World Trade Organization
and the Environment
International trade binds the world together. The movement of natural resources, food, and manufactured products around the world affects the health of our families, communities, and ecosystems. Trade rules can even limit the ability of our democratic institutions to protect the environment.
Imagine how you’d feel if your organization managed to convince your city council, state legislature, or Congress to enact a decent law, then a foreign government or corporation challenged the law as illegal under international trade rules. The next thing you know, a special trade court closed to the public could decide that the law should be eliminated or weakened. It can happen. It has happened. It’s called the World Trade Organization.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the international organization charged with regulating international trade. Set up in 1995, the WTO today has over 130 countries as members, including the United States. The WTO enforces international trade agreements. These agreements limit the ways that governments can regulate trade, including environmental and health regulations that can impact trade.
Already several environmental, health and safety laws have been challenged at the WTO. This takes decisions out of the hands of the public, their elected representatives, and national courts. Dispute panels are closed to public observation or participation. In each WTO case to date, dispute panels found that the environmental or social protection violated trade rules. The U.S. government has changed clean air and endangered species regulations to comply with WTO decisions. There is also the risk of a “chilling effect,” as governments avoid environmental and social protections that might be WTO-illegal. See the next page for examples of how the WTO can impact our health and the environment.
Beginning November 30, 1999, the WTO meets in Seattle to launch new trade negotiations. These negotiations could expand the WTO’s power by creating trade rules that affect even more areas of government action. The meeting in Seattle provides an opportunity for concerned individuals and environmental organizations to demand that governments change the WTO so it no longer threatens the public or our planet. The main environmental demands are:
• Governments should not expand the power of the WTO. In particular, they should not negotiate an investment agreement to give more power to multinational corporations, and should not remove so-called trade barriers in environmentally sensitive sectors such as forest products and fisheries.
• Governments should conduct an environmental review of the WTO and rectify the environmental problems associated with current trade rules.
• Governments should guarantee that trade rules grant deference to local, national and international environmental and public health laws.
Important Web Sites:
• www.peopleforfairtrade.org
• www.seattlewto.org
• www.tradewatch.org
• www.foe.org/international/wto
• www.ifg.org
Why You Should Care About The WTO
If you are concerned about your job, labor rights, human rights, your health and safety, forests, endangered species, social justice, democratic processes, or the sovereign rights of nation-states, you should be deeply concerned about the WTO. In fact, it is difficult to identify any issue of social, economic, health, culture, or environmental significance that is not now strongly affected by WTO rules and enforcement actions.
Material excerpted from the above web sites.
