IN THIS ISSUE:
Post Seattle, there has been a lot of talk about how to reform the WTO. In this issue, Walden Bello argues that in the case of both the IMF and the WTO, NGOs must be aware of the pitfalls of the reform agenda.
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Why Reform of the WTO is the Wrong Agenda
By Walden Bello*
In the wake of the collapse of the Seattle Ministerial, there has emerged the opinion that reform of the WTO is now the program that NGOs, governments, and citizens must embrace. The collapse of the WTO Ministerial is said to provide a unique window of opportunity for a reform agenda.
Cited by some as a positive sign is United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky's comment, immediately after the collapse of the Seattle Ministerial, that "the WTO has outgrown the processes appropriate to an earlier time." An increasing and necessary view, generally shared among the members, was that we needed a process which had a greater degree of internal transparency and inclusion to accommodate a larger and more diverse membership." (1)
Also seen as an encouraging gesture is UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Stephen Byers' recent statement to Commonwealth Trade Ministers in New Delhi that the "WTO will not be able to continue in its present form. There has to be fundamental and radical change in order for it to meet the needs and aspirations of all 134 of its members." (2)
These are, in our view, damage control statements and provide little indication of the seriousness about reform of the two governments that were, pre-Seattle, the stoutest defenders of the inequalities built into the structure, dynamics, and objectives of the WTO. It is unfortunate that they are now being cited to convince developing countries and NGOs to take up an agenda of reform that could lead precisely to the strengthening of an organization that is very fundamentally flawed.
(cont)
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