October 2003

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Cancún "Collapse": Victory for Global Justice Movement

Arnie Alpert, AFSC's Program Coordinator for New Hampshire, was in Cancún during the September meetings.

CANCÚN -- The refusal of major developing countries to cave in to United States and European Union demands caused World Trade Organization talks to collapse after five days of intense negotiations at the Mexican beach resort of Cancún. Global justice movement protesters and WTO critics from dozens of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) saw the "failure" of the trade summit as a success for their multiple causes, while representatives of the world's poorest nations left Cancún with mixed feelings.

The leader of the US delegation, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, pledged to carry the US agenda into negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and other regional and bilateral agreements. Fair trade activists, likewise, said they would carry their struggle to Miami, where FTAA negotiators are scheduled to meet in mid-November.

Cancún, memorial to Korean farmer Lee Kyung-hae. Photo: Arnie Alpert

At the meeting's beginning, conventional wisdom deemed conflicts over agriculture to be the main issue of contention. Despite their advocacy of "free trade," the United States and European Union continue to subsidize their own agriculture to the tune of $19 billion and $50 billion respectively each year. According to the UN Development Program, agricultural subsidies from the rich nations amount to six times what they spend on development assistance. Such massive subsidies allow the richest nations to flood developing countries with cheap food, forcing small farmers into deeper poverty and off their land.

At the previous WTO summit, two years ago in Doha, Qatar, the US and EU pledged to phase out their subsidies for export crops. Instead, Bush signed legislation to increase such subsidies. The "round" of negotiations launched in Doha was even named the "Development Round," to highlight the supposed new emphasis on the perspectives and needs of the developing world. But two years later, the major powers were refusing to make more than token concessions.

Developing countries came to Cancún determined to get the US and EU to live up to their Doha pledges, and for the first time formed a cohesive coalition of 21 countries to reinforce their position. Led by Brazil and India, but also including other large developing countries such as Mexico, Argentina, China, the Philippines, Egypt, and South Africa, the G-21 was ready to dig in its heels.

But the rich countries were not willing to let go of their control of the WTO agenda, either in substance or process.

The meeting began with opening statements by whichever governments wanted to state their positions. Then, based on the concerns stated by the members, the chair of the meeting, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez, set up five working groups to tackle the major issues. The plan was that each group would hold a round of talks, scheduled so that countries with smaller delegations could attend them all if they wished. The "facilitators" for each group would meet with the chair, and come up with a draft agreement that was supposed to represent the emerging consensus of WTO member nations. The draft would then become the basis for further negotiation.

When the first two days of talks led to the release of a draft heavily tilted toward the positions of the rich countries, observers could tell pledges of "transparency" and fairness had been violated. The most obvious sign of the rich countries' control over the WTO's inner workings was seen in the proposals to start new talks on the "Singapore issues": investment, government contracts, and two other areas. According to the agreement at the Doha talks, negotiations on the Singapore issues would only begin if an "explicit consensus" of the members had been forged. Coming into Cancun two years later, more than 70 developing countries, or half the membership of the WTO, had indicated they were opposed to negotiating new agreements on the Singapore issues at this time. When the September 13 draft called for opening negotiations on three of the four Singapore issues, including investment, NGO representatives asked, "What part of 'no explicit consensus' don't you understand?"

Similar dynamics had taken place at Doha, where developing countries were handed a text with little time to challenge or change it. Not wanting to be blamed for "failure," and with some victories on issues such as production of generic pharmaceuticals, the developing countries accepted the Doha "consensus."

But Cancun was different. "Better no agreement than a bad agreement," a Brazilian leader told the members of Our World Is Not For Sale, a coalition of WTO critics. While the US tried to muscle its way through (George W. Bush reportedly making calls to foreign capitals to pressure governments to abandon the G-21), the coalition stood mostly firm and even grew. By the end of the week, only El Salvador had left the G-21, and Nigeria had joined.

The leader of the Indian delegation said the draft represented "another instance of the deliberate neglect of the views of a large number of developing countries." First, the draft did not go far enough to reduce the US and EU export subsidies, the central issue of the Ministerial, while calling for the poor countries to further reduce their own tariffs on agricultural imports. Making ironic use of a technical WTO term for policies that bend rules to favor poor countries, India called the proposed agricultural wording an example of "Special and Differential Treatment in favour of developed countries."

Second, with regard to the Singapore issues, the Indians said, "We have to express our disappointment that the revised text has arbitrarily disregarded views and concerns expressed by us the developing countries. We wonder now whether development here refers to only further development of the developed countries."

Saturday, a WTO staff member told NGOs that the "transparency" demands of smaller and weaker countries would not allow for a so-called "green room" process, in which powerful countries meet with a handpicked selection of others, to the exclusion of most WTO members. Late that night, however, a "green room" meeting convened, with the heads of delegations from the US, EU, India, Brazil, Malaysia, China, South Africa, Kenya, and Mexico. The EU proposed a trade: it would abandon its demand for the new talks on investment if the developing countries would give in on agriculture. The members of the G-21, by now known as the G-21 Plus, held firm: the US and EU would have to show movement in their direction on agriculture before other issues would be addressed. Malaysia, which had withstood the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s with currency control measures that could become illegal under liberalized investment rules, also denounced the proposal.

By Sunday morning, the computer screens in the Convention Center which listed information about where and when official meetings were taking place had stopped listing the time for the Closing Ceremony, originally scheduled for that afternoon. Delegates and NGOs wondered if the meeting would be extended to Monday, after their flights were supposed to leave Cancun. But by then, the dynamics were set for the talks to collapse.

With the US and EU refusing to budge on supports for their own export-oriented agriculture, and still insistent that negotiations on investment should begin, the options for compromise were non-existent. By early afternoon, Chairman Derbez decided consensus would not be possible, and brought the meeting to a close. Discussion shifted to who should bear the blame for the failure to reach agreement.

As reported by Por Esto on September 15, delegates from Kenya and Uganda said the talks "were characterized by shameless manipulation by the developed countries without any notice of the interests and voices of African nations." An African diplomat with whom I spoke at the airport said the least developed countries, which thought progress on agriculture had been possible, were the losers. She put the blame on the politicians who headed the delegations and were more pre-occupied with political posturing than negotiating over technical issues.

Leaders of the G-21 Plus confidently explained what they had gained. "We were able to show that a group of developing countries was able to present a platform of reform in agriculture," instead of allowing the rich countries to set the agenda, said the Brazilian leader, Celso Amorim, at a news conference. After additional statements by leaders from Ecuador, South Africa, Argentina, and Egypt, Amorim concluded the news conference by thanking members of civil society for their contributions. If the G-21 stays unified, its position will be stronger when negotiators return to Geneva to pick up the pieces. The next major Ministerial gathering is likely to be held in Hong Kong, perhaps late next year.

Meanwhile, Robert Zoellick, at post-collapse news conference, sneered that some countries had come ready to negotiate, but others were pre-occupied with "won't do rhetoric." He said the United States would take its agenda forward in negotiations for regional and bilateral agreements, such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement and the FTAA.

But there, too, the United States might run up against a new determination by developing countries to set their own agendas. And while the official delegates were wrapping up their business at the Convention Center, activists were meeting across town to plan the next big mobilization, November 17-21 in Miami, where trade ministers from North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean will hold major trade talks on the FTAA (see www.afsc.org/trade for more information). Will the new solidarity between the protestors outside and the poorer countries inside continue to restrain corporate globalization?

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