For a different world governance. Having closely followed, with interest and a tinge of admiration, the action of Pascal Lamy at the Head of trade policy at the European Union and his views on better organisation of world governance, I think his appointment at the Head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is important. His beliefs, skills and dynamism will add some more energy to the Geneva based organisation, which needs it. He will also provide it with a decisive force in the first objective of the ongoing round of negotiations, namely to improve inclusion of more developing countries (especially the group of less advanced countries) in international trade. Mr Lamy had already contributed to this objective in his previous role (even if he was often misunderstood, sometimes by the interested parties themselves) and on this point he will not change minds with his change of job.
I am, however, aware that his change of role implies a change of behaviour. Previously, his institutional duty was to defend the interests of the European Union: in the future it will be to take into account the interests of all Member States of the WTO and to facilitate meetings and compromises. But I don't think that he will change his most foremost convictions particularly on: a) the demand for special systems and derogation clauses for most favoured nations in favour of less developed countries as part of the “Everything but Arms” initiative which proved this; b) the need to gradually improve world governance in economic, environmental and social domains and not just in the trade arena. The latter are already subject, thanks to the WTO, to binding rules but cannot remain isolated. In his book, which examined world democracy and alternative global governance strategies, Lamy sketched out his responses on minimum standards for all, on the notion of world collective goods (“the goods we choose to promote or defend collectively”), notably in the environmental sphere and on the famous and controversial collective preferences which are not at all trade preferences but “choices of society” made by the people.
The battle against AIDS. How do the thoughts quoted from Pascal Lamy influence his action? I couldn't tell you. But I've got an idea that they work. I'll give you the example of the anti-AIDS medicines affair. We all know the problem: respect for intellectual property rights is a logical trade rule, indispensable for encouraging research and therefore developing innovation; but faced with pandemics such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, this rule can partially enter into conflict with the primacy of human life. The WTO, which has competency in the area of intellectual property, has been fiercely debating it for the last two years and in 2003 Member States reached an agreement that would allow developing countries to import “generic medicines” against AIDS (this is in effect a derogation to intellectual copyright rules, whether the patents are manufactured by the owners themselves in India or Brazil).
Pascal Lamy on behalf of the EU, was the main author of this agreement (extremely complex due to the need for specific standards preventing “generic” products being re-exported to Europe or elsewhere due to the poverty endemic in some poor countries). The exceptional result was opposed by the galloping demagogy of those who wanted to dismantle the multinationals. Moreover, a political battle in this sense would have been understandable if there had been another economic actor in the world that was able to study and carry out experiments over the years on new medicines but the reality is that other economic or scientific actors do not exist. In theory, a powerful Communist and scientifically avant-guard regime like the former USSR, had the necessary means. But the only objective of these regimes appears to be military power. The USSR was able to overtake the USA in the conquest of space but did not bring any innovation contributing to progress in civil society, even an efficient car. For irresponsible users of nuclear energy (Chernobyl! And the radioactive fallout spewed into the sea!), the Soviets were strong. Today's regimes which are inspired by the same doctrine are haunted by the same obsession with power, with North Korea at the head of them and which boasts of having the atomic bomb but which leaves its children to starve while appealing to international charity.
The battle against AIDS has two enemies: religious fanaticism, which condemns precautions because “it's a sin” and political fanaticism.
The choices are clear, wither we help fight AIDS by the means available or we worry about the political result and hard luck to those who are ill. Those who have seen, even if it's just the photographs, of the African children suffering from AIDS, won't hesitate. Pascal Lamy did not hesitate and did not have a moment's peace until the major pharmaceutical firms had given in. I'll put his adversaries in this battle in the same basket, whether they are students from the University of Leuven who wanted to violently oppose the granting of an honorary doctorate to Pascal Lamy for having made a deal with US multinationals or the “no global” opponents who angrily destroyed cars and shop windows. The last thing on their minds was the children dying of AIDS.
Balancing out the powers? By alluding to the past I have digressed somewhat from the subject but to me it appears interesting to indicate an example of what WTO action might mean and how effective it was under what conditions etc. I am not going to get involved in a theoretical exercise for which I do not have the authority or expertisel. But I can recall Mr Lamy's analysis in the book that I referred to, which appeared in March 2004. It illustrated the disparity between the absence of real power and the multiple UN agencies on one hand and the WTO on the other. The UN agencies are legitimate (High Commission for Refugees, World Health Organisation etc) but “they do not have the means or coherency to make them effective”. The most important organisation the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is not dependent on the UN as it is much older and has been able to build a “genuine system of international references for protection in the workplace and workers' rights” but “without the means to apply them or make them binding due to the lack of sufficient means with legislation produced by other organisations and institutions, it is like a general without an army”. In the environmental domain, which is becoming increasingly important and where world governance is more and more urgent, there is no specific body.
In fact, the WTO is efficient in its role of “supreme arbiter in world trade”. The role of the court exercised by the Dispute Settlement Panel (DSP) “gives it an effectiveness which is unique in the current scene of governance…The DSP resolves trade conflicts which sometimes involve different legal orders: the environment, rights at work, food safety etc”. By adding the unbalanced character of the IMF to it (where the decision making power belongs to the rich countries), the result is that the WTO represents “an emerging but isolated islet of international regulation” which settles “all kinds of global problems that international governance does not have a genuinely adapted instrument for dealing with”. Pascal Lamy has indicated some of the ways in which the world can go towards world governance that respects the “choices of society” of people and their traditions. But this is not an ambition that can be achieved in just a few years.
What should be done in the meantime? I'll look at some of the ideas doing the rounds at the moment. The WTO cold improve the balance between its decision making capacity and the lack of power in other UN bodies, by taking into account the results from the latter's activities. Respect for ILO rules involve union rights or the ban on child labour, which could, for example, become preliminary conditions for benefiting from free trade. Moreover, a better balance could be introduced within the rules of the WTO itself: countries that obviously and permanently stifle provisions banning counterfeiting and piracy should not be able to automatically benefit from the full right of provisions on free trade. There should not be a “hierarchy of standards”.
A different chapter - agricultural trade. The trade in farming products deserves a specific analysis. I won't cite the positions of Pascal Lamy affirming the impossibility of applying the same provisions on industrial products to those in agriculture as at the time he was speaking on behalf of the EU. But I'll make a suggestion: the WTO should not base its analysis of real agricultural interests in developing countries on its official documents from UN study bodies and bureaux and even less so on those of the NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations), which say they support the freedom on international trade. UN analyses are sometimes bureaucratic, theoretical and pretentious; Oxfam and FTA defend the interests of big business, which are just as respectable as each other but which don't have anything to do with the interests of small farmers in poor countries. I'll be proving why.
(F.R.)