APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by the Environmental
Issues Network of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland
We write on behalf of the Environmental Issues
Network of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), representing
the environmental concerns of the Christian community in the UK
and with links to churches throughout the world. We welcome the
Committee's Inquiry into maximising the benefits for developing
countries of their WTO membership. We want to urge the need for
your inquiry to incorporate environmental and social concerns
as well as trade ones. Development and the environment are now
regarded as being inseparably linked to each other. Environmental
actions are part of the need to support sustainable employment
and economic development throughout the world but the linkage
is especially important in developing countries because of the
disproportionate impact of changes in trade patterns on them.
Since Rio in 1992, developing countries have accepted the need
to manage their environmental resources responsibly and are willing
to consider agreements on the environment when they see them to
be in their interests. The key factor is that WTO rules and impact
should not distort the social and developmental potential of developing
countries. It is vital that environmental and trade factors are
considered together (part of "joined-up" administration).
There is a general acceptance that the governance
of the WTO needs to evolve. This must be in sustainable directions.
In other words, the WTO must be seen to be equitable to all sectors
and to countries at different levels of development. Currently
the WTO tends to be perceived as entirely focused on economic
efficiency. There is no easy way of putting a monetary value on
the environment; unfortunately environmental damage tends to be
magnified by the lack of coherence among the various multilateral
environmental organisations and conventions.
For example, we are heartened by the agreement
on the Biosafety Protocol in Montreal but it is not clear how
this will be fully integrated into WTO regulations. This is exemplified
by the impact of TRIPs, the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual
Property rights aspects of the WTO rules. These are widely criticised
by developing countries rights as a means of foisting upon them
the market and monetary policies of the West and the patenting
regimes of the USA. Intellectual Property (IP) is a concept which
is not universally shared. The insistence by the WTO that all
participating countries must have an IP system for such things
as plant varieties is in some cases an abuse of norms of property
in other cultures. Moreover, there have been a number of well-documented
abuses by western multinational corporations, in which they have
patented genes and derivatives of natural chemicals taken from
indigenous communities. There is little effective redress, since
a local community normally has no effective seat on WTO adjudicating
panels.
There is urgency for these matters to be settled
because the existing commitments that countries have made as part
of The Uruguay Round and agreements elsewhere (such as the reform
of the EU Common Agricultural Policy) will begin to distort other
negotiations particularly since current moratoria on the removal
of agricultural subsidies should end in 2003. There is a need
for coherence between national, EU and internationals policies
that impact on trade.
Both the present and past UK administrations
have been firm in their commitment to sustainable development.
Such sustainability is impossible to attain if resource use is
driven solely by commercial or narrow economic concerns. Environmental
costs must be internalised in budgeting, as urged on our own Treasury
by the Government Panel on Sustainable Development.
We are not trade experts but we are concerned
that your valuable inquiry may have less impact than it deserves
because some factors are left out as a result of our own terms
of reference as an International Development Committee.
We hope these reflections will be valuable to
you and we are grateful for the opportunity to present them. We
are, of course, willing to expand on any of the points we raise
if necessary.
Jennifer Potter, Secretary for International Affairs
Prof R J Berry, Chair, Environmental Issues Network
Environmental Issues Network of Churches Together in Britain and
Ireland
January 2000
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