By Fred Gaboury
If you have quarter-of-a-million bucks you can buy a ticket to the opening and closing receptions of the trade ministers of countries belonging to the World Trade Organization (WTO) when they meet in Seattle Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.
If you can't come up with the money, come to Seattle anyway and join in the many protest actions that are planned as a people's reception for the some 500 representatives of WTO's 134 member-states.
Until recently, few people knew much about the WTO except that, somehow or other, it had to do with something called "international trade." But that has begun to change and now organizers of the "Protest on the Puget" (Seattle is on Puget Sound) are organizing a series of marches, demonstrations, press conferences and seminars in a massive mobilization against globalization.
As many as 50,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, peace, groups and representatives of the religious community are expected to participate in a march and rally on Tuesday, Nov. 30.
Although originally established to set guidelines for trading relations between countries, with a primary focus on reducing tariffs, WTO has moved more and more in the direction of dealing with "no-tariff barriers" to trade.
Business interests who have always opposed regulations dealing with safety, health and environmental issues have found a new ally in the WTO, which has the authority to establish and enforce guidelines that member countries must abide by under threat of trade sanctions.
And the record is clear and consistent: virtually every time a public health or environmental law has been challenged, the WTO has ruled it illegal.
As a matter of fact, its very first decision sustained a challenge to the U.S. Clean Air Act by foreign oil refiners - many U.S.-owned - who were required to produce cleaner gasoline.
Last year the WTO upheld an appeal by the Clinton administration that the European ban on the import of beef from cattle treated with certain growth hormones was illegal. Then there was last summer's "banana war" that saw the U.S. use the WTO to force European countries to open their markets to bananas produced on U.S.-owned banana plantations in Central America.
Under WTO rules, countries are not required to have minimum food safety standards - but they can be penalized for setting standards higher than guidelines allowed under WTO's global trade rules.
At other times the mere threat of a WTO challenge is enough to induce a country to change laws or policies designed to protect health or the environment.
A case in point is Guatemala, which, acting in accord with United Nations recommendations, tried to ban the packaging of baby formula that associated formula with healthy babies.
After the U.S. State Department, acting at the behest of Gerber Products, threatened to challenge the regulation at the WTO, Guatemala surrendered and dumped the law.
If transnational corporations have their way, these rulings are just the beginning. Outfits like Boeing and Microsoft hope the Seattle meeting will launch a millennium round of trade talks that will dramatically expand the authority of WTO into areas such as investment, competition policy and government procurement ("Buy American" laws).
Also on the block will be a global agreement deregulating trade in forest products, which opponents call the "free logging" agreement. And there is concern that the meeting will adopt a version of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment that would restrict the ability of governments to regulate foreign investment and currency speculation.
Get your ticket to Seattle and get it soon. Better still, get your friends, and more importantly, your organization to do likewise. For further information: 1-877-STOP-WTO or (206) 770-9044 or www.seattlewto.org