----------- Financial Times interview with the new WTO head, Michael Moore.
- - "we're democratic and the ngo's who criticize us
don't represent anyone and haven't produced anything"
- - "we're doing what we do for the poor"
- - "non-governmental organisations, he says, have bigger
budgets and more educated people at their disposal than
some sovereign nations."
Financial Times, September 3, 1999
FT INTERVIEW: Mike Moore
The World Trade Organisation needs to promote the
benefits of globalisation for poor as well as rich
countries, its new head tells Guy de Jonquieres
Mike Moore, who took over this week as head of the
World Trade Organisation, is a committed champion of
the underdog. The son of a poor New Zealand farming
family, he was a social worker and trades union official
before he entered politics and served briefly as the
country's prime minister. He says he knows what it is
like to be struggling and vulnerable.
"What has been important to me in my life, intellectually
and morally, is a burning sense of unfairness and
injustice," he says. "I keep finding myself instinctively on
the side of the battlers, of those who have been knocked
out, who haven't got the benefits, who cannot engage."
Mr Moore's social idealism is as unusual in the stuffy
diplomatic environment of the WTO as his chummy,
no-nonsense manner. He eats in the WTO canteen
rather than the executive dining room, and has
impressed staff by making impromptu visits to their
offices. He is also the first non-European to hold the
world's top trade job.
His open and approachable style is likely to prove an
asset in a post whose influence depends on personal
diplomacy. Lacking formal powers or big budgetary
resources, Mr Moore, who is 50, will need to convince
WTO members that he will serve all of them as impartial
referee, conciliator and deal-broker.
He has no time to lose. The job has lain vacant since
May, and important business has stagnated, while the
organisation's 134 members struggled to resolve a bitter
deadlock over who should succeed Renato Ruggiero as
its director-general.
Furthermore, the WTO is increasingly under attack from
vociferous and well-organised opponents of globalisation,
who are threatening mass protests at its ministerial
meeting in Seattle in late November. Mr Moore expects
responding to such critics to be an important part of his
job.
He is confident that the leadership contest has left no
lasting scars, insisting the run-up to the Seattle meeting
will force governments to unite. He also says he is on
good terms with Supachai Panitchpakdi, his Thai rival for
the job, who will succeed him in three years' time.
The Seattle meeting is supposed to set the world trade
agenda into the next millennium. However, partly
because of delays caused by the leadership contest,
WTO members are still far from agreeing on objectives,
or how to achieve them.
Richer countries are calling, with varying degrees of
enthusiasm, for a new world trade round. But many poor
ones are cautious, saying industrialised economies must
first do more to help them by implementing liberalisation
pledged in the Uruguay Round.
Mr Moore declines to spell out a detailed wish-list for the
Seattle meeting. But he believes its outcome will hinge
on how generous industrialised powers will be. "They
know they are not going to get the things they want out
of Seattle unless others can see some benefit," he says.
A tight-fisted attitude would not only blight the meeting
but could also set back reform efforts in developing
countries. "There are lots of terrific people out there
trying to make a go of it. For them to fail because
wealthy countries won't allow access to their markets
would be criminal."
Mr Moore would like tariffs abolished on poor countries'
exports. But he says their plight cannot be tackled
through trade liberalisation alone. He is ready to fight
for an increase in the WTO's skimpy budget, to provide
them with more advice and support, and wants to
intensify co-operation on development programmes with
the World Bank and other international economic
institutions.
His motives are as much ethical as economic. He says
he believes in the WTO and a rules-based multilateral
trade system because they promote international justice
by protecting the rights of countries so small that "prime
ministers answer the switchboard".
That, he says, is a point the WTO's critics have failed
to grasp. "The people who march in Seattle will be
marching against opportunities for poor countries to sell
their products and services . . . the countries that have
been more open have better human rights, better living
standards and more commerce."
In one sense, Mr Moore sees the popular controversy
surrounding the WTO as a healthy symptom: "During the
Uruguay Round, we complained about apathy. In Seattle,
we'll be complaining about activists." He also says many
of the WTO's critics are "good kids".
However, he is angered by allegations by
non-governmental organisations that the WTO is
undemocratic, and by their claims to represent a broad
swathe of public opinion. "It does irritate us that
someone who never sells a product, never gets a vote
and doesn't actually do anything can come out and
attack you."
They needed to remember that the WTO was bound by
rules made by the representatives of member
governments, which in turn were chosen by their
peoples.
"When I see this institution being told it's undemocratic,
I think of the ambassador of India, the greatest democracy
on earth. I think of small island states that have to form
governments for a few thousand people. This is their
institution. It's as democratic as it gets."
What worries him is not the often flawed arguments used
by the WTO's critics, but the growing influence they
exert on national governments and parliaments. Several
non-governmental organisations, he says, have bigger
budgets and more educated people at their disposal than
some sovereign nations.
So how can the WTO fight back? Making its procedures
more open to public scrutiny is not enough, Mr Moore
believes. He plans to take on its detractors directly by
taking every opportunity to broadcast the message that
everybody gains from free trade.
The recovery of the global economy from turmoil in
emerging markets was a huge tribute to the resilience of
the trade system. "Just imagine the implications for Asia
if markets in the north had closed. Sometimes it's the
dog that doesn't bark that ought to be listened to. These
are things that ought to be celebrated and said over and
over again."
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