The WTO: An Utne Field Guide

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Proponents of the WTO say that free trade promotes peace through economic integration and interdependence. It makes life easier for companies doing business internationally by cutting bureaucratic red tape and "harmonizing" regulations between countries. It supports developing economies by encouraging poor countries to focus on what they do best and develop a "comparative advantage" in the global marketplace. To bolster its case, the WTO Web site says, "Economists estimate that cutting trade barriers in agriculture, manufacturing, and services by one-third would boost the world economy by $613 billion -- equivalent to adding an economy the size of Canada."

In a recent speech, Pascal Lamy, the WTO's director-general, described the goal of the current round of negotiations (known as the "Doha Development Round" because they began at the 2001 ministerial in Doha, Qatar) as ensuring "that trade opening continues to contribute to development and that we place the interests of developing countries at the center of the world trading system." The Doha Round, scheduled to conclude in Hong Kong in mid-December, has involved talks on agriculture, industrial tariffs, services, and intellectual property rights.

The problem, writes Kristin Dawkins, vice president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, is that the WTO has created a legal environment in which trade trumps everything else. For instance, the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights has warned of "apparent conflicts" between WTO rules and the access to food, health, self-determination, water, and numerous other rights enshrined in many international agreements. And because such treaties lack the powerful economic enforcement tools of the WTO, trade has become de facto the most important value in international law.

Internally, if a dispute arises between two member countries -- such as when the United States filed a complaint about the European Union's ban on genetically modified food imports -- a closed-door panel of anonymous trade judges hears the case, invariably ruling in favor of those on the side of freer trade. In dozens of cases, WTO judges have demanded that countries strike down national and local laws on public health, the environment, and workers' rights, calling them illegal trade barriers.

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