Why the WTO Doha Round Talks Have Collapsed – and a Path Forward
论文作者:佚名论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-06-17编辑:anne点击率:11137
论文字数:2130论文编号:org200906171618059765语种:英语 English地区:英格兰价格:免费论文
关键词:WTOPath Forwardglobal economysocial“neoliberalism”Bush administration’s
The collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round talks on July 24, 2006, should come as no surprise. A decade into the WTO experiment, it is clear that the WTO model of corporate globalization has not delivered the promised benefits of increased economic prosperity, while economic, social, and environmental conditions have worsened in many rich and poor countries alike. Because of this failed record, opposition has grown worldwide to the WTO model of globalization which as been driven by a narrow slice of corporate elites to suit their interests. The collapse of the Doha Round WTO expansion talks offers an extraordinary opportunity for a fundamental re-think of the direction of the global economy.
To date, most press coverage of the Doha Round collapse has focused on the blame game -- which countries’ failure to make specific agricultural concessions is to blame. But the under-recognized, but extremely important story is that the underlying cause of the breakdown is the growing rejection of the WTO, and more broadly of the corporate-led globalization model, by many people worldwide based on this model’s effects on their lives.
Since the Doha Round’s 2001 launch, every deadline on issues from service sector liberalization to industrial tariffs has passed. In 2004 half of the original Doha agenda – adding new foreign investor rights and limits on countries’ competition and procurement policies – was simply jettisoned after the Cancun WTO summit imploded. At issue throughout has been major differences regarding the WTO’s proper objectives and direction. Effectively, popular opposition is now a significant counterforce pressuring many WTO member nations to reject the agenda pushed by the world’s largest multinational corporations, which traditionally have used the WTO Secretariat and negotiators of the world’s most powerful countries to write the rules of the global economy in favor of expanding their profit margins.
The Doha Round was dubbed a “Development Round.” However, the actual texts reveal an agenda aimed at expanding the scope of the existing WTO regime. Yet, after a decade of damaging results, many people in the 149 WTO signatory nations have made clear their opposition to more of the same. This was before the World Bank dramatically revised downward its projections of Doha Round gains and revealed that a long list of poor countries would be net losers under the likely outcome. While U.S. and European editorials declared the Doha Round collapse as disaster for the poor, social movements and NGOs representing the populations of poor countries cheered.
A Decade of WTO Results Has Undermined Support for WTO Expansion
Instead of promised gains, during the WTO decade, economic conditions for the majority have deteriorated. The number and percentage of people living on less than $1 a day in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East have increased while the percentage living on less than $2 a day has increased in these regions, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Growth and the rate of poverty reduction have slowed in most parts of the world since implementation of the WTO’s policy package – a model imposed a decade earlier on many developing countries by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
In Africa, per capita income – which is an economy’s total output divided by its population– grew around 40 percent from 1960 to 1980 – but actually shrank more than 10 percent from 1980 to
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