Indigenous Peoples' Seattle Declaration
12/1/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Indigenous Peoples' Seattle Declaration
Source: Indigenous Peoples' Caucus at the WTO Third Ministerial
Conference 30 November - 3 December 1999
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 1, 1999
We, the Indigenous Peoples from various regions of the world, have
come to Seattle to express our great concern over how the World Trade
Organization is destroying Mother Earth and the cultural and
biological diversity of which we are a part.
Trade liberalization and export-oriented development, which are the
overriding principles and policies pushed by the WTO, are creating
the most adverse impacts on the lives of Indigenous Peoples. Our
inherent right to self-determination, our sovereignty as nations, and
treaties and other constructive agreements which Indigenous nations
and Peoples have negotiated with other nation-states, are undermined
by most of the WTO Agreements. The disproportionate impact of these
Agreements on our communities, whether through environmental
degradation or the militarization and violence that often accompanies
development projects, is serious and therefore should be addressed
immediately.
The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), which promotes export
competition and import liberalization, has allowed the entry of cheap
agricultural products into our communities. It is causing the
destruction of ecologically rational and sustainable agricultural
practices of Indigenous Peoples.
Food security and the production of traditional food crops have been
seriously compromised. Incidents of diabetes, cancers, and
hypertension have significantly increased among Indigenous Peoples
because of the scarcity of traditional foods and the dumping of junk
food into our communities.
Small-scale farm production is giving way to commercial cash-crop
plantations further concentrating ancestral lands into the hands of
few agri-corporations and landlords. This has led to the dislocation
of scores of people from our communities who then migrate to nearby
cities and become the urban homeless and jobless.
The WTO Forests Products Agreement promotes free trade in forest
products. By eliminating developed country tariffs on wood products
by the year 2000, and developing country tariffs by 2003, the
Agreement will result in the deforestation of many of the world's
ecosystems in which Indigenous Peoples live.
Mining laws in many countries are being changed to allow free entry
of foreign mining corporations, to enable them to buy and own mineral
lands, and to freely displace Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral
territories. These large-scale commercial mining and oil extraction
activities continue to degrade our lands and fragile ecosystems, and
pollute the soil, water, and air in our communities.
The appropriation of our lands and resources and the aggressive
promotion of consumerist and individualistic Western culture continue
to destroy traditional lifestyles and cultures. The result is not
only environmental degradation but also ill health, alienation, and
high levels of stress manifested in high rates of alcoholism and
suicides.
The theft and patenting of our biogenetic resources is facilitated by
the TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) of
the WTO. Some plants which Indigenous Peoples have discovered,
cultivated, and used for food, medicine, and for sacred rituals are
already patented in the United States, Japan, and Europe. A few
examples of these are ayahuasca, quinoa, and sangre de drago in
forests of South America; kava in the Pacific; turmeric and bitter
melon in Asia. Our access and control over our biological diversity
and control over our traditional knowledge and intellectual heritage
are threatened by the TRIPs Agreement.
Article 27.3b of the TRIPs Agreement allows the patenting of life-
forms and makes an artificial distinction between plants, animals,
and micro-organisms. The distinction between "essentially
biological" and "non-biological" and "microbiological" processes is
also erroneous. As far as we are concerned all these are life-forms
and life-creating processes which are sacred and which should not
become the subject of private property ownership.
Finally, the liberalization of investments and the service sectors,
which is pushed by the General Agreement of Services (GATS),
reinforces the domination and monopoly control of foreign
corporations over strategic parts of the economy. The World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund impose conditionalities of
liberalization, deregulation and privatization on countries caught in
the debt trap. These conditionalities are reinforced further by the
WTO.
In light of the adverse impacts and consequences of the WTO
Agreements identified above, we, Indigenous Peoples present the
following demands:
We urgently call for a social and environmental justice analysis
which will look into the Agreements' cumulative effects on Indigenous
Peoples. Indigenous Peoples should be equal participants in
establishing the criteria and indicators for these analyses so that
they take into consideration spiritual as well as cultural aspects.
A review of the Agreements should be done to address all of the
inequities and imbalances which adversely affect Indigenous Peoples.
The proposals to address some of these are as follows;
(1) For the Agreement on Agriculture
a. It should not include in its coverage small-scale farmers who
are mainly engaged in production for domestic use and sale in the
local markets.
b. It should ensure the recognition and protection of rights of
Indigenous Peoples to their territories and their resources, as well
as their rights to continue practicing their indigenous sustainable
agriculture and resource management practices and traditional
livelihoods.
c. It should ensure the food security and the capacity of
Indigenous Peoples to produce, consume and trade their traditional
foods.
(2) With regard to the liberalization of services and investments we
recommend the following:
a. It must stop unsustainable mining, commercial planting of
monocrops, dam construction, oil exploration, land conversion to golf
clubs, logging, and other activities which destroy Indigenous
Peoples' lands and violate the rights of indigenous peoples' to their
territories and resources.
b. The right of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional lifestyles,
cultural norms and values should likewise be recognized and
protected.
c. The liberalization of services, especially in the areas of
health, should not be allowed if it will prevent Indigenous Peoples
from having access to free, culturally appropriate as well as quality
health services.
d. The liberalization of finance services which makes the world a
global casino should be regulated.
(3) On the TRIPs Agreement, the proposals are as follows:
a. Article 27.3b should be amended to categorically disallow the
patenting of life-forms. It should clearly prohibit the patenting of
micro-organisms, plants, animals, including all their parts, whether
they are genes, gene sequences, cells, cell lines, proteins, or
seeds.
b. It should also prohibit the patenting of natural processes,
whether these are biological or microbiological, involving the use of
plants, animals and micro-organisms and their parts in producing
variations of plants, animals and micro-organisms.
c. It should ensure the exploration and development of alternative
forms of protection outside of the dominant western intellectual
property rights regime. Such alternatives must protect the knowledge
and innovations and practices in agriculture, health care, and
conservation of biodiversity, and should build upon indigenous
methods and customary laws protecting knowledge, heritage and
biological resources.
d. It should ensure that the protection offered to indigenous and
traditional knowledge, innovation and practices is consistent with
the Convention on Biological Diversity (i.e., Articles 8j, 10c, 17.2,
and 18.4) and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic
Resources.
e. It should allow for the right of Indigenous Peoples and farmers
to continue their traditional practices of saving, sharing and
exchanging seeds, and cultivating, harvesting and using medicinal
plants.
f. It should prohibit scientific researchers and corporations from
appropriating and patenting indigenous seeds, medicinal plants, and
related knowledge about these life-forms. The principles of prior
informed consent and right of veto by Indigenous Peoples should be
respected.
If the earlier proposals cannot be ensured, we call for the removal
of the Agreement on Agriculture, the Forest Products Agreements and
the TRIPs Agreement from the WTO.
We call on the member-states of the WTO not to allow for another
round whilst the review and rectification of the implementation of
existing agreements has not been done. We reject the proposals for an
investment treaty, competition, accelerated industrial tariffs,
government procurement, and the creation of a working group on
biotechnology.
We urge the WTO to reform itself to become democratic, transparent
and accountable. If it fails to do this we call for the abolition of
the WTO.
We urge the member nation-states of the WTO to endorse the adoption
by the UN General Assembly of the current text of the UN Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the ratification of ILO
Convention l69.
We call on the peoples' organizations and NGOs to support this
"Indigenous Peoples' Seattle Declaration" and to promote it among
their members.
We believe that the whole philosophy underpinning the WTO Agreements
and the principles and policies it promotes contradict our core
values, spirituality and worldviews, as well as our concepts and
practices of development, trade and environmental protection.
Therefore, we challenge the WTO to redefine its principles and
practices toward a "sustainable communities" paradigm, and to
recognize and allow for the continuation of other worldviews and
models of development.
Indigenous peoples, undoubtedly, are the ones most adversely affected
by globalization and by the WTO Agreements. However, we believe that
it is also us who can offer viable alternatives to the dominant
economic growth, export-oriented development model. Our sustainable
lifestyles and cultures, traditional knowledge, cosmologies,
spirituality, values of collectivity, reciprocity, respect and
reverence for Mother Earth, are crucial in the search for a
transformed society where justice, equity, and sustainability will
prevail.
Statement by the Indigenous Peoples' Caucus convened and sponsored by
the Indigenous Environmental Network USA/CANADA, Seventh Generation
Fund USA, International Indian Treaty Council, Indigenous Peoples
Council on Biocolonialism, the Abya Yala Fund, and TEBTEBBA
(Indigenous Peoples' Network for Policy Research and Education), 1
December 1999, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Other indigenous peoples' organizations, NGOs and individuals who
wish to sign on to this statement, send email to ien@igc.org or
tebtebba@skyinet.net.