WTO Members Begin Undermining Environmental Agreement
12/1/99
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Title: WTO members begin undermining environmental agreement
Source: World Wide Fund for Nature
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 1, 1999
Seattle, Washington- As a protest against the impact of WTO rules on
environmental policies and the poor sparked violence in Seattle
streets, WTO members moved towards agreeing a text which will
undermine an important international environmental agreement, WWF,
the conservation organization, said here today.
Under sustained pressure from the United States, the European
Commission has proposed immediate establishment of a working group on
biotechnology. This would effectively transfer negotiations on
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from the Biosafety Protocol to
the WTO. Liberalizing trade in GMOs will then take precedence over
managing the environmental and health risks associated with their
production and use.
"Even as political leaders express sympathy for the concerns of
protesters in Seattle, proposals are advanced by trade negotiators
that fly in the face of those concerns," said Charles Arden-Clarke,
Head of WWF International's Trade and Investment Unit. "The WTO has
neither the mandate, the competence, nor the public trust to work on
this controversial issue."
If this biotechnology working group is established, it is likely to
fatally undermine negotiations on the Biosafety Protocol, which was
due to be concluded in January next year. Exporters of biotechnology
products will use the existence of the WTO working group to argue
that the Biosafety Protocol negotiations should be suspended until
the WTO has clarified its rules on the issue.
The EC proposal to create the biotechnology working group appeared
only two weeks after a majority of EU member states agreed that
creation of such a working group in the WTO at Seattle would be very
badly timed. WWF feels EU members should reject the proposed
Commission text as an unacceptable compromise.
At the same time it appeared that WTO members had agreed to place the
issue of environment into a working group containing the other
controversial issues of competition and investment. This sidelines
the issue into a dead-end of set of negotiations that at best will
proceed slowly, and may not conclude at all. Furthermore the working
group will be chaired by New Zealand, the WTO member which in
February 1996 derailed EU efforts to secure a WTO exemption for trade
measures used to implement multilateral environmental agreements.
"Once again WTO negotiators are sacrificing public concerns to narrow
economic interests," added Mr. Arden-Clarke. "Environment, health and
safety are not an extra option, but a cornerstone of a legitimate
trading system. Governments must understand this was a key lesson to
learn from the protests today in Seattle, and move these issues back
up the negotiating agenda."
For further information, please contact:
Charles Arden-Clarke in Seattle: tel: +1 206 794 25 28 ;
Kyla Evans in Seattle: tel: + 1 206 794 24 06