WTO

WTO Free Trade Agenda

WTO Free Trade Agenda

Introduction

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the organization that ensures that trade rules prioritizes business interests over national and public interests. WTO has come to rival the International Monetary Fund as the most powerful, secretive, and anti-democratic international body on earth. It is rapidly assuming the mantle of a bona fide global government for the 'free trade era,' and it actively seeks to broaden its powers and reach. (Barker and Mander, 1999: 1). These panels are able to find countries guilty of breaking the rules and to impose economic sanctions as punishment (Barker and Mander, 1999: 2). Such rulings can declare as illegal legislation put in place by democratically elected governments as part of their social or environmental policy agenda (Barker and Mander, 1999: 6).

WTO rulings consistently favour free trade over environmental or social considerations. Corp Watch noted that between 1995 and 2001 'the WTO has ruled that every environmental policy it has reviewed is an illegal trade barrier that must be eliminated or changed'. The same was true of health and safety laws with only one exception (Hoedeman, Balanyá, Ma'anit, Wesselius, 1998, 154-61). A more recent study by Public Citizen found that almost 90 per cent of the 137 WTO challenges to national laws between 1995 and 2008 were successful, forcing nations to alter their laws to fit with WTO rules.

In answer to the issue of whether a nation had the right to regulate in response to democratically formulated policy, the panel of three trade experts that made the gambling ruling stated: 'Members' regulatory sovereignty is an essential pillar of the progressive liberalization of trade in services, but this sovereignty ends whenever rights of other Members under the GATS are impaired' (WTO Panel, 2004: 209). In other words, the ban on internet gambling was ruled to be a trade restriction that interfered with the rights of another member of GATS - in this specific case the complainant state, Antigua - where at least one transnational gambling corporation had its nominal base of operations (Hoedeman, Dherty, 2002, 64-77).

The world economy strengthened during the first half of 2010. Recovery from the financial crisis continued as expected, though the international scenario remained fragile and uneven. The economic expansion, though, was somewhat unbalanced, with emerging and developing countries growing faster than advanced economies (Balanyá, Doherty, Hoedeman, Ma'anit, Wesselius, 2000, 23-38). The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook released in October 2010, has forecast a 4.8 per cent expansion in world output during 2010 followed by a temporary slowdown at 4.2 per cent during 2011. The volume of world trade is estimated to grow at 11.4 per cent during 2010 with emerging economy exports poised to accelerate by 11.9 per cent, while those of advanced economies increasing at 11 per cent. Imports of emerging and developing economies and advanced economies are expected to grow at 14.3 and 10.1 per cent, respectively, during 2010.

Discussion and Analysis

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