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| WTO Web |
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| YES! Online: The WTO in Seattle |
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WTO Is Anti-Democratic, Anti-People, and Anti-Environment
by David C. Korten
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Guest editorial on the Seattle WTO Protests, aired on KPLU, Tacoma, WA November 1999
Delegates to the World Trade Organization meeting in
Seattle will be met by as many as 50,000 protesters from all around the
world. WTO advocates seek to dismiss the protestors as anti-trade
extremists who want to turn back the clock on human progress. In truth,
the vast majority of the protestors will be coming from mainstream
churches, unions, universities, independent businesses and a wide
variety of civic organizations concerned with such issues as democracy,
economic justice, peace, and the environment. By contrast, the WTO's
most ardent proponents are corporate CEOs, professional lobbyists and
PR consultants, trade bureaucrats, and politicians beholden to
corporations for political contributions.
Few, if any, of the protesters want to stop trade, close borders, or
desert the poor. Most are deeply committed to international cooperation
to achieve peace, end poverty, secure the human rights of all people,
and protect the living earth. They call for fair trade that is
beneficial to people and communities, not free trade which allows
corporations to bid down labor and environmental standards everywhere,
while demanding ever larger tax breaks and public subsidies on the
threat of exporting jobs. At the heart of the protests is a growing
realization that the world's largest corporations are using the secret
forums and esoteric language of international trade agreements to free
themselves from democratic accountability.
The advocates of free trade say the WTO provides needed trade rules.
There is indeed a critical need for rules to regulate international
trade, corporations, and finance in the human interest. The WTO,
however, has no such mandate. To the contrary, it regulates democratic
governments to prevent them from limiting the freedom of global
corporations to do whatever they find most profitable.
For example, the WTO told the United States it must relax its clean air
standards and allow the import of dirtier gasoline. The WTO told Japan
that it must reduce its testing for pesticides on imported produce. The
WTO told Europeans they cannot ban the import of genetically modified
food products until they can prove conclusively they are harmful to
human and environmental health. In each instance, the decision of a
democratic government was overturned by unelected trade lawyers in
Geneva on the ground that it was a barrier to free trade-as if trade
expansion were the most important of all human priorities.
We need rules for the global economy that protect and enhance the
well-being of people, communities, and nature. For example, such rules
would support the efforts of national and local governments to raise
labor, health, and environmental standards. They would also support
governmental efforts to curb international financial speculation and
corporate tax evasion, limit the concentration of corporate power, and
protect local enterprises from predatory forms of global competition.
In every instance, the WTO actively hinders governmental efforts to act
on these and other basic obligations to their citizens. It is
anti-democratic, anti-people, and anti-environment. That is why tens of
thousands of protesters are coming to Seattle to say NO to the WTO.
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David Korten is the author of When Corporations Rule the World and The
Post-Corporate World : Life After Capitalism. He is also board chair of
the Positive Futures Network, publishers of YES! A Journal of Positive
Futures.
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