Brussels, 13/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of the United Nations Millennium Summit, a coalition of citizens non-governmental organisations published a statement eloquently entitled "WTO: Shrink or Sink!", calling for a more equitable, sustainable and responsible international trading system. The current system "has led to extreme inequalities in the distribution of wealth and contributed to environmental destruction across the planet", claim the 650 NGOs, mouthpiece for civil society in 77 countries.
"We believe it crucial to seize the opportunity to alter course and develop an alternative, sustainable and equitable type of trade, under citizens' control", the coalition declares, identifying, as first stage in the process, rolling back the power and authority of the WTO. It is urgent, it continues, to protect cultural, biological, social and economic diversities; gradually to implement policies that play in favour of local commerce and trade; guarantee universally recognised economic, social and cultural rights; draw up new rules, based on the democratic control of resources, the respect of ecosystems, equality, cooperation and the precautionary principle.
To that end, the NGOs call on their respective governments to: I) refrain from launching a new round of negotiations and to extends the WTO's "prerogatives" to the fields of investment, competition policy, public procurement, biotechnologies, further tariff cuts and electronic commerce; ii) not to implement WTO agreements to certain essential areas like food, water, public services, health, personal security, and the preservation of living species; iii) repeal the general agreement on the trade in services (AGCS), given the "harmful" consequences of the principle of gradual liberalisation for foreign investments; iv) extract intellectual property from the WTO; v) prohibit the patentability of live beings in all its forms; vi) give priority to the right of people o feed themselves; vii) recgonise and extend the right of third world countries to a special and differentiated treatment; viii) give priority to social and environmental rights; ix) democratise the decision-making process; x) say no to the "single tribunal" that is the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the Geneva institution that "operates in secret, according to anti-democratic procedures (and ) usurps the legislative and regulatory role of sovereign States and territorial authorities".
The "radical change of course" that NGOs are calling for also goes for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Bank, regional development banks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whereas tax havens, flags of convenience and "other "legal fictions that enable transnational firms to shirk their legal and tax obligations and escape all controls" "must go".