SUNS 4318 Friday 6 November 1998
DEVELOPMENT: NGOS MOBILISING AGAINST WTO INVESTMENT RULES
Geneva, 4 Nov (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Over 60 non-governmental organization (NGOs) have joined to oppose any moves to shift the investment negotiations to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and include these negotiations in a future WTO trade round.
The NGOs from North and South, had met in Paris in October, when the OECD attempted to resume the MAI talks, but found itself faced by the French withdrawal. The OECD negotiators are to meet again in December.
At their April meeting, when the OECD negotiators suspended the talks for reflexion, all the 29 member countries agreed to consult their civil society.
According to the NGOs, many of the OECD governments in fact did nothing or went through a cursory process, as in Canada, or engaged in a public relations campaign to sell the idea to their public.
The French government though undertook some detailed consultations, and named a leading figure to make a report. This led them to announce they would not participate in the OECD process.
The NGOs who met in Paris in October meanwhile drafted a sign-on joint letter opposing the shifting of the talks to the WTO. Several of them have also agreed to undertake a broader campaign to sensitise the public and mobilise against efforts to incorporate MAI-like provisions
in various regional or multilateral arrangements and processes - at the IMF, talks for an Americas wide free trade area, the APEC, UNCTAD and United Nations.
In their joint letter, the NGOs have called for an alternative approach to the current moves for a multilateral investment regime, and said national and global guidelines and rules and regulations should be formulated to place obligations on investors and corporations so that their activities and products may serve the needs of people within a framework of internationally fair, socially just and environmentally sound development.
The NGOs note that the negotiations for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the OECD has run into problems because of strong public protests in many OECD countries as well as objections from developing-country groups and governments.
Objections from the public include that the MAI would grant new unprecedented rights for corporations (whilst removing the authority of states to place obligations or regulations on them), threaten national sovereignty and the viability of domestic firms and farms, remove conditions for development in the South and magnify environmental and social problems.
"Since there is no sign that OECD governments are willing to consider a basic change in the premises and framework of MAI, we call for the termination of the negotiations and the treaty in the OECD," the NGOs said.
They also expressed concern over the moves of some OECD governments, including the European Union, to move the MAI process to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The North countries, the NGOs said, have recently been pushing very hard in the WTO (including its Working Group on Trade and Investment) to get developing countries to agree to upgrade the present "discussions" into negotiations for an MAI-type agreement. They hope to get the Working Group to decide on this perhaps as early as at its next meeting in November 1998.
Some of the North countries claim this will make it fairer for developing countries and, moreover, environmental and labour concerns will be taken care of in the WTO.
"We reject these claims," said the NGOs. "Instead, shifting the investment issue to the WTO will place great pressure on developing countries to negotiate and eventually join an agreement that would have disastrous effects on their development prospects. Moreover, promises to include environmental and social concerns are likely to be only an eyewash to co-opt the public to accept the basic tenets of the MAI. The strong enforcement capability of the WTO through its dispute settlement system will also mean that all countries, especially developing countries, will be forced to comply.
"Domestic laws and policies in a wide range of issues will have to be changed, even if these were to cause job losses, closure of local enterprises and farms, financial instability, balance of payments deficits and environmental deterioration.
"We therefore call on all governments, OECD and non-OECD alike, to reject any proposal to negotiate an investment agreement in the WTO. The trade and investment working group in the WTO should be confined to ONLY STUDY the trade and investment relation and should not be
'upgraded' into a NEGOTIATING forum for an investment AGREEMENT. The proposals by the EU and other major countries to start a 'Millennium Round' or a 'comprehensive future agenda' for the WTO should not be used as a devise to sneak in an investment negotiation process in the WTO.
"On principle, we are against the kind of assumptions and framework that the MAI represents. As public knowledge on the MAI increases, many more people are rejecting this approach. We call on governments, international agencies and NGOs not to accept the MAI or a similar investment approach as inevitable or a 'given', but instead choose a basically different approach in dealing with the investment issue.
"Towards this alternative approach, we call for global and national guidelines, rules and regulations to place obligations on investors and corporations so that their activities and products serve the needs of people within a framework of internationally fair, socially just and environmentally sound development."