33. Memorandum submitted by the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
SUMMARY
This submission argues:
— for women to be included in all aspects
of the development of trade rules;
— that those trade rules be guided
by the aim of real sustainable development;
— that current Agreements be assessed
according to criteria developed in accordance with sustainable
development;
— that new issues not be introduced
until this has occurred ;
— that the new issues being proposed
do not meet these sort of criteria;
— that the Chairman's Statement from
Doha and the legal standing that it has in regard to the need
for explicit concensus be respected;
— that current processes of the World
Trade Organisation negotiations are unacceptable;
— that the UK should take a lead in
pursuing change.
INTRODUCTION
The Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom is pleased to make a submission to the International Development
Committee enquiry into "Trade and Development: Aspects of
the Doha agenda."
Since it was founded in 1915, the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has been aware that lasting
peace and true freedom cannot exist under systems of exploitation
and has constantly urged governments and international political
and economic institutions to seek ways of eliminating exploitation.
In the interests of peace as well as of justice, we urge trade
negotiations that seek to eliminate injustice and the marginalisation.
Thus we urge a commitment to real sustainable development, with
equality for women, and with consideration of future generations.
While the Doha "Development Round"
seeks to introduce new issues to the World Trade Organisation
agenda, there is a fundamental need to assess the effects of the
Agreements currently within the WTO agenda, against criteria which
are in accordance with sustainable development.
THE ROLE
OF WOMEN
We consider that a gender perspective, in terms
of considering issues relating to women, of taking account of
women's perspectives, and of formal opportunities for women to
take an equal role in how the global trade agenda is constructed,
is lacking, and has been ignored since the inception of the World
Trade Organisation.
This is despite the fact that women make up
a high proportion both of the labour force on which trade is dependent;
that women make up a high proportion of consumers who depend on
traded commodities and services for themselves and their families,
and on whom, again, the trade agenda is dependent; and in addition,
that the unpaid labour of women, although scarcely acknowledged,
is a fundamental component in the flow of economic activity.
Women make up 70% of the world's poor, and WILPF
asserts that effects on the poor of the world must be the primary
consideration for the international trade agenda, and is a fundamental
element of sustainable development
The special role of women: as small-scale farmers
and traders; as carers for children and for the environment; and
because they making up the majority of low paid workers, is generally
ignored, and we call for special consideration to be given to
their situation.
Women must have an equal voice in trade negotiations,
with representation by women chosen by working women to represent
them, and who themselves work for a just economic system; women
must have access to capital, to production resources and services
on an equal basis with men; they must have equal land rights,
and equal access to training; there must be good education for
women and girls to enable them to take up appointments and to
be involved in policy-making.
We here reiterate, and build on, the calls which
we made prior to the WTO Ministerial meeting in Doha in 2001.
THE WORLD
TRADE ORGANISATION
GLOBAL TRADE
AGENDA
Claims that the WTO is a democratic body are
belied by the undemocratic way in which negotiations are conducted
at the WTO where invited members attend some meetings from which
others are excluded and by the difference in negotiating capacity.
The proponents of Free Trade claim that trade
liberalisation brings benefits to all; the evidence does not show
this to be the case. There is ample evidence that the gap between
rich and poor both within countries and between countries is increasing.
The form of " level playing field" that the WTO rules
produce gives increased opportunities to those with vastly disproportionate
power.
WILPF calls for a trading system which promotes
a more equitable wealth distribution, and explicitly aims to enable
all to live in dignity with access to essential resources such
as clean water, clean air, food, education and health care.
This system needs to acknowledge the rights
of all people to democratic decision-making; it must acknowledge
the rights of workers; and it must protect the environment.
WILPF calls for international trade and financial
arrangements that are based on equitable and just economic relations
in order to achieve genuinely sustainable development, benefiting
all peoples regardless of their race, ethnicity, nationality,
gender or belief.
WILPF calls for rich countries to meet the commitment
they made of development aid levels of 0.7 per cent of GNP of
donor countries; there should be encouragement and support for
this increased aid to be used to develop appropriate and sustainable
technology, domestically in those countries but with global implications.
We also urge an increased commitment, including financial commitment,
to research into technology for all countries that will help to
prevent further damage to the environment.
WILPF rejects an economic globalisation based
only on a free market economy, and determined by transnational
corporations and international finance. Other values, necessary
for sustainable development, must come to the fore.
WILPF agrees that there is a need for a rules-based
system of trading but argues that these rules must not favour
corporations above people; the people should collectively determine
the rules within and among nations; people, through democratic
governments and international institutions, should have the power
to define and enforce the limits of corporate authority, and the
corporate form should have only those powers and privileges that
people grant it. The current secrecy of trade negotiations, and
the power of, and disproportionate government attention given
to, industry lobby groups, works against this. Governments, including
the UK Government must both inform, and listen more to, civil
society groups that have sustainable development aims.
Trade rules must function to rebalance the historic
disadvantage of poor nations, and regulations and charges that
continue to, or further, disadvantage them should be abandoned.
WILPF repeats the demand made before the meeting
of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in 1999 that "every
Agreement that has been made under the WTO be revised to respect:
— the fundamental rights set out in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the internationally
agreed covenants and conventions that promote and protect human
rights, women's rights, labour rights, rights to health and education,
and the environment;
— commitments made by governments to
implement plans of action resulting from the world conferences
on environment and development, population and development, social
development, women and the human settlements (Habitat II).
Under the current trading system which is predicated
only on the single value of progressing the free trade agenda,
and very noticeably in countries with Economies in Transition,
and developing countries, the commodification of women's bodies
and labour has increased and intensified as shown in the feminisation
of migration and the traffic in women for purposes of prostitution
and forced labour. Poverty drives women into prostitution.
THE GENERAL
AGREEMENT ON
TRADE IN
SERVICES
In relation to the General Agreement on Trade
in Services, although it is not central to the Doha agenda, because
the WTO plan is that it continues anyway, we draw attention to
this Agreement here. WILPF calls for a thorough analysis of the
impact of service liberalizations that have already been carried
out, as well as any being considered under the current round of
negotiations on GATS, including disaggregated gender impact assessment,
as well as impact assessment on children, and on the environment.
WILPF also calls for this assessment to be a public process. Because
no such impact assessment has taken place, despite its inclusion
in the original Agreement, WILPF is calling along with many other
civil society agencies, in the UK and overseas, for a year long
moratorium on any GATS negotiations (until March 2004).
In the current round of negotiations, within
the bilateral nature of GATS requests, only one quarter of the
countries of which the EU has made requests, have made requests
of the EU. In what is supposed to be "development round"
this situation appears to directly contradict the stated objective
within GATS of "increasing the participation of developing
countries".
TRADE RELATED
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
(TRIPS)
Intellectual Property, as dealt with in the
trade restrictive TRIPS Agreement, under which people are being
denied the right to health and indeed the right to life, under
which patents are being acquired where ownership is traditional,
or on global public goods, whereby patents on life are being registered,
and which encourages the proliferation of genetically modified
variations, should be removed from the WTO, and the basis of patenting
re-examined in the light of its effect on sustainable development.
AGREEMENT ON
AGRICULTURE
Globally, land is being concentrated into the
hands of agribusiness, and small farmers around the world, in
both developed and developing countries, are being forced by poverty
to sell their land. The majority of subsistence farming in the
world is done by women. Subsistence farmers who lose their land
are more vulnerable to the effects of poverty.
The domestic food security of nations is diminishing
drastically.
GM crops, with their devastating effects on
the agriculture of future generations, are being forced on desperate
people and governments, overtly or secretly.
An Agricultural Agreement which discourages
food production for local and domestic consumption in favour of
export driven crop production, encouraging long distance transportation
of food is not supportive of sustainable development, as it wastes
energy and diminishes food autonomy.
Even if the distortions and environmentally
destructive practices within the EU Common Agricultural Policy
are reformed, the priorities for agricultural production under
the global Agreement are failing to progress sustainable development.
Thus there is a need for impact assessment of the Agreement on
Agriculture, and consideration, as many developing countries are
calling for, of the removal of agriculture from the WTO.
GENERAL AGREEMENT
ON TARIFFS
AND TRADE
The tendency of liberalized trade for the production
of goods to continue to be shifted to lowest cost labour markets,
appears to be causing increased mass economic migration, and with
it, instability and social unrest. Assessment is needed of how
the reduction of tariffs, and free trade in manufactured goods,
while benefiting Transnational Corporations, as in the approximately
one thousand tax-free Free Trade Zones around the world, with
unregulated labour conditions, are actually affecting development
within host countries. The vast majority of workers in Free Trade
Zones are women.
THE DOHA
AGENDA
(A) New Issues
WILPF continues to oppose any new issues being
introduced into the WTO agenda until the impact of existing WTO
Agreements has been assessed. Criteria for assessment must be
based on real sustainable development.
Women must be consulted and involved at all
stages including in the impact assessment of existing Agreements,
and in all proposals and negotiations.
Under their human rights commitments, Governments
are responsible for guaranteeing the primacy of human rights for
all their people, including their full participation in the public
process. Governments should not yield to international trade agreements
that contradict and violate these rights and participatory power.
The proposed new issues of investment, competition,
and government procurement should not be included in world trade
rules.
An Investment Agreement is a return of the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment which civil society has already rejected.
There is strong evidence that Foreign Direct
Investment, outside of any controls by the host government, has
a progressively deleterious effect on countries' balance of payments.
Thus the indication is that an Investment Agreement is antithetical
to sustainable development.
We remind you that Mary Robinson has indicated
the dangers for Human Rights and particularly Social Economic
and Cultural Rights, of an Investment Agreement. Investment is
already included in the GATS under "Financial Services"
and "Business Services" in the GATS, and Mary Robinson
has also warned of the threat to Human Rights inherent in the
GATS.
Governments at all levels must retain control
of Government Procurement, to be able to carry this out in the
interests of populations and of the environment. It should not
be surrendered to the profit demands of Transnational Corporations,
and Government Procurement should not be the basis for a new WTO
Agreement.
An Agreement on Competition Policy, providing
the sort of "level playing field" that allows transnational
corporations to progress towards monopoly situations is antithetical
to "development" and this expansion of the WTO agenda
should be abandoned.
Agreements that by their nature rely on Special
and Differential Treatment to meet the needs of poorer countries,
but with an understanding of progression towards full compliance,
should not be considered.
The blanket rule of "Market access"
is likely to be detrimental to developing countries efforts to
build their economies and expanded market access is likely to
be detrimental to the social fabric of societies such as that
of the UK. As such, "market access" should cease to
be a fundamental pillar of WTO rules.
(B) Process
The Chairman's Statement from the Doha Ministerial
expressed the deep concerns felt by developing countries about
new issues, as well as the need to review the existing Agreements.
The Chairman's Statement has equal status in law with the Agreed
Text; and the need contained within the Chairman's Statement,
for explicit consensus to be reached before there is any advancement
of a new round, must be respected.
Further, this needs to occur without pressure
on developing countries. For the Doha meeting, not only was the
agenda decided and a preliminary text prepared by a select few
countries beforehand in Singapore, but extreme pressure was brought
to bear on developing countries to the extent that they were sometimes
prevented by US marines from entering meetings other than singly,
the decision on the final text was delayed until many delegates
had had to leave, and it remains unclear from where the final
text emerged.
Thus the bullying and pressuring of developing
countries at WTO Ministerial meetings and at other WTO meetings
must stop, and WTO processes must be ethically and justly carried
out.
The lack of adequate capacity of many developing
countries to enable them to negotiate is an issue that must be
adequately addressed, as a priority.
CONCLUSION
Because the UK takes a lead role in EU trade
negotiations, and because UK investment has, in the past as now,
benefited from the exploitation and frequently the impoverishment
of other countries, the UK Government is both well placed, and
has a strong moral obligation to take a lead in pursuing the changes
that are required for a sustainable and more equitable future
for the world.
The UK Government also needs not only to focus
the agenda of the Department for International Development more
strongly on sustainable development, but also, particularly in
regard to the Department of Trade and Industry, pursue greater
policy coherence.
We thank the committee for inviting this submission
and urge members to give serious consideration to, and to draw
the attention of government to the points made here, in particular
the need for women to have an equal voice in trade issues.
WILPF
January 2003
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