June 27, 2003
CIEL staff organized and contributed to panels addressing trade, investment and the environment in a public symposium in Geneva on June 16 – 18 that convened nearly a thousand participants. The World Trade Organization (WTO) hosted “Challenges Ahead on the Road to Cancun“, a lead-up event to its 5th Ministerial Conference in September 2003. During a series of panels, members of civil society, academia, governments and the business sector shared views on the WTO and its current negotiation issues – many of which have significant implications for the environment and sustainable development.
CIEL staff co-organized a widely-attended session on potential investment negotiations, where speakers examined power inequities between developed and developing countries in the negotiating process, as well as how liberalizing investment could constrain domestic regulatory flexibility. Issues concerning liberalizing investment are a growing concern, particularly as the EU and Japan signal their intent to push negotiations on investment at the Cancun Ministerial. Panelists and audience members criticized what appears to be a hasty and pre-mature rush by mostly developed nations to negotiate for foreign investment. They also questioned whether the WTO – an unaccountable body that is biased by design in favor of liberalization – is the appropriate forum to fairly negotiate multilateral rules on foreign investment. Many NGOs, in particular from developing countries, urged WTO delegates to refrain from starting negotiations on investment in Cancun and, rather, to allow for further analysis and reflection.
CIEL managing attorney Stephen Porter joined two representatives from the Royal Institute for International Affairs and a representative of the Permanent Mission of Brazil to address the relationship between environmental treaties and trade rules. Drawing from a joint paper with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, “State
of Trade and Environmental Law“, Mr. Porter grounded the discussion by outlining the history of interaction between WTO Agreements and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), emphasizing that ambiguities in trade rules allow flexibility for dispute settlement bodies to show deference to MEAs, but that current negotiations could limit that flexibility. Duncan Brack and Kevin Gray from the Royal Institute of International Affairs explained the role of trade measures in MEAs, and Maria Rita Fontes Faria from the Brazilian Mission gave a comprehensive overview of current negotiations from a developing country negotiator’s perspective. Among other topics, the discussion explored concern that negotiations on MEAs may not benefit the environment and, in fact, could backslide from the status quo.
Porter also moderated a panel on trade and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a timely topic in light of a recent US challenge to the EU’s alleged moratorium on the approval of biotech products. The US, however, as Doree Stabinsky from Greenpeace pointed out, does not have a formal approval process either. Her opinion was that the complaint is not about science so much as about undermining the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, which deals with transboundary movements of GMOs that may adversely affect biological diversity and create risks for human health and is set to enter into force in September 2003. Stabinsky further elaborated that the US challenge is intended to pressure the EU not to establish the labeling and traceability rules it is currently finalizing and to pressure developing countries not to follow the European lead. Panelists also stressed that GMO producing countries have used eliminating hunger as a justification for biotech, when so far the industrialization of agriculture had proven disastrous for small farmers in developing countries.
Other sessions at the symposium addressed the effects of environmental regulations on the trading abilities of developing countries, sustainable agriculture and animal welfare, ecolabeling, trade in services, and business perspectives on the Doha Development Agenda.
For more information, please contact Marcos Orellana.