Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 2 • Number 2 • 7th February 2002
Trade Features in Discussions at WSSD Prep Meeting
Trade Features in Discussions at WSSD Prep Meeting
The interlinkages between trade liberalisation and sustainable development featured throughout discussions amongst delegates and NGOs at both the Second Preparatory Meeting (PrepCom-II) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) (28 January to 8 February, New York) and a multi-stakeholder dialogue (29-31 January) involving all major groups of Agenda 21 and governments. While delegates and NGOs generally agreed that little progress had been made on environment and sustainable development since the Rio Declaration in 1991 and called for significant increases in funding, opinions differed over impacts of trade liberalisation on the environment and sustainable development.
Based on a list of issues and proposals prepared by the Chairperson, delegates at PrepCom-II focused their discussions on eleven “non-clusters”, including globalisation; poverty eradication; unsustainable consumption and production; health; energy; natural resource management; freshwater; oceans, marine and coastal areas; means of implementation; and africa and desertification; and governance.
During the discussions delegates raised a variety of trade-related issues such as patent right protection, local peoples rights, intellectual property rights, and the WTO multilateral trading system. In the context of the globalisation “non-cluster”, delegates exchanged views on whether to include references to complementing the WTO Doha “Development Agenda”. While the US and Switzerland supported such references, India called for their removal, arguing that no development agenda had resulted from the Doha meeting. Several developing countries, including Ghana and the Philippines, also stressed the importance of protecting traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights of local people. For their part, the US and the WTO called for further trade liberalisation as a means to combat poverty.
The linkages between trade, environment and sustainable development also constituted a major issue of discussion during the multi-stakeholder dialogue. Several NGO representatives pointed out the intersections between trade liberalisation and the issues discussed at the WSSD. According to Victoria Tauli Corpuz of Tetebba, Philippines, “the loss of our lands, waters, forests, natural resources, cultures and knowledge has accelerated because of the liberalisation of trade and investments,” highlighting the absence of laws to protect the rights of indigenous people. Martin Khor from the Malaysia-based NGO Third World Network also stressed the negative effects of trade liberalisation, saying that “while developing countries are pressured to free their markets with devastating results to small industries and farms, rich countries continue to control their markets through tariffs, subsidies and protection of intellectual property rights”.
Discussions at PrepCom-II on the list of issues and proposals will continue until 8 February. PrepCom III which will be held in New York from 25 March to 5 April with the final PrepCom to take place in Indonesia from 27 March to 7 June. The World Summit on Sustainable Development is currently scheduled for 26 August to 4 September in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Additional Resources
For further information on the WSSD, visit http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/. Daily coverage of the WSSD preparatory meetings is provided by IISD Linkages.
ENB, vol. 22 No. 10-15, February 2002; “Stakeholders Write Wish Lists for Sustainability Summit”, ENS, 6 February 2002; ICTSD Internal Files.