WTO meet comes to a bitter end as talks fail

Third World and developing countries from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean felt slighted that rich countries were trying to corner them into a new round of negotiations on complex and potentially invasive matters like foreign investment and government procedure when they were still to grasp the issues on the table.

There was also a complete lack of understanding between the advanced countries and the developing world on what is called the core labour standards a strategem that India and other countries felt would be used by the West to neutralise the low cost competetive advantage enjoyed by the Third World.

“In the end, there were just too many differences on too many issues,” US Commerce Secretary William Daley said in a statement as the controversial talks ended in stalemate some three hours past the 6 pm deadline.

Delegates from poor countries and several NGOs felt that in the end, it was too much too soon with too little sensitivity and understanding. “The failure marks a victory for civil society opponents of any rash expansion of trade liberalisation agenda,” said Malini Mehra of the People’s Decade for Human Rights Education.

Many poor countries, bewildered by the number of issues rich nations were heaping on the WTO plate, and bemused by the rules they were being handed down, simply revolted. Even though the US and other heavyweights tried to woo them with last minute sops, the resentment at being pushed around during the initial days wrecked the talks. There was bad blood all around.

The failure of the Seattle meet means the whole process goes back to Geneva where the World Trade Organisation is headquartered.

Barshefsky herself agreed that the “issues before us are diverse, complex, and often novel.” The talks stretched both the substantive and procedural capacity of the meet, she said, and “we found as time passed that divergences of opinion remained that would not be overcome rapidly.”

Then, looking pale and incredibly fatigued, she delivered the coup de grace herself: “Our collective judgment… was that it would be best to take time out, consult one another, and find creative means to finish the job.”

For India, it was a moment of both triumph and defeat. For the first time, the country came to the trade talks well-prepared, with a new found self-confidence in areas like agriculture and e-commerce. On the sticky issue of labour, the Indians stuck resolutely to their stand of not bowing to the dictates of the advanced nations. “What can I say? There was no meeting ground on many issues,” sighed Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran.

There were other nations and blocs that were disappointed for their own reasons. A bloc called the Cairns Group, which consists of grain rich countries like Australia, Argentina, Canada and Brazil, regretted that a “long-awaited opportunity to secure fundamental reform of world agricultural markets” had not reached fruition.

Several countries, including India, sought and got some assurances that their food security would not be compromised by potential dumping. But in the end, differences on a range of issues simply overwhelmed the overloaded and behind-schedule conference.

Most NGOs rejoiced at the failure of the talks. “The ambitious trade plans of the US, EU, Japan and Canada were beaten back by dynamic inside and outside pressure… opposition from civil society and developing countries stopped WTO talks,” exulted the group Friends of the Earth.

Barshefsky though contested the NGO and developing country interpretations, saying the US had demonstrated its flexibility a number of times. But critics said the US, EU and Japan needed to be more than sleepless in Seattle; they needed to be selfless too and they failed.

As delegates and demonstrators began trickling out of town, clogging hotel lobbies and departure lounges, there was recrimination aplenty depending on which issue was at stake.

The French and the Japanese did not want to talk about cutting agriculture subsidies which preserved their farm economy; the Indians did not want talk about labour standards that would put their factories under scrutiny and unions under pressure; the Africans and Caribbeans were horrified at the prospects of biopiracy that could loot their natural wealth. In the end there were too many doubts, too little trust, and too few sensibilities.