WTO TALKS SUSPENDED WITHOUT AGREEMENT.
The WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle last week was suspended without agreement in the early hours of Saturday, after four days of acrimonious talks overshadowed by sometimes violent anti-WTO demonstrations and complaints by many developing countries that their views were being ignored, reports the Financial Times (p.1). US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who chaired the ministerial talks, said responsibility lay with governments which "were not ready to take the lead" in laying the groundwork for a new trade round, and that the WTO's expansion to 135 mostly poor members had made the negotiating process "exceptionally difficult."
WTO members would press ahead with already-mandated negotiations to liberalize trade further in agriculture and services, and WTO Director-General Mike Moore said progress over the four days would not be lost. However, no date has been set for resuming the meeting in Geneva. Trade envoys said the talks would start next month with no timetable or agreed set of objectives.
Developing countries greeted the failure of the meeting to launch a so-called "Millennium Round" of trade talks with relief and satisfaction, and claimed it as a victory, reports Le Monde (France, 12/5, p.3). Faced with Barshefsky's intransigence, it was in part the Caribbean countries, with South Africa, Brazil, and Japan, who put a sudden end to the discussions, the story says, noting that the OAU countries had earlier bemoaned their marginalization at the talks and threatened to pull out of the talks. The FT (12/5, p.3) also notes in a separate report that agreement was made more difficult by the poorest countries' growing complaints that they were marginalized by what they claimed was Barshefsky's arrogant and insensitive chairmanship.
Developing countries, particularly the poorest among them, will now not have to sign agreements they did not feel they were party to, continues Le Monde. The manner in which the negotiations were conducted bore out the reluctance of some parties to join the talks, says the story. The rhetoric of the EU and the US in favor of a new round of trade liberalization talks that would take into account the concerns of poor countries gave way to power relations.
The most contentious issue was labor standards, where negotiators struggled to reconcile US and EU demands for a more active WTO role with fierce opposition from many developing countries, which viewed the proposals as disguised protectionism, notes the FT. Talks focused on a formula under which the WTO would create a joint discussion committee with the ILO, the World Bank, and UNCTAD.
The failure of the talks was also a big victory for NGOs, Le Monde notes. "The WTO has finally seen reason," a Friends of the Earth representative is quoted as saying. "Liberalization cannot be pursued without taking into account the concerns of citizens."
The meeting in Seattle was a calamity, but also a wake-up call, the FT (p.12) comments in an editorial. Policymakers have left the trading system in serious disarray. Whether that is this meeting's final legacy depends on how they now respond, says the editorial, noting that the best way forward on labor issues is for the entire question to be studied by the a joint working party of the ILO, the World Bank, and the WTO.
Meanwhile, the New York Times (12/5, Sec. 1, p. 1) reports US President Bill Clinton's effort to shape an ambitious agenda to liberalize trade and broaden the mandate of the WTO collapsed Friday night, after a rebellion by developing countries and deadlock among America's biggest trading partners forced the administration to all but abandon one of its major foreign policy goals for the end of Clinton's presidency.
A Clinton administration push toward making labor rights a core part of trade talks divided developed countries from less developed countries, who view the issue as code for protectionism by wealthy nations.
The talks also buckled under pressure from poorer nations -- long junior partners at such forums -- which used the meeting to demand equal say in all aspects of the trade organization's work, delegates said. The trade group, unlike some other world bodies like the IMF, operates by consensus, with all countries accorded equal votes. Wealthy nations, especially the US, have long set the pace and the tone of trade negotiations. The Washington Times(p. A1) also reports.
Separately, the New York Times (12/4, p. A6) reports it still seemed possible that members of the trade group would agree to set up an independent study group, backed by a variety of international governing bodies, including the ILO, World Bank and UN, as well as the WTO. That group would study the links between trade and labor and refer its results to the trade organization, the people involved in the talks said.
Meanwhile, the Washington Times (12/4, p. A1) reports, developing nations have become increasingly frustrated at what they say is the refusal of the industrial world to treat them as equal partners in the process.