Attacks on WTO are a
threat to rule of law in world trade - ICC President
New Delhi,
10 December 1999 -
The failure of governments to launch a new round of trade negotiations in Seattle
was a setback but world business is confident that the process of trade liberalization
carried on over 50 years will continue into the next century.
This assessment of the Seattle
ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization was delivered by the
President of the International Chamber of Commerce, Adnan Kassar, before an
Indian business audience today.
Speaking at the annual meeting
of ICC India, Mr Kassar noted that governments have already agreed to begin
new negotiations next year in the two vital areas of agriculture and services
trade.
"For world business, the
hope must be that, as these negotiations progress in a more serene atmosphere
in Geneva in 2000, governments will rapidly marshal the political will so sadly
lacking at Seattle to expand them into a more b
road-based trade round."
Mr Kassar said that for
governments to succeed in Geneva where they failed in Seattle, they would need
to have enough proposals on the table to allow for reciprocal concessions and
trade-offs.
The ICC President said
business concern at what happened in Seattle extended beyond disagreements over
substance. "For reasons not yet well understood, the WTO has become the scapegoat
for everyone with a grievance about the modern world. These incessant and irrational
attacks on the WTO are becoming dangerous because they are a threat to the rule
of law in world trade.
"If we go back to the law
of the jungle, and the WTO's effective dispute settlement machinery is lost,
the principal nations to suffer will be the poor and the weak. The WTO is the
best guarantee there is of a level playing field for all countries, at whatever
stage of development."
Mr Kassar said much false
information about the WTO, about business, about globalization and international
trade was endlessly repeated in an atmosphere of massive and sometimes violent
protest in Seattle.
The WTO was depicted as
a secret and undemocratic institution controlled by the multinationals, and
trade as the cause of lost jobs, exploitation of workers and the source of environmental
pollution.
"The WTO has its imperfections.
But we should remember that it is composed of sovereign governments who have
together devised the rules upon which it is based and who negotiate with each
other freely under its auspices." Mr Kassar said trade has over decades been
the driving force of economic growth. In 1998, he said, world merchandise exports
were worth over five trillion dollars, an 18-fold increase over 1948 in terms
of volume. Although the world's population has doubled, to reach six billion
this year, exports per capita are eight times as high in real terms as in 1948.
"Behind the figures is the
reality that trade has contributed enormously to world growth and prosperity
over the half century, bringing better jobs and more resources for education,
health and other social spending. Despite the poverty that still exists in too
many countries, the fact is that the world is far more prosperous now than it
has ever been."
The ICC President warned
against attempts to saddle the multilateral trading system with wider objectives,
however laudable. He said ICC agreed with those - including the government of
India - who fear that labour and environmental issues could be a pretext for
protectionism.
Those fears received credence
from suggestions in Seattle that trade sanctions should be used to punish countries
deemed to be breaching accepted labour standards, he added.
Mr Kassar declared: "Any
right-minded person believes that core labour standards should be established
and maintained. But it is poverty that creates bad labour conditions, where
such abuses as child labour can flourish. The cure for poverty is economic growth
and job creation."
After
Seattle - what next? Keynote address by ICC President Adnan Kassar at Annual
General Meeting of ICC India
New Delhi, 10 December 1999