosperity and economic growth. Some see it as a further move towards the Americanisation of the world, a precursor to some purer form of capitalism. For others, it represents a future where trade rules all, where company policy is more important than government policy: capitalism taken too far.
Qatar is a small oil-producing country whose remote position, stuck between the Persian Gulf and a border with the current political minefield of Saudi Arabia (Osama bin Laden's homeland), was never likely to facilitate mass protests on the streets, and with war in Afghanistan the world's news focus was elsewhere. But even without outside distractions (other than Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship, whose crew did their best to draw attention to the latest round of talks), the poorer members of the WTO still felt that the European Union and the United States were working for their own ends, rather than for the benefit of world trade. The smaller countries have the right to oppose these two gigantic economic powers, but it is alleged that some delegates are bullied or bribed into agreeing with the United States or European Union line, leaving their people and governments virtually powerless in the name of free trade.
Former US presidential candidate Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group is one of the WTO's most vocal critics. Their main problem is the WTO's habit of overturning democratically achieved environmental health and food safety laws, including a US regulation promoting cleaner petrol and a European Union ban on beef containing artificial hormone residues. The WTO have only one priority: free trade before any other consideration. The process of reducing national safety laws to the lowest common denominator is known as 'harmonisation' within the WTO. Environmental and ethical considerations made by nations may be considered 'barriers to trade' by less scrupulous members.
Canada filed a complaint to the WTO over France's 1997 ban on asbestos, which becomes EU law in 2005. Despite the fact that asbestos has been proved to cause cancer and is responsible for thousands of deaths, the WTO made a serious attempt to overturn a domestic law designed to protect public health. While the law was allowed to stand, the WTO's use of obscure clauses means that countries without the considerable backing of the EU might not be so lucky.
The US government is trying to use the WTO to force the EU to reduce restrictions on genetically modified organisms. GMO's are in use and on sale throughout the US, while many European states have placed restrictions on their use and testing as a result of public outcry. Major concerns have been voiced about the potential dangers of GM crops to human health, and while the EU are still trying to resist US pressure it is probably massive public opinion that has prevented WTO intervention so far. That and the EU's massive collective wealth, a luxury most Asian, African and South American members of the WTO don't have. Sometimes, even the EU's money isn't enough.
The possibility of WTO intervention has caused some governments to tone down laws aimed at protecting consumers, workers and animal rights, such as South Korea weakening food safety legislation and the EU changing rules on animal fur bans, essentially doing the WTO's work for them. The WTO have been asked to include basic labour law enforcement as a condition of trade, but some members insisted that such laws are the jurisdiction of the UN's International Labour Organisation. A few years ago the ILO's attempt to draft a corporate code of conduct was blocked, rendering the ILO relatively useless.
In June 1996 the US state of Massachusetts passed the 'Burma Law', preventing any company with business interests in Burma (or Myanmar as it has been known for a few years now) from getting a government contract within the state on the grounds that Burma is an oppressive dictatorship. Several other authorities in the US have adopted similar approaches to 'selective purchasing'. However, acting on behalf of multi-nationals based in Europe, the EU has launched an official challenge to such laws, specifically the Massachusetts Burma Law, at the World Trade Organisation. WTO regulations prohibit government purchases from being made on political grounds. Fearing WTO intervention, America's National Foreign Trade Council took action against Massachusetts, and in November 1998 the courts ruled that the Burma Law was unconstitutional as it affected foreign policy, the preserve of the federal government.
These are just a few of the WTO's more dubious actions. They have kept a low profile throughout their existence, but the more they do to damage human rights and push democratically elected governments around, the more opposition they face. This opposition isn't just against the WTO, although they provide a focus, but against big business in general, with multi-national corporations like Shell, Nike and McDonalds being attacked for working practices seen by many as unethical. Rather than working in the interests of consumers, or even governments, the WTO works for the interests of these companies and their pursuit of profit.
Still, progress has been made this month, with some rules suggested that may force the EU to end it's practice of 'dumping' subsidised food in developing countries, undercutting local prices and virtually destroying farming is such areas. For instance, in South Africa, 'dumped' EU milk has caused a crisis within the domestic milk industry as suppliers cannot compete with the cut-rate prices.
But the occasional victory for 'fair trade' doesn't mean the end of 'free trade' and the same people that turned out for anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation and anti-WTO demonstrations in Paris, Geneva (home of the WTO) London and Seattle, as well as many other places, will be back for more until human rights are placed ahead of trading rights on the WTO's agenda.