The World Trade Organization (WTO) is meeting next week in Hong Kong for its sixth ministerial conference. The meeting comes after the failure of the 2003 ministerial meeting in Cancun and among concerns in the business press that the Hong Kong meetings will not achieve any progress in advancing the neoliberal trade agenda, largely due to internal differences between the G8 countries and developing nations. The differences stem from the significant opposition that has formed in response to the WTO’s model of corporate globalization and its mandate of increasing economic growth.
Despite concerns voiced by the business and government elites that the WTO may not be able to advance its agenda, the WTO remains a significant concern for many of the world’s people. Draft texts prepared in advance of the meeting show that the WTO is continuing its efforts to eliminate restrictions on trade at the expense of people in developing countries. A new report released this week by Friends of the Earth has documented the importance of the upcoming WTO negotiations to developing countries that face a particular threat from the G8 countries’ efforts to privatize forests, traditional knowledge, seeds, and medicines, all of which will undermine indigenous societies and threaten their survival. Similar efforts to cut tariffs on fisheries could eliminate the livelihoods of an estimated 40-million people depending on income generated from fishing. Threats also continue for farmers with the G8 supporting policies that would continue to displace indigenous farmers who are expected to participate in the protests in large numbers. The WTO has also proposed new regulations for food aid, especially aid distributed by the United Nations, to prevent the so-called “distortion of commercial markets” and is proposing that only monetary aid be allowed. The United States policy on immigration is expected to come under scrutiny as well, with developing nations such as India advocating an expansion of the United States’ visa programs for temporary professional workers—an effort that shows how the reach of the WTO extends far beyond trade issues and fundamentally challenges the sovereignty of nations and undermines democracy.
