From trade justice to climate justice?

Caroline Dommen reflects on the WTO’s 2009 Ministerial Conference and explains why economic justice work at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva is changing.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) held its Seventh Ministerial Conference in Geneva in late 2009, ten years to the day after the WTO’s Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle. Host to demonstrations known as ‘the battle in Seattle,’ the 1999 Ministerial drew international attention and served as a catalyst for expressions of discontent about economic globalization. In contrast, the WTO’s 2009 Ministerial passed almost unnoticed. A few days later, another international gathering – the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – stole the spotlight.

The different levels of interest in the WTO Ministerial and the Climate Change Conference reflect a trend in civil society work on international economic issues: a growing concern for climate change and loss of interest in the WTO. Better World Economics readers will recall that the WTO was long a focus of QUNO’s work – but in 2009 QUNO’s Committee decided to prioritize its global economic work around three areas: food, migration and climate change. So is trade no longer important?

Quaker work on economic issues seeks to address injustice and to promote a more equitable and sustainable economic system. Ten years ago, the WTO drew attention as a new and powerful international body with a defining role in international economic governance. Its influence extended beyond strictly-defined trade issues, affecting other areas including employment, environment and health. Developing countries were excluded from meaningful participation in decision-making. The WTO thus became a focal point for civil society work seeking to address economic injustice. It made sense for Quaker work to look closely at the WTO as a priority locus for remedying inequities in the economy.

This work yielded tangible results: developing countries now are more able to make their voices heard in international economic decision-making. Civil society is much more aware of trade policy issues and negotiations so decisions can no longer be made in such an unaccountable way. Also, trade officials can no longer get away with claims that concerns such as health and the environment should not be on the trade agenda. Yet these results have had a flip side, a prime one being that economically powerful countries are turning to regional or bilateral trade agreements with developing countries, where they are more likely to get results that suit their interests. This complicates civil society work: instead of being located in one place (previously the WTO in Geneva); trade policy is being negotiated all over the globe in many sets of processes, making it harder for civil society groups to follow and mobilize around.

Meanwhile, WTO Members have been struggling to finish the so-called Doha Round of trade negotiations. WTO Members had declared that they would conclude the Round by the end of 2005, a deadline that was pushed back and then missed in 2006, and again in 2007, 2008 and 2009! The 2009 Ministerial was not intended to be a negotiating session, and its main result was to reaffirm the need to conclude the Doha Round in 2010.

The line within WTO circles is ‘once we get the Doha Round out of the way we can start addressing issues like climate change.’ This was evident in two work sessions during the Ministerial, which provided an opportunity for discussion about broader issues facing the WTO, and in the course of which a large number of Members mentioned climate change. Some saw the need for the WTO to move on to issues like this as an additional reason for wanting to conclude the Round quickly. Yet the fact remains that the draft Doha Round agreements are bad for developing countries. From a trade justice perspective, no deal is better than a deal. And as WTO Members are doing well in not reaching a deal without civil society input, it is understandable that those concerned with equity and sustainability in the global economy are putting their energy elsewhere.

At the same time as the momentum of the WTO talks has slowed, the topics are being dealt with in increasing levels of technicality. The WTO secretariat is doing its best to make the WTO seem like a relevant organization despite the negotiating stalemate, and the fact that its work is peripheral to the today’s main economic concerns (i.e. the fragility of recovery from the financial crisis, employment, financial regulation or climate change). This makes it hard to inject a sense of vision or optimism into the organization, and is a natural disincentive to broad civil society mobilization on WTO issues.

This, compounded with the fact that the urgency of preventing climate change is in the news daily and that more funding is available for work on climate change than other areas, has led many groups to turn their attention there. Some are maintaining their trade focus but many are centred on other issues.

The Copenhagen meeting forced us to confront the fact that our civilisation is destroying the life systems on which we depend. It is becoming harder than ever to argue that progress requires increased consumption, international trade and economic liberalisation. Rather, progress – our very survival even – depends on ensuring diversity, maintaining life systems, reducing excessive consumption, sharing the world’s resources more equitably and finding ways of responding to the needs of those whose livelihoods are endangered by our consumption-based economic system. In this sense, the climate change agenda raises some of the issues that the trade justice movement held dear, and provides a new focus and momentum for mobilization.

This does not mean that QUNO will abandon its concern for trade. Rather, we will address it through the lens of a particular issue (food, migration or climate change). The economic justice and environmental sustainability dimensions will be in the front of our minds as QUNO’s economics work moves forwards.

Comment on this article

Let us know your thoughts on the blog: www.quaker.org.uk/quakernomics

Find out more:

See www.quno.org or contact Caroline Dommen on +41 22 748 4810 or cdommen@quno.ch

The article originally appeared in the January 2010 edition of the ‘Geneva Reporter’