Naderites Craft "Fix It or Nix It" Campaign

Jeffrey St. Clair sitka at home.com
Wed Dec 29 11:18:58 PST 1999


[another example of how the beltway crowd "out-thinks" itself. they admit WTO can't be fixed, but plot a campaign to do just that.--jsc]

-----Original Message----- From: Darci Andresen <DARCI at citizen.org> To: Gallob at newportnet.com <Gallob at newportnet.com> Date: Monday, December 27, 1999 3:04 PM Subject: WTO next steps - from Lori

WTO Fix It or Nix It Campaign One of the lessons I took from this Seattle success was that we can win on an international campaign when we get a unified message (like No New Round, Turnaround) and pound it continually in numerous countries simultaneously.

As regards WTO, we need to go on the offensive and do this now before our opponents are able to spin to the media their version of what this turn of events means and what happens next.

Launching an offensive was part of the conclusion taken by many of the NGOs from all over the world meeting in Seattle. I have sent an email out to some of our international allies offering the same preliminary version of an 18 month offensive that I also ask all of you to think over. The point is that winning the battle of stopping the new round is only half the "war." The

reason we were able to build this much opposition in the US (and I understand this was a major factor in other nations) was on the basis of the WTO's five year record. ie. the status quo WTO has to go.

Stopping WTO's expansion was a vital political win -- creating the political space for us to go on the offensive talking about what we want next. The

institution's legitimacy is significantly undermined and its future is no longer certain. More importantly, we have created a need for the powers that be to take into account a new set of voices. Of course, the trick is not to let some modest and meaningless reforms not supported by us but carried by others to fill the political space we have clawed out of stone with our bare fingers....

In order to avoid this outcome, we need to get our act together quickly and set the "bar" high enough for what comes next re. WTO so that when some nothingburger about "transparency and technical support for developing countries" is proposed it is clearly NOT the answer...

Of course, there are several schools of thought about what is next: although it is more complicated than this it basically comes down to two positions ¯ Kill the WTO or Transform the WTO (the folks who want to modestly reform and tweak the WTO are not us...) We all face this not only internationally but also in our national and local politics. We need a position that keeps us all together again like "No New Round, Turnaround."

Given the political context (ie. mainstream commentators in the US saying the WTO has invaded areas it does not belong in give its lack of accountability etc joining similar perspectives re TRIPS, industrial policy in developing countries and in Europe re food and culture....) I think we can launch a rather tough campaign and stay within the political "laugh test."

I propose a "WTO: Fix it or Nix It" campaign which does this:

1. Sets an 10 point list of immediate WTO changes that would simply return to nations their rights to make decisions for their peoples interests . This would go to both the rotten substantive rules and the strong and secretive enforcement of said bad rules. IF WE DECIDE TO TAKE AN APPROACH SUCH AS THIS, WE WOULD NEED TO LAUNCH INTO BUILDING CONSENSUS ON WHAT IS ON SUCH A LIST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. What I know we could agree on internationally and cross-sectorally are "fixes" about pruning back the WTO, such as....

- For all countries: the rule is to treat domestic and foreign goods alike but that WTO has no role in forbidding differences in treatment of goods

according to how goods are made (ie. with child labor or fish caught with drift nets). Similarly, the LEVEL of health protection is not questioned, but simply whether it applies to both domestic and foreign goods. This would restore every country's right to make its own decisions re its own domestic market, economic design, etc.

- Countries' implementation of Multilateral Environmental Treaties, World Health Organization and UNICEF etc agreements is "held harmless" from WTO as long as the same rules apply to foreign and domestic goods. Thus countries, not WTO can decide priorities.

- Get rid of the WTO Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement altogether and go back to the previous global system (WIPO) so that each

country can set domestic terms. (No world-wide 20 years on patents and no definition of patentability that includes seeds, lifeforms, etc...)

- Explicit exclusion of water, life forms, etc from any trade rule application.

2. Set a firm timeline: ie. these changes must occur by the next Ministerial in 18 months.

3. Announce the day we launch this campaign that if this list is not completed on time, we will launch campaigns worldwide to both cut off our countries' WTO funding contributions and to get our countries out of WTO. (The $$ cutting line could have the effect of causing a real practical operational crisis for WTO with 20% paid by US, and about another 30% between EU and Japan...)

The thing about this approach is if the 10 points were to be implemented, we effectively have just killed the WTO and replaced it with a new institution even if it is still called WTO. If the key changes to prune back WTO are not made, then we got on the warpath with added credibility as to why it has to go and cannot be repaired and we need to start over. (ie either WTO bends or it breaks)

Given the total illegitamcy of WTO, I can't say I like the idea of using

terms like "fixing" it. (And I know many of us who repeated it most often groaned at the "Review, Repair, Reform" mantra as giving WTO too much legitimacy, but it was effective language that served our goals.)

If we can use language like "fixing" that hooks off the comments of EU Trade Minister Lamy (who said the WTO needs a "rework" AND we define what a fix is -- setting the bar for what success if at our level not theirs, we can mutually satisfy our substantive goals and have a message that allows us to continue to lead the debate!

And, at a tactical level, we are not now ready to win on a vote to defund or get out of WTO and the resources of our major allies will be exclusively put into the China-WTO fight. However, given 18 months to educate and organize, we could launch an offensive in the next Congress with some political viability.

I think that we need to get some major, clear, united offensive launched as soon as possible and do a full global launch: a new global sign-on letter, news conferences with a global day of action, etc.

I would appreciate everyone's thoughts on this proposal. So far, our international allies' comments have been highly positive (for instance Vandana Shiva sent her list of ten...)

US comments also have been favorable, with one issue raised which is that while we can get international agreement on what to take out of the WTO,

there are many people who do not believe in adding new issues to the WTO at all. ie they note that the institution is so illegitimate and given our arguments that it is not accountable or democratic, how do we justify attacking WTO on one hand and then calling for it to do our bidding. The

environmentalists do not call for WTO to add environment, but rather to get out of the way of existing treaties and national and local laws so this area is not a problem. (They say empowering WTO to enforce and judge labor standards would be like asking Dracula to guard a blood bank.) However, many in the labor movement do call for adding labor standards to WTO as the only way to obtain enforceable global labor standards given WTO is the only effective global enforcement mechanism that exists. Ideas on how to avoid this conflict are appreciated!

Darci Andresen 215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Washington, DC 20003 202-454-5140 fax: 202-547-7392 www.tradewatch.org



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