DEVELOPMENT: UNCTAD Takes Advantage of WTO’s Seattle Fiasco

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jan 12 2000 (IPS) - The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is set to reclaim its leadership role among international trade organisations, after being relegated to the back seat for two decades, as it takes advantage of the confusion prevailing in the global arena.

UNCTAD’s secretary general, Rubens Ricupero, hopes that his organisation’s ministerial conference, to be held in Bangkok Feb 12-19, establishes UNCTAD as the “world parliament for globalisation.”

This UN conference, created in the 1960s to counteract developing countries’ unfavourable situation in terms of world trade, felt the effects of the disappearing East-West polarisation and of subsequent neo-liberal expansion.

At one point in the early 1990s, UNCTAD’s existence, or at least its essence, seemed ready to crumble under the pressure of industrialised nations, particularly the United States.

Brazil’s Ricupero, who took office as head of UNCTAD in November 1995, was able to stall the storm, proclaiming he would uphold the organisation’s standard, which he defines as “the union of developing countries.”

UNCTAD’s opportunity for better times ahead comes as a result of the difficult situations faced by other, previously dominant, multilateral organisations, such as the shake-ups in leadership at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

But the episode that most favoured UNCTAD occurred in early December in the US city of Seattle, Washington, when the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Ministerial Conference failed to convoke the new round of international trade talks the major trade powers had expected.

Ricupero’s interpretation of the Seattle fiasco is that it was not an isolated incident but was the last episode in a series of negative events occurring on the global stage.

Seattle occurred after the “painful process” of negotiations held throughout 1999 in Geneva among the WTO’s 135 member countries, pointed out Ricupero during an address at a German Society for Foreign Policy conference.

The WTO suffered other difficult moments last year during the election process of its director general, leading the organisation to implement unprecedented measures that consisted of dividing the six-year term in two, such that New Zealander Mike Moore will head the WTO until September 2002, after which Thailand’s Supachai Pantchpakdi will take the helm.

But troublesome events also hit other international forums involved in the global neo-liberalisation process of the last two decades.

Ricupero cited the total failure that crowned negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) promoted by the industrialised countries that make up the Organisations for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

On other fronts, faced with monetary and financial crises first in Mexico and later in Asia, international agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank failed, at critical moments, to adopt effective policies to handle the the dangerous destabilising effects of short-term financial volatility.

This chain of events, according to Ricupero, demonstrates the “increasing difficulty of governments and international organisations in reaching meaningful and effective decisions.

It is also evidence of the inability of these same actors to engage the world’s civil society in a systematic and ordered debate on the decisions that will profoundly affect the lives of people everywhere.

The current structure of international relations is unable to offer non-state actors – non-governmental, religious and private sector organisations and trade unions – an opportunity to participate in the discussion and decision-making processes for implementing policies.

“The net result is that frustration, fear and concern finally find expression in a confrontational, and sometimes violent attitude,” affirmed Ricupero, alluding to the massive street protests surrounding the WTO’s last two ministerial conferences, in Geneva (1998) and in Seattle.

Ricupero insists that governments must offer their citizens and organisations the opportunity to participate in orderly and respectful dialogue in “debating central issues related to trade, investment, financial crisis, job insecurity and the growing inequalities inside nations and among them.”

Coming on the heels of the Seattle conference and being the first world economic conference of the new century, UNCTAD provides an opportunity that should not be missed, warns the secretary general.

The agenda for the Bangkok meeting is nearly an exact copy of discussions in Seattle, covering the future of world trade, the role of investments and of transnational corporations, the need to adapt the rules of competition – all from a development perspective.

“National governments and international organisations should take advantage of the Bangkok conference to show they are genuinely sensitive to the concerns of people who have been taking to the streets,” said Ricupero, “and demonstrate that they are willing to engage them in a process of open, transparent and mutually respectful dialogue.”

UNCTAD is perfectly situated to become a kind of “world parliament for globalisation,” one that can achieve a realistic degree of compromise that will allow it to make decisions that reflect the majority but respect the rights of the minority, he concluded.