First of all, the overriding of standards does not involve undoing domestic laws about what domestic producers do. The WTO never said that the US could not demand turtle excluders for its fishers. It is that the US cannot unilaterally impose its own environmental laws on other countries without their consent via the mechanism of protectionism. The latter smells like imperialism to me. The question remains as to how global environmental agreements are to be mutually and multilaterally agreed upon. Somehow the protests only focused upon situations where LDCs were violating domestic US enviro laws, not situations where the US is in violation of global accords, however "tepid."
You are right that the ICFTU supports having the WTO impose ILO standards. And I'll buy that the ICFTU represents a lot of folks. So, this one is up in the air. Good question as to how we would determine the answer. Although I strongly suspect that when push comes to shove and a particular country's exports are being hit, their labor unions are not going to be enthusiastic, if they have any.
You say that protestors in Seattle all know about US human rights violations and oppose imperialistic US policies. Well, of course I only read the Harrisonburg Daily Wanker, so I don't know much, but I saw zero reports of any protestors at Seattle saying anything about any US policies (aside from those supporting the WTO in general). All the specific complaints reported in the media I saw (wank, wank) focused on Third World evils.
I certainly saw nothing about the anti-dumping suits, and when this was brought up on pen-l it was dismissed as "irrelevant" and good old Max Sawicky even began a lot of heavy breathing about "predatory pricing," suggesting the real AFL-CIO position on that one, which is that they love the anti-dumping suits.
BTW, I am no fan of what the US wanted to do with intellectual property at the WTO.
The real point of the Sweden example is that trade is simply the wrong place to be hitting for achieving anything of any significance on any of these issues. Perhaps it is easy intellectually or politically to focus on the WTO. But it is intellectually and politically lazy. As I said on pen-l, where is the movement to shut down Washington until the US gets serious about the multilaterally agreed upon Kyoto Accords. No, the tepid groups are not calling for that. Instead we have demands for LDCs to obey US enviro laws or face trade sanctions. Still looks like hypocrisy to me. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, December 17, 1999 3:34 PM Subject: Re: WTO, observations
>J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:
>
>> 1. Why is it that not one single demand made
>>in Seattle involved any costs for US-based produceres
>>whereas all the (specific) demands involved increased
>>costs for producers in LDCs?
>
>Au contraire. A major complaint about the WTO among U.S.-based
>activists is that it can override domestic environmental and labor
>regulations. Where do you get your information from on this, Barkley?
>
>> 2. Is there not a contradiction between wanting
>>to demolish the WTO (nix it!) and between demanding
>>that it become a more democratic and open decisionmaker
>>that will (presumably) impose the views of US-based
>>labor unions and environmental NGOs on LDCs (fix it!)?
>
>By golly yes. Separate groups of people are making these separate
>demands, though some of the labor folks are now saying if we can't
>fix it then nix it.
>
>> 3. Is it not the case that the overwhelming majority
>>of the people in the LDCs do not agree with the (specific)
>>demands made in Seattle, although most would certainly
>>like a more democratic decisionmaker (see point 2).
>
>How ever do you know this? While you're researching some empirical
>support for this claim, check out the ICFTU's WTO page
><http://www.icftu.org/campaigns/WTO/index.html>. The ICFTU, hardly
>the most perfect of organizations, represents unions in over 140
>countries. They have more claim to be representative than does an
>economics professor in Virginia.
>
>> 4. Is it not the case that the US is in violation of the
>>ILO labor standards provisions with respect to prison labor?
>>Would not a "reformed WTO" impose sanctions on the US?
>>Why was this point not made by protestors in Seattle?
>
>U.S. unions complain constantly about U.S. labor law. While you're at
>the ICFTU site, you might want to check out their critique of U.S.
>labor practices
><http://www.icftu.org/english/pr/1999/eprol139-990709-dd.html>.
>
>> 5. Is it not the case that the most serious global
>>environmental problem is global warming and that the US
>>is the biggest contributor to that and has not accepted the
>>global agreement made in Kyoto regarding combatting this?
>
>Even tepid U.S. environmental organizations would agree with you.
>This is a very strange crusade you're on.
>
>> 6. Is it not the case that the ending of the conference
>>meant no pressure on the US to end its arbitrary and universally
>>condemned anti-dumping lawsuits? Why were no protestors
>>in Seattle bothered at this position of the US?
>
>Lots of protestors think U.S. imperial policies suck. Maybe the NY
>Times or the Harrisonburg Daily Wanker didn't report on this.
>
>> 7. Why did protestors in Seattle only focus on human
>>rights violations by China and other LDCs? Why should
>>not exports from the US be banned or limited because of
>>our jailing of Leonard Peltier and our insistence on imposing
>>the death penalty?
>
>You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Seattle who disagreed with
>this. Really, where do you get your info from?
>
>> 9. Is not the bottom line of this movement going to be
>>simply keeping China out of the WTO (for its own good,
>>of course!)? Does this not serve the interests of the US
>>military-industrial complex to have a new Cold War (and
>>get some more good US-union jobs in the complex)?
>
>Since you can get arrested even for uttering the word "union" in
>China, it's pretty hard to say what the position of Chinese labor is
>on the WTO. But the most enthusiastic proponents of WTO membership in
>China are the capitalist roaders. You can be a critic of the Chinese
>government and not be a racist or cold warrior, you know.
>
>> 10. As a final note let me note that there is no necessary
>>contradiction between having a very progressive domestic
>>social and political policiy and having almost total free trade.
>>The great example has been Sweden. I say, follow Sweden,
>>not the people unable to articulate a coherent arguement in
>>Seattle.
>
>This free trade/protectionism opposition is a load of crap. The WTO
>is an instrument of state coercion, not some agent liberating the
>spontaneous tendencies towards free trade inhering in the capitalist
>economic order. What do tightened intellectual property restrictions
>have to do with free trade?
>
>Doug
>
>