Rainbow Warrior sails into Doha, challenging the WTO to use the 4th Ministerial Conference to force the US to commit to the Kyoto Protocol.
This year, the 5th round of WTO trade talks will take place in
Cancun, Mexico from 10-14 September 2003. The first four such
meetings were held in Singapore (1996), Geneva (1998), Seattle
(1999), and Doha (2001).
Even though the WTO is a fairly new institution, there has been
public scepticism and concern about how it functions since the
beginning. In 1999, public doubt turned to outrage. Around 50,000
people showed up at the 3rd Ministerial Conference in Seattle in to
protest how unfairly the WTO works and what it was doing (and
continues to do) to the environment and human well-being.
Eventually, the negotiations in Seattle fell apart, leaving the
meeting a complete failure.
But this wasn't the end of the WTO. Instead, the organisation
chose to hold the next meeting in the more remote city of Doha,
Qatar, a ploy to ensure that the disaster of Seattle would not be
repeated. In Doha, in fact, far fewer NGOs were present - exactly
the goal of the WTO.
Governments also tried to change the outlook of the WTO, by
agreeing to a "development agenda" that would be able to deliver
economic benefits to developing countries in Africa, Asia and the
South Pacific, and Latin America. Promises were made to developing
countries, such as giving them greater access to life-saving
medicines, as well as greater access to markets for their
agricultural goods (anything from produce, to cotton, coffee and
other crops that form a big part of some developing country
economies).
Because of the focus on these "development" issues, the Doha
trade round was nicknamed a development round. But these were the
most controversial issues at that meeting. What is worse, some
countries are now trying to backslide on commitments that were
already agreed in Doha. For example, despite the fact that
countries agreed by consensus to make medicines available to
developing countries, the US continues to block an agreement.
So far, the promises made in Doha have not been fulfilled.
Developing countries continue to operate at a disadvantage in the
world of global trade and commerce.
Visit the Greenpeace website for the WTO's
4th ministerial conference (2002).