GEB 206 Global Culture and Citizenship

Part III: WTO

1. Why do we talk about WTO?

1.1. WTO is a global issue attracting people’s attention all over the world.

1.2. WTO is a supra-national institution or an inter-state system

1.3. The issues related to WTO show the internal contradictions of the nation-state

1.4. WTO is much less about “free trade” than corporate powers.

2. History: from GATT to WTO

2.1. In 1947, the governments of 23 countries signed an agreement on the international trade of goods between their countries.

2.2. This agreement was based on the ideology of what they called 'free trade” or trade liberalisation.

2.3. The governments that signed the agreement promised to liberalise trade by reducing the protection they provided to local manufacturers in their own country. This protection took the form of taxes on imports (tariffs), controls on the quantity of imports (quotas), and government subsidies and financial assistance.

2.4. This agreement covers more and more kinds of “commodities”, from manufacturing goods (50s), to services (70s), agricultural product and intellectual property (80s and 90s).

2.5. The heads of transnational companies (TNCs) and government leaders believe that to push the 'free trade' agenda more strongly it was necessary to create an international agency with more power than the office of the GATT. Most important of all, this new agency needs the power to punish and discipline member-countries which failed to follow 'free trade” rules. In 1994, they succeeded in getting governments to agree to form this new agency - the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

2.6. All members of WTO are representatives of national government. All disputes are settled by panels (WTO Dispute Settlement Panels and the Appellate Body) with members who are corporate consultants, trade experts, lawyers, economists, etc.

2.7. The decisions made by the unelected trade representatives in the panels might override any legislation of the national government. Moreover, the dispute process is secret and no citizen groups are allowed to participate. Example: Dirty Gasoline, Sea Turtles

3. A “funny” story about rice wine in Taiwan and WTO

3.1. Taiwan joins WTO in 2001. Under the pressure from the US, the local rice wine has to imposed the same tax as the imported whisky, sorghum wine and red wine. The price of rice wine increase by from NT$24 to NT$145.

3.2. Rice wine=whisky? Rice wine is mainly for Chinese cooking in Taiwan rather than drinking.

3.3. What is “fair treatment” or “national treatment”? The tax imposed on rice wine is based on “quantity” rather than “price”.

3.4. The case of Japanese rice wine and Korean rice wine.

3.5. Taiwan representative is so eager to join WTO to make too much compromise.

4. A sad story about cotton

(Please see the slide show)

http://www.geocities.com/hegelchong/teaching_material/Cotton.ppt

For further information, please go to visit:

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/pp020925_cotton.pdf

5. Concluding remarks

5.1. WTO: corporate globalization

5.2. WTO as a myth of “free trade”: doing nothing about “free trade”