WTO Talks Collapse: The end of an era?

The Doha Round of WTO talks collapsed at the end of July, a major setback for efforts to further liberalize global trade and, according to proponents, help the world's poor.

But names have taken on an Orwellian quality, and so the real meaning of a program can often be found in the opposite of its lable: The Clear skies initiative is about allowing more pollution, Leave No Child Behind, is about flunking children, Help America Vote ... you get the idea.

Likewise, according to YES! contributing editor Walden Bello, this round of trade talks would have harmed, not helped, developing nations and the poor:

"The WTO negotiations, if brought to a conclusion on such lopsided terms, would result in the slashing of poor countries' farm tariffs while preventing them from maintaining food security. This is a recipe for massively expanded hunger and threatens to further impoverish hundreds of millions of the poor worldwide.

"The consequences for the South were perhaps best summed up by a Philippine government negotiator before the WTO Agriculture Committee: 'Our agricultural sectors that are strategic to food security and rural employment have already been destabilized as our small producers are being slaughtered by the gross unfairness of the international trading environment. Even as I speak, our small producers are being slaughtered in our own markets, [and] even the more resilient and efficient are in distress.'"

Walden Bello's article, "Why Today's Collapse of the Doha Round Negotiations is the Best Outcome for Developing Countries," quoted above, calls for a different approach to trade negotiations so that they can actually benefit the poor.

Likewise, the US-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy says the collapse of the Doha Round can provide an opening for a very different approach to trade policy. See Geneva Update.

When the WTO ministerial meeting came to Seattle in 1999, we were among those reporting on the calls for trade talks to focus not on enriching the already wealthy, and concentrating more power in the hands of powerful corporations. We told stories of the grassroots organizing that went into making Seattle a turning point in the global justice movement.

Prior to the massive street demonstrations, Vandana Shiva said that globalization comes in three waves. The first, the age of colonialism, lasted 500 years; the second, the age of development, lasted 50 years. The third, an era dominated by the WTO, she predicted would last just five years. That was 1999. Perhaps history will show that she wasn't far off.

Read more from YES! about the WTO:

WTO: What's at Stake
by Dan Seligman

November 30 WTO showdown
by Paul Hawken

Clueless In Seattle
by Jonathan Rowe

WTO Is Anti-Democratic, Anti-People, and Anti-Environment
a radio commentary by David C. Korten

WTO in Seattle: The Millennium Round or Turnaround?
by Sarah Ruth van Gelder

From DC: A New Global Solidarity
by Fran Korten

The Year of Global Protest
by Walden Bello

How To Restore the WTO's Momentum
by Bruce Silverglade

The Meaning of Cancun
by Walden Bello

Hong Kong: Asian Activists Join Forces Against WTO
by Lilja Otto and Stephanie Fung

Pranksters Sink the WTO
by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno & Bob Spunkmeyer