Skip to main content

WTO failed to facilitate timely, appropriate response to food, health crises during Covid

Focus on the Global South insists: Developing countries should walk out of WTO Ministerial, it is time to start process of dismantling WTO. A note:

On the penultimate day of the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) currently taking place in Geneva, leaders from trade unions, farmers organisations and civil society called upon developing country negotiators to reject compromise outcomes at the WTO MC 12 and instead reclaim policy space lost during the Uruguay Round by taking strategic steps to dismantle the WTO.
They were speaking at an online press conference titled “WTO@27: End of the Road” convened by Focus on the Global South to take stock of the current negotiations and look at the way ahead for global trade policy. Speakers from the Philippines, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Australia shared their insights on the negotiating texts currently being tabled at the MC12, assessed the WTOs records especially its role during the pandemic, and articulated the way forward for a genuine democratic multilateralism that puts economic, social and environmental justice at the forefront.
Panelists included Professor Walden Bello from Focus on the Global South, Kate Lappin from Public Services International, Farooq Tariq from Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee and La Via Campesina, Sagari Ramdas from Kudali Learning Centre and Food Sovereignty Alliance, Pablo Rosales from PANGISDA-Pilipinas, and Dr. Lauren Paremoer from the People’s Health Movement (PHM). Shalmali Guttal, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, moderated the press conference.
In her opening remarks, Shalmali Guttal pointed to the crisis of legitimacy that the WTO is facing: “The WTO has failed to facilitate timely, appropriate responses to food and health crises—which are most stark during the COVID pandemic on the issue of IPRs on testing, treatment and vaccines. There has not been a single positive outcome for developing countries from the WTO. The last MC held in Buenos Aires had no outcome because of this. Now in Geneva, they want to avoid a repeat of that fiasco and so there is a strong push for compromises at the MC12.”
‘WTO declarations with some nice language does not mean there is actual consensus on contentious issues. Using the current crisis of the WTO, developing countries must move from defensive to offensive positions and reclaim the policy space lost in the Uruguay Round,’ said Walden Bello.
Kate Lappin argued that as the world continues to face vaccine apartheid, we need to ensure that the WTO has no role whatsoever in global health policy including on access to vaccines and treatment. Lappin also noted that at the MC12, developed countries are pushing through very anti-democratic rules around domestic regulations in the services sector that will constrain legitimate sovereign policy making spaces of governments.
Farooq Tariq spoke on the impact of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) on rural farming communities in the global south. He said that AoAs free trade, pro corporate farming model has brought food riots, poverty, hunger and misery to millions of farmers in the global south. “They are trying to control everything,” said Tariq. “WTO agreements limit peasants’ ability to grow seeds. Industrial agriculture exploits cheap migrant labor, particularly of women & girls”. Tariq asserted that the way forward for agriculture was the La Via Campesina proposal for a new international framework based on food sovereignty.
Sagari Ramdas spoke about how three decades of neoliberal pro corporate WTO policies in agriculture have enabled the reproduction of old patterns of colonial exploitation. She also highlighted the Indian Government’s duplicitous position on the WTO. “On the one hand at Geneva, they are defending farmers and the right to public stockholding. But back home in Delhi they are embracing neoliberal policies that cut subsidies and impoverish small farmers. India’s embrace of a pro corporate model of farming has decimated cooperatives and led to dispossession and displacement of millions of small-scale food producers – especially women from indigenous and marginalised backgrounds that represent a vast majority of India’s agricultural workforce,” said Ramdas.
Pablo Rosales pointed out how the Philippine government failed to improve the conditions of small-scale fisherfolk even as it promised to do so by joining the WTO in 1995. The fisherfolk remain as one of the poorest sections of society due to greater liberalisation and deregulation of fisheries. ‘Our experience over the past two decades has led us to demand that fisheries should be out of the WTO’, asserted Rosales.
Lauren Paremour from PHM said that the current TRIPS text being negotiated in Geneva is not the waiver proposal submitted by South Africa and India, but a far more limited text drafted by the WTO Secretariat that makes it more cumbersome to apply flexibilities during COVID19 than otherwise. “The best option for developing countries on the current TRIPS text at the MC12 is to reject it and walk away. No outcome is better than a bad one.”
Panelists at the press conference were of the opinion that there should be no compromise by developing countries at the MC 12. While the short term goal would be to block any bad outcomes at MC 12 and resist any further encroachment by the WTO in new arenas such as the digital economy and e-commerce, the long term strategic goal for social movements across the world should be for dismantling the WTO. Walden Bello concluded that, instead of the WTO, developing countries should be looking at various UN fora and mechanisms, and multilateral agreements built on as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights to promote economic development, cooperation, sustainable development and well-being.

Comments

TRENDING

Defeat of martial law: Has the decisive moment for change come in South Korea?

By Steven Lee  Late at night on December 3, soldiers stormed into South Korea’s National Assembly in armored vehicles and combat helicopters. Assembly staff desperately blocked their assault with fire extinguishers and barricades. South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol had just declared martial law to “ eliminate ‘anti-state’ forces .”

70,000 migrants, sold on Canadian dream, face uncertain future: Canada reinvents the xenophobic wheel

By Saurav Sarkar*  Bikram Singh is running out of time on his post-study work visa in Canada. Singh is one of about 70,000 migrants who were sold on the Canadian dream of eventually making the country their home but now face an uncertain future with their work permits set to expire by December 2024. They came from places like India, China, and the Philippines, and sold their land and belongings in their home countries, took out loans, or made other enormous commitments to get themselves to Canada.

A groundbreaking non-violent approach: Maharishi’s invincible defense technology

By MajGen (R) Kulwant Singh, Col (R) SP Bakshi, Col (R) Jitendra Jung Karki, LtCol (R) Gunter Chassé & Dr David Leffler*  In today’s turbulent world, achieving lasting peace and ensuring national security are more urgent than ever. Traditional defense methods focus on advanced weapons, military strategies, and tactics, but a groundbreaking approach offers a new non-violent and holistic solution: Maharishi’s Invincible Defense Technology (IDT). 

This Indian British Marxist blamed USSR's collapse in 1991 on Khrushchev's 'revisionism'

By Harsh Thakor*  Harpal Singh Brar, British Indian Marxist scholar and communist leader, has passed away in Chandigarh. He was 85. He was a lifelong supporter of socialism, Marxism, and the working class. He will be remembered among British Communists.

Chalapathi's death in encounter suggests Maoists' inability to establish broader mass support

By Harsh Thakor* The Maoist movement experienced a significant loss during the Ramagudem encounter on January 21, with the death of Chalapathi (Pratap), a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist). His death, along with 15 others, marks a major setback for the movement. Reports suggest that his location was revealed to security forces through a selfie with his wife.

Why do we mostly resist and refrain from communicating on sanitation topic?

By Nikhil Kumar, Mansee Bal Bhargava* According to UN SDG Progress report (2022), at the present moment no targets for SDG 6 are expected to be met by 2030. In 2022, 2.2 billion people had no access to safe drinking water and 3.5 million lacked safe sanitation. Approximately 50% of the world’s population was reported to have been under resourced in enough water for part of the year and a quarter of that population was living under “extremely high” water stress. Add to it, droughts have affected over 1.4 billion people between 2002 and 2021.

Govt of India asked to work for release of 217 Indian fishermen detained in Pakistan since 2021

By A Representative  Members of the fishing communities from Gujarat and Diu, Union Territory, held a press conference in Ahmedabad, urging the Union Government to take proactive measures to secure the release of Indian fishermen currently detained in Pakistan. Presently, 217 Indian fishermen, mostly from Gujarat and Diu, are held in Pakistan’s Malir Jail. Of these, 53 have been incarcerated since 2021 and 130 since 2022.

34 Dalit families in IIT Kanpur without toilets in Open Defecation Free India

By Sandeep Pandey   When Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur was set up in 1959, two villages were uprooted. The farmers were given meagre compensation for the standing crop. No compensation was given for the land to build this institute of national importance. Each family was promised a job but what was not told to them was that one would require specialised skills to get a job at IIT. Some members of these families were, of course, absorbed for menial work. Some washerfolk families were also invited from outside to live on campus to take care of the laundry needs of students, staff and faculty members. One of these men was cajoled by IIT authorities then to forego a regular employment at IIT and instead take up clothes washing work.

अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट निराशाजनक: 19.3% अल्पसंख्यकों के लिए मात्र 0.0661% ठोस आवंटन

- मुजाहिद नफ़ीस*   1-2-2025 को भारत सरकार द्वारा संसद में वर्ष 2025-26 का बजट वित्त मंत्री निर्मला सीतारमण जी ने पेश किया| इस वर्ष का बजट 5065345 करोड़ है जो कि पिछले साल के संशोधित अनुमान से लगभग 7.39% की बढ़ोतरी हुई है| वहीं अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट मात्र 3350.00 करोड़ है जो कि कुल बजट का 0.0661% लगभग है|  पिछले साल 2024-25 में 3183.24 करोड़ था|

जाति-व्यवस्था, पितृ सत्ता, धार्मिक अंधविश्वास, पाखंड, लैंगिक असमानता, छुआछूत, सामाजिक भेदभाव पर पेरियार के तार्किक विचार

- जर्नादन रविदास   प्रमोद रंजन द्वारा संपादित पुस्तक ‘जाति-व्यवस्था और पितृसत्ता’ भारत का सुकरात कहे जाने वाले ई. वी. रामास्वामी पेरियार के इस विषय पर केंद्रित लेखों और भाषणों का संग्रह है। इस पुस्तक में हम पेरियार के बहुत ही तार्किक विचारों को पाते हैं। मसलन, पेरियार का कहना है कि “मैं विवाह या शादी जैसे शब्दों से सहमत नहीं हूं। मैं इसे केवल जीवन में साहचर्य के लिए एक अनुबंध मानता हूं।” इसी तरह वे कहते हैं कि “जो आदमी ईश्वर और धर्म में विश्वास रखता है, वह आजादी हासिल करने की कभी उम्मीद नहीं कर सकता।”