WORLD SUMMIT 'ABDICATING FAIR TRADE' CONTROL TO WTO

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday September 01, 2002 21:04 by Graham Caswell - Earth Summit Ireland caswell at indigo dot ie

Exclusion of key 'Clause 14' in revised text claimed by Irish NGOs

Earth Summit Ireland, the umbrella group of Irish environmental organizations attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development [WSSD] in Johannesburg, have claimed that a key clause is being omitted from the proposed WSSD agreement which will "abdicate sustainable subsidies control" to the World Trade Organization [WTO]

ESI, which produced an alternative Irish Country Report for the United Nations last month challenging Ireland's record since the last world summit, says "the proposed omission of Clause 14 in the current Ashe text will permit the WTO to define sustainable subsidies".

"WTO rules specifically permit the World Summit to define sustainable trade and subsidies to ensure that that they take into account social and environmental factors. Clause 31 of the WTO's Doha Declaration November 2001 allows multi-lateral bodies such as WSSD to define trade obligations in relation to "the mutual supportiveness of trade and the environment".

The NGOs claim that Clause 14, which has been omitted from the last draft, required trade distorting subsidies be reduced or eliminated where they are environmentally harmful and inhibit sustainable consumption and production patterns without reference to the WTO.

"The EU excuse for removing Claude 14 is that the WTO Doha round of trade negotiations will take the Rio principles agreed in at the first World Summit in Rio de Janero in 1992 fully into account and these issues need not be included in the WSSD Action Plan text.

"Yet the WTO has not taken into account the Rio principles to date. The Doha Declaration of November 2001 demonstrates a serious lack acceptance that sustainability includes a social dimension (Doha Clause 6, 32) and that its decision-making, implementation and monitoring process must include equivalent participation of civil society (Doha Clause 10)."

Earth Summit Ireland claims that letting the WTO define sustainable subsidies and trade could lead to the EU being forced to accept GMOs, hormone treated beef and agricultural goods produced in environmentally damaging and socially unacceptable ways by its own EU standards which would be damaging to typical European extensive family farms.

In a statement circulated last night to delegates attending the World Summit, Frank Corcoran of ESI wrote:

"The revised Ashe text contains great dangers for the EU position in particular. By removing Clause 17 and only including text which allows the WTO to define sustainable trade - Clauses 19 and 19b - the EU will find itself outmaneuvered at WTO by JUSCANZ [Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand] and the G77 [developing countries which include the oil rich]
who will seek trade liberalisation without sufficient environmental and social safeguards."

"The deletion of clause 14 in the revised Ashe text has far reaching consequences for the delivery of sustainable trade for the EU and the world and the protection of European farmers", the ESI statement concluded.