[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [StopWTORound] Beirut Forum: Declaration

[Al Kagan]

Here is a follow-up on what I was saying tonight at the AWARE 
meeting.  Note near the beginning of the declaration:
"We refuse any use of global trade or its mechanisms as a tool in the 
current declared war."


>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>From: Tom_Childs at douglas.bc.ca
>Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 14:25:53 -0800
>Subject: [StopWTORound] Beirut Forum: Declaration
>To: mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca
>Sender: owner-mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca
>Status:  
>
>   ----- Forwarded message: -----
>>From mail Sun Nov 11 07:49 PST 2001
>To: "stopwtoround" <stopwtoround at yahoogroups.com>
>From: "David McKnight" <david at milwr.freeserve.co.uk>
>Subject: [StopWTORound] Beirut Forum: Declaration
>
>WORLD FORUM ON THE WTO
>BEIRUT 5-8 NOVEMBER 2001
>
>
>
>FINAL DECLARATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
>
>NO TO A NEW ROUND IN DOHA
>
>Between the 5th and the 8th of November 2001, on the eve of the
>4th ministerial meeting of the WTO in Doha, a world forum on
>globalization and global trade was held in Beirut. The meeting
>was attended by civil society representatives from 5 continents
>to take a position on the Doha meeting of the WTO and its agenda.
>The meeting also discussed new global developments and the
>atmosphere of militarization and war that is currently dominating
>all aspects of life on the planet.
>
>  After numerous sessions and workshops, the participants declare
>the following:
>
>The importance of the Doha meeting is in the fact that it will be
>the first global meeting after the September 11 attacks and after
>the start of the war on Afghanistan. It is also held for the first
>time in Arab country, not far from besieged Iraq and from Palestine,
>where the Palestinian are facing a continuing Israeli occupation.
>
>This new reality should make us cautious against pressures on
>developing countries to make more concessions. We refuse any use of
>global trade or its mechanisms as a tool in the current declared war.
>
>Seven years since the creation of the WTO has given us ample time to
>examine the promises of prosperity, development, opening up of
>markets to the products of developing nations, and the numerous
>benefits that the latter would have enjoyed from joining the
>organization. What really happened was completely the opposite.
>Economic stagnation spread to include more and more countries.
>Developing countries faced huge losses in their economies and
>exchange. Protectionist measures in the countries of the global
>north remained an obstacle to the products of the South. Agriculture
>and food security was hit with tremendous losses and damage. The
>technological divide between north and south became unprecedented,
>while barriers to the transfer of technology became stronger, and the
>workforce was barred from free movement.
>
>The implementation of WTO agreements and its mechanisms has shown that
>it is completely biased in favor of big multinationals and global
>capital. The WTO does not give any consideration to international
>justice, nor to the interests of developing countries, not to the
>people of the global north themselves. It goes completely against
>development, and peoples' rights of development, this explains the
>emergence of a global movement opposed to the existence of the WTO, its
>role and mechanisms.
>
>The rhetoric of the free market is an ideology biased in favor of global
>capital. What the WTO seeks is in complete opposition to the principles
>of social justice, human rights, and international charters. Our
>criticism of the WTO is based on what humanity had agreed upon decades
>ago: the UN charters for human rights. The Human Rights declaration of
>1986 states, in its first article, that the human right for development
>requires the complete implementation of the right of self-determination.
>That includes the complete and unconflicted sovereignty of people over
>their natural resources and wealth.
>
>The WTO aims to become a trading authority above countries and nations,
>thus practically eliminating their ability to formulate social,
>economic, and financial policies that achieve development. The WTO also
>removes the authority of national legal systems in all areas that fall
>within its scope. This drains the right for development, and the
>majority of economic and social right of people and individuals, from
>their meaning. It deprives people from political, institutional, and
>legal tools that would allow them to create national development
>policies and the means to achieve them.
>
>The rules at work in the WTO aim to make trade an absolute and
>comprehensive principle. They push development, human rights, and the
>interests of people to the side, where they are readapted to global
>trade and not the opposite.
>
>The creation of a global organization with such power and authority is
>a dangerous issue in itself. It becomes more and more ominous in light
>of the current push to militarize globalization and the unipolar
>hegemony on the global decision.
>
>Based on the above, the participants in the Word Forum in Beirut, and
>at the conclusion of their discussions, declare the following positions
>to the 4th ministerial meeting in Doha on the 9th of November 2001:
>
>1)      We refuse a new round of negotiations in the WTO and any
>inclusion of new issues on the agenda, especially those connected with
>investment, competition, government procurement, and other issues that
>will overwhelm the meeting and puts the delegates of developing
>countries in a position where it is impossible for them to follow
>negotiations on all those issues at the same time.
>
>2)      We call for the reevaluation of previous agreements in light of
>the practice of their implementation that showed a great bias against
>the interests of developing countries. This includes the reevaluation
>and the correction, or the annulment, of harmful agreements, or those
>that where signed under pressure or ignorance. Those being factors that
>eliminate will and corrupt the contract.
>
>3)      We call for the cancellation of agreements on intellectual
>property that inhibit developing countries from providing adequate
>health care to their people; that block the transfer of technology, and
>that protect the interests of supranational organizations and
>facilitates their pilfering of cultural and genetic heritage of
>developing countries.
>
>4)      We call for the exclusion of agriculture from the scope of the
>WTO and the ban on dumping practiced by multinational corporations.
>This means the lift of agricultural subsidies in industrialized
>countries, and the opening up of their markets to the agricultural
>products of developing countries. It also includes the right of
>developing countries to create national policies to develop and protect
>their agriculture and farmers. It also means the refusal of any measures
>that aim to monopolize the production of seeds through patents and
>genetic modification.
>
>5)      We refuse to include basic services (water, health, education,
>etc.) in trade agreements, since these are connected directly to the
>well being of people. These should remain under the control of people
>through their national institutions and not market forces and the
>purpose of quick gain.
>
>6)      We refuse the inclusion of labor standards in WTO agreements
>and call for the adherence to the standards of the ILO.
>
>7)      We refuse any transgression of international environmental
>treaties, and we call for the adherence of trade agreements and
>practices to the respect of environmental safety and health standards.
>
>8)      We refuse the internal mechanisms of the WTO, especially its
>conflict resolution process, since they are neither democratic, nor
>transparent, nor do they provide equal representation in the decision-
>making process. We call for new mechanisms based on those conditions
>and the abilities of developing countries.
>
>Global economy and global trade should follow the bases of the
>consolidation of global justice and equality. They should allow all
>countries to benefit from economic, scientific, and technological
>advancement. This way global trade will strengthen peace and global
>stability and not become an instrument in the creation of conflict and
>war.
>
>Our world is not for sale and peoples' lives and well being are not a
>material for trade.
>
>The global protest movement that succeeded in stopping the meeting in
>Seattle two years ago, because of the accumulation of the struggle and
>coordination and solidarity between its components, is now capable of
>stopping the new round in Doha and in enforcing the respect of peoples'
>rights and the rights of developing countries in particular to achieve
>development, social justice and peace.
>
>Changing the location of WTO meetings from one country to another in
>order to avoid what happened in Seattle in 1999 will not solve the
>problem. What we demand is that the WTO changes its mechanisms and
>content, not the location of its meetings. If the WTO does not do so,
>then any meeting, wherever it may be, will become another Seattle.
>
>Beirut, 8 November 2001
>
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu