Develop Alternative Trading System: NGO's to G-20

Posted October 1, 2006 in [Trade]

The trade ministers of G-20, a major group of developing countries including
India, Brazil, Pakistan, South Africa and China, are slated to meet in
Brazil from September 9 to discuss future strategies as the WTO talks
collapsed in June this year.

The civil society organisations like US-based Public Citizen’s Global Trade
Watch, Brazilian civil society groups and leading NGOs across the world, in
their joint letter to G-20 trade ministers, said, “We have a unique
opportunity to stop the expansion of the model of corporate globalisation
embodied in the WTO and its top-down, one-size-fits-all policies.”

It further said the processes of regional integration in Latin America and
other regions were developing new models of trade based on complimentarity,
solidarity, cooperation and respect for sovereignity.

The letter pointed out that in many countries leaders who rejected this
model of corporate globalisation enshirned in the WTO were being elected by
the people.

The NGOs also demanded “the WTO must be scaled back so that the human
rights, environmental, labour and other multi-laterally agreed public
interest standards enshrined in various international treaties can serve as
a floor of conduct for corporations seeking the benefits of global trade
rules.”

The letter quoted studies done by the World Bank (Fall 2005), Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and the United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development, which projected net losses for the developing countries and
the world’s poor on the outcome of the conclusion of the WTO talks.

It referred to similar studies done by various trade unions including COSATU
of South Africa and CUT of Brazil. It further pointed at the losses incurred
by the developing world in the present regime and increase in global
poverty.

URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=139718