Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:35:25 -0400
To: •••@••.•••
From: Bob Olsen <•••@••.•••>
Subject: WTO Book, Oct 1999
From: "David I. Hay" <•••@••.•••>
From: •••@••.••• [mailto:•••@••.•••]On Behalf Of
Margrete Strand-Rangnes
Sent: October 19, 1999 2:22 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list MAI-NOT
Subject: (wto) NEW BOOK ON WTO - NOW AVAILABLE!!
NEW BOOK ON WTO - NOW AVAILABLE!! NEW BOOK ON WTO - NOW AVAILABLE!!
THE 5 YEAR TRACK OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
IN LANGUAGE ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE, NOT GATTese!
PUBLIC CITIZEN'S GLOBAL TRADE WATCH LAUNCHES NEW BOOK ON WHAT HAS BEEN
CALLED THE "MOST POWERFUL INSTITUTION OF THE 20TH CENTURY"
ANNOUNCING: "Whose Trade Organization? Corporate Globalization and the
Erosion of Democracy"
Foreword by Ralph Nader
By Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
Imagine a Central American country being forced to choose between
maintaining the UNICEF baby formula policy that has saved thousands of
children's lives or facing an expensive defense in a Swiss trade tribunal
and then possible trade sanctions for not protecting the trademark rights
of a corporation whose label violates the UNICEF code.
Imagine a powerful corporation "renting" a WTO Member nation to pursue its
special interests - and kill a trade- based development policy - behind
closed doors in Geneva to the detriment of tens of thousands of peoples'
livelihoods and the rented country's own economic and security interests.
Imagine, ten years of environmental activism reversed with the sweep of a
pen in Geneva, Switzerland, where a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel has
ruled that a law protecting endangered sea turtles poses an illegal barrier
to trade and several countries are now threatening new challenges against a
country's enforcement of international environmental treaties - this time
the Kyoto Treaty on climate change.
Imagine, a clean air regulation designed to reduce gasoline emissions is
weakened because the WTO claims it could inadvertently hurt foreign gas
producers.
Imagine, consumers forced by the WTO to choose between rescinding a
popular food safety law or facing economic sanctions.
No need to imagine. These are but a handful of examples of the WTO's
real-life impacts on food safety, environmental conservation and protection
and economic development documented in WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION?.
After a year of intensive research, Harvard educated trade lawyer and Global
Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach and Global Trade Watch Research Director
and trade policy analyst Michelle Sforza document the WTO's actual impact
on democratic governance, wages, jobs, economic growth, food security,
access to healthcare, food safety, labor rights and environmental
protection. With WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION, citizens, policymakers and public
interest advocates can learn the following:
o How the WTO is used to pressure poor countries to abandon their
efforts to make desperately needed medications more affordable through
generic drugs and other policies. See page 119.
o How the WTO is being used to attack a European proposal to cut
electronics pollution. See page 30.
o How WTO rules may threaten U.S. school lunch and food stamp programs.
See page 164
o How WTO rules threaten millions with starvation by allowing
agribusiness companies to patent seeds created over generations in
villages around the world and then charge annual fees for the
subsistence farmers who developed the seeds to have the right to
plant them again.
o How an individual with a monetary interest in a WTO case was
appointed to judge the case. See page 201.
o How Daimler-Chrysler and Ford Motor Company are using WTO threats to
undermine a Japanese clean air law adopted under the Kyoto Protocol on
Climate Change. See page 31.
o Why beleaguered U.S. steel workers may face a WTO challenge to
loan guarantees for the ailing U.S. steel industry. See page 157.
o How WTO rules allow corporations to secure exclusive marketing rights
over medicinal remedies that have been used by indigenous groups for
centuries. See page 108.
o How the threat of WTO action was used to pressure Guatemala to drop its
infant health law enacting the WHO/UNICEF Code on Marketing Breastmilk
Substitutes. See page 115.
o How a major campaign contributor effectively rented the U.S. government
to mount a successful WTO challenge to Europe's preferences for Caribbean
bananas, even though the U.S. doesn't export a single banana. See page 141
WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION translates the WTO's jargony trade rules into
understandable prose for the layperson, policymaker and academic alike. It
is designed with the knowledge that WTO rules and rulings affect everyone
-- not just importers and trade lawyers -- and therefore must be accessible
to everyone, especially everyday citizens who want to resist WTO
encroachment into the decisions that affect their day-to-day lives.
WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION is being released in advance of the WTO's November
29-December 3, 1999 Ministerial Summit in Seattle so that those who will
live with the results taken at that historic meeting are informed about the
potential consequences. The book makes the case -- bolstered by over 1,200
citations from a vast range of sources -- for the review and repair of the
WTO so that it can no longer threaten the public safeguards and
corporate/governmental accountability standards that citizens have fought so
hard for. While the Clinton Administration is seeking expansion of the WTO's
jurisdiction through a new "round" of negotiations, Public Citizen is united
with civil society groups worldwide calling for the organization's sweeping
powers to be reined in, to put the tools of domestic policy decision making
back into the hands of citizens and their elected representatives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whose Trade Organization" is available through
Public Citizen
Publications Department
1600 20th Street, NW
Washington DC, 20009
USA
1-800-289-3787
OR
Fill out the order form on Public Citizen's Web-page:
http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/publications/wtobook.htm
Price: $18.50 (includes shipping and handling)
Bulk Rate: 20 or More Copies 40% off.
ORDERS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES:
Orders must be pre-paid using a credit card or $U.S. money order made out to
Public Citizen.
Canada $ 4.52 , + $15.00 book price = $ 19.52
(includes shipping & handling)
Mexico $ 9.66, + $15.00 book price = $ 24.66
(includes shipping & handling)
All other countries $15.00, + $15.00 book price = $30.00
(includes shipping & handling)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Activist Group Public Citizen Joins Attack on WTO
By John Burgess
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 14, 1999; Page E01
One of the country's best-known activist groups joined in
the chorus of
voices criticizing the World Trade Organization yesterday,
suggesting the
international agency has led the United States and other
countries to
weaken their environmental, health and safety laws.
The attack, coming one day after the AFL-CIO called for
more worker
participation in global trade talks scheduled for next
month in Seattle,
promised to turn up the heat on business groups and the
free-trade stance
taken by the Clinton administration.
"The WTO is the final authority," said Joan Claybrook,
president of Public
Citizen, a consumer watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader.
"It can
require nations to change their laws and standards to
accommodate its
decisions made in secret proceedings by trade
officials--or else be subject
to severe economic sanctions."
Claybrook said sovereign nations are being robbed of the
authority "to
enact basic protections for their own populations."
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky denied
Public Citizen's
charges, included in a 229-page report. "The United States
has not
relaxed any environmental law or health or safety law in
order to comply
with any WTO ruling," she said in an interview.
Where changes to laws have been made, Barshefsky said,
they served
only to equalize treatment of U.S. and foreign companies.
Public Citizen argued that the United States has softened
certain
provisions of the Clean Air Act involving gasoline, while
South Korea has
lowered meat safety regulations and Australia loosened
rules on the import
of raw salmon.
The criticisms come as delegates from WTO member countries
prepare to
meet in Seattle next month to try to chart a new round of
global trade
negotiations. The group has more than 130 member
countries.
Business groups and the Clinton administration say the WTO
brings "rule
of law" to trade disputes. That liberalizes trade between
nations, raising
living standards, and has helped fuel an economic boom in
the United
States. But some environmentalist groups contend that the
WTO has too
much power and is hurting living standards in many
countries.
Many of the decisions that Public Citizen cites concern
one country
bringing an action at the WTO against a trading partner's
environmental,
health or safety rules.
These challenges often involve a country claiming the real
function of such
consumer laws is to block the import of goods from other
countries. If a
WTO tribunal concludes that these laws are administered to
discriminate
against foreign suppliers, or that they lack scientific
basis, they can be
declared to violate the laws of world trade.
U.S. officials argue that each country in the WTO retains
its sovereignty.
Countries can legally ignore unfavorable decisions, and
some do so.
However, they may to sanctions or forced to pay
compensation to trading
partners.
But critics see the WTO as replacing the lawmaking
authority of individual
nations.
Smaller countries have no choice but to go along with WTO
rulings or
merely the threat of WTO action, Public Citizen contends,
while large
countries tend to follow the WTO's wishes.
Nader called the WTO a "super-national autocratic system .
. . that runs
courts that would be illegal in this country" because
their proceedings are
closed to public scrutiny.
While its rulings are published, the internal
deliberations and presentations
of the opposing parties are kept secret.
The United States promises that at the Seattle talks it
will push for more
openness in WTO deliberations. In a speech last night to
the Democratic
Leadership Council, President Clinton said that the WTO
had been seen
as a "private priesthood for experts" and now must open up
to hear the
views of diverse parties.
Barshefsky pointed out that the Seattle schedule includes
a day in which
"nongovernmental organizations" such as labor unions and
consumer
groups will air their views.
Among WTO decisions Public Citizen singled out for
criticism:
* A ruling that U.S. gasoline import rules discriminated
against fuel made
in Venezuela and Brazil. Public Citizen said the United
States took steps in
response that it had previously dismissed as unenforceable
and costly.
Barshefsky said the United States merely changed the ways
in which
foreign gasoline producers reported data about their
products.
* A finding that a European ban on the import of beef from
hormone-treated animals was illegal. Europe has ignored
the ruling and
continues to contend that the ban is necessary to protect
against potential
health problems. The United States, which exports the
meat, has argued
that there is no scientific justification for a ban on the
imports.
* A ruling that South Korea's requirement that meat could
have only a
30-day shelf life. Under the threat of WTO action, Korea
raised that limit
to 90 days, a change that foreign suppliers wanted.
c 1999 The Washington Post Company
=========================
NEW CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION!
On the Internet at http://www.tradewatch.org/publications/gtwpubs.htm
FOR MULTIPLE COPIES CONTACT PUBLIC CITIZEN 202-588-1000 OR GO TO
http://www.citizen.org/newweb/publicat.htm
**********************************
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Margrete Strand Rangnes
MAI Project Coordinator
Public Citizen Global Trade Watch
215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
Washington DC, 20003 USA
•••@••.•••
202-454-5106
202-547 7392 (fax)
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Bob Olsen, Toronto •••@••.•••
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