Is Cancún the Next Seattle?

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But it's not so much what's on the agenda in Cancún that's important; it's how the talks are conducted, says Ritchie. Though the WTO's 146 members officially make decisions by consensus, unofficially, the deck is stacked against the poor countries. Except for the opening and closing sessions, the actual discussions are all closed-door affairs. At the 2001 meeting in Qatar, delegates from many poor countries had to wait in the halls or in hotel rooms while the real powers negotiated in private.

Though Ritchie and other WTO critics have long argued for reforms in the organization, they now find themselves in the surprising position of defending the organization from attacks by the Bush administration, which has been skirting the WTO by pressuring some nations into individual trade deals containing even harsher terms than the WTO demands.

"The only thing worse than a world with the wrong international trade rules is a world with no trade rules at all," writes George Monbiot, a social justice activist and columnist for The Guardian in London. After years of calling for elimination of the WTO, Monbiot now says we should keep it, but transform it into what he calls a "fair trade organization." Monbiot details his plan in a new book, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order (Flamingo), explaining that any company that wants to trade internationally would have to abide by rules including bans on slave labor, certain pesticides, and workplace exposure to hazardous substances. This model is already well established among certified fair trade producers all over the world. Many of them (and their products) will be on display in Cancún at the first-ever International Fair Trade Fair and Sustainable Trade Symposium sponsored by activist groups. And while fair trade won't be on the WTO's official agenda, it may become the gathering's most significant debate by showing there is an alternative to exploitive corporate globalization.

Leif Utne is managing editor of Utne.com. For more details on the Cancún meetings and other global trade issues, go to www.utne.com/cancun.

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