How the World's Poor changed the dynamics of Global Politics by Philip Thornton The independent/UK 9:31pm 16th Sep, 2003   September 15, 2003    WTO/CANCUN, Mexico -- A new alliance of some of the world's poorest countries forged during the last week's global trade talks has changed the entire dynamics of world politics, the foreign minister of Brazil told The Independent yesterday.    In an exclusive interview, Celso Amorim said the formation of the Group of 21 nations (G21) had "reshuffled the cards" by creating a powerful counterweight to Washington and Brussels. The creation of the G21 has been one of the most significant developments of the World Trade Organization meetings that have dominated the Mexican beach resort of Cancun since Wednesday.    Thanks to tough negotiating by the G21, analysts believe that the world's two most powerful economic blocs have been prevented from riding roughshod over the 100-plus countries that make up the developing world.    It has also enhanced the reputation of Brazil - the leading voice in the G21 and the country with the largest democratic support for any left-wing government in the world - and the administration led by the uneducated steelworker Silva da Lula. "We have gained the political initiative," said Mr Amorim on the fringes of the conference.    Its key move was to launch its own proposals for a trade agreement, in effect ambushing attempts by the US and EU to push through a joint plan that would have preserved much of the £220bn that the industrialized farmers hand out to their farmers every year. "We created a new dynamic in the agricultural negotiations that would otherwise have got bogged down," Mr Amorim said.    The EU and US accused the group of being a "marriage of convenience" that would not last the course. The group includes India, China, Argentina and South Africa.    Mr Amorim said it was vital that southern countries had managed to unite in what other ministers described as a "coup of genius". "It suddenly reshuffled the cards" Mr Amorim said. "To keep the unity of the G21 is crucial because then we have a big chance of having a voice on agricultural and other issues".    © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd    15 September 2003    "Jubilant at Cancun flop "by Radio Netherlands economics editor Hans Donker,    While rich industrialised countries lament the collapse of world trade talks in Mexico, the poor  present it as a moral victory, and a sign that they're strong enough to refuse to accede to demands made by the US, the EU and other titans of global trade. But both sides may suffer from this blow to the multilateral trading system, the weak more than the wealthy.    It all looked so simple. Before the summit kicked off in the glitzy Mexican beach resort of Cancun, an agreement was struck on the thorny issue of Tripps, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights", which requires all technologies, including medicines, to be protected. The accord that was reached allowed key developing nations to produce generic drugs themselves and export them to other poor countries. This was hailed as a major breakthrough because poor nations simply cannot afford the original patented drugs needed to treat deadly diseases such as AIDS and malaria.    With the deal already in the bag, it was felt delegates merely needed to cut knots on agriculture and on a set of issues designed to facilitate cross-border trade. But there would be no foregone conclusion in Cancun, as delegates watched how much of the developing world teamed up to create a common front against the European Union and the United States, particularly after the two Western superpowers had cobbled together a framework agreement on agriculture.    Growing unity    From the outset, the developing world had dominated the ministerial conference. Standing united, poor nations saw their confidence grow. As the talks proceeded, they cemented several coalitions, even on issues where their interests clashed. Larger countries in particular tend to have a totally different agenda than the least developed nations, and developing giants like Brazil and India hold opposing views when it comes to opening their borders to imports and exports.    Presenting a united front, the developing world managed to dominate proceedings at the Cancun conference on a range of issues. They refused to discuss investment policy, market access, customs procedures or competition policy – questions generally referred to as the "Singapore issues" after the summit at which they were first raised – as long as no progress was made on agriculture. And as, in the eyes of the developing countries, the EU and the US made no genuine concessions, they decided to follow the lead of the Brazilian delegation and walk out of the conference. Without much rancour though, as demonstrated by comments from Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim: "There are no absolute failures, the same way as there are no absolute successes. This is a process, from which we emerge more strongly than we came into it, and we are sure that as it continues in Geneva in a new ministerial meeting, the G-20+ will continue to play a decisive role, I dare to say, in the agricultural negotiations."    Winners or losers     Burning ritual at CancunNon-governmental organisations like Oxfam or Friends of the Earth, who campaigned in favour of giving more power to poor nations, appear the big winners of the failed trade talks, which passed off without major incidents. Protests by anti-globalisation activists were overshadowed by the suicide of a South Korean farmer on the first day of the conference.    The United States and Europe expressed regret. Dutch Economics Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, who acted as the conference's vice-president, said developing nations are the big losers of this round of WTO-talks.    "For the time being, it means that they are condemned to live with the existing system, and that finding improvements will be much more difficult to do. One may fear a kind of regionalisation process, and those who are the weakest and who do not belong to regions may fall between the train and the platform."    Following the collapse at Cancun, the talks are now to carry on a smaller scale at WTO headquarters in Geneva. With the group of assertive developing countries growing at a steady pace, it is questionable whether these talks will bear fruit. On the final day at Cancun, Indonesia became the latest country to join the G-20+. However, the talks are set to enter calmer waters at Geneva, without the whole world watching, which may be crucial to reaching a solid agreement. Cancun flopped because no agreement could be reached on substance, but emotions certainly contributed to its collapse.    "Cancun: Why it's Good that the Trade Talks Broke Down" by Anuradha Mittal.    ( Published on September 16, 2003 by the Globe and Mail / Canada)    'It's over. Talks have collapsed and there is no agreement," said George Ong'wen, Kenyan delegate at the World Trade Organization talks in Cancun, Mexico. His decision to stand up and walk away from the table on Sunday afternoon forced the chair of the talks, Mexico's Luis Ernesto Derbez, to declare that negotiations had broken down. Thus ended hopes that the 33 countries attending would be able to inject new momentum into negotiations on a global trade pact.    But this was not necessarily bad news: As protesters in Cancun's streets learned the news, festivities started on the barricades. They rightly saw the breakdown as proof of a new resolve and tough-mindedness among developing countries.    The talks failed -- for the second time in four years -- for a simple reason: irreconcilable differences between the rich, developed nations and the poorer and developing nations. The rich 20 per cent of WTO membership continues to ignore every promise made to the other 80 per cent. Once the rich countries' strong-arm tactics kept the poorer countries coming back to the table, ready for compromise. Those tactics just won't work any more. And understanding why is our only hope for finding a way forward.    The majority of the developing countries are opposed to launching new negotiations on the so-called Singapore rules -- proposals on investment, competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement that the richest countries badly want in order to protect multinationals' interests in developing countries -- until more basic issues are resolved. These basic issues are longstanding divisions over the rich countries' agricultural subsidies.    Cancun saw the emergence of a new power group, the G21-plus -- an alliance of developing countries, with Brazil, India and China at its heart. This group demands that the U.S. and EU eliminate their agricultural subsidies, which amount to $1-billion (U.S.) a day. Dismissed as "a grouping of the paralyzed," by Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, the G21-plus represents more than half the world's population and some two-thirds of its farmers. Indeed, Mr. Zoellick's dismissal ensured that the group's demands were heard loud and clear.    Meanwhile, on the streets outside the talks, civil society protesters were making their own strong statements. At "Camp Lee," farmers from around the world marched day and night, among them Koreans commemorating the death of Lee Kyung Hae, who had stabbed himself on the first day of the talks while wearing the sign "WTO Kills Farmers." His death in Cancun -- along with demonstrations and national mobilizations in capitals around the world -- reinforced the G21 delegates' determination to stay true to the will of their people.    For the first three days, the conference focused mainly on the controversial agriculture issue. And, indeed, the richest countries did make some shallow concessions; texts were revised.    Then the conflict intensified over Europe's insistence on resolving the Singapore issues even without an explicit consensus from the member countries to start negotiations. The developing countries were outraged that their concerns around agriculture had been left out.    The WTO has long been plagued by secret negotiations and the use of brute power. Transparency and accountability are essential to any democratic decision-making process. So the text revisions only had the effect of intensifying rather than reducing feelings of polarization.    The collapse of talks raises fundamental questions about the future of the WTO. While various ministers have expressed their commitment to move ahead, the Cancun failure is a severe blow not just for the WTO, but also for other multilateral trade agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).    In the press conference following the collapse of talks, Pascal Lamy, the European Trade Commissioner, branded the WTO as "a medieval organization" and called for fundamental reform of the 146-member group. He conveniently ignored the fact that following the WTO's previous talks in Doha, developing countries had put forward proposals for making future talks more participatory and transparent. It was the EU and other developed nations that blocked these proposals.    Just before Cancun, developing countries and NGOs again tried to raise the issues of internal transparency and improved participation at the WTO. However, any attempts to make the WTO democratic or accountable have been swept aside by the rich countries.    Lack of attention to the demands and legitimate concerns of the developing countries shows that the promise of free trade has failed the poorest and the most vulnerable in our society. It has also disappointed those civil society groups in the richer countries.    But Cancun is not a failure -- for it offers a lesson: Strong-arm tactics are not going to work any more. And no agreement is better than a bad agreement.    Anuradha Mittal is co-director of the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. She was in Cancun.    © 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc
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