Disputes at and after the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle
(see 鈥淔ree for all鈥�)
will doubtless generate confusion鈥攂ut the Web can
help explain it all. Start at the disputes section of the WTO site at
www.wto.org/wto/dispute/dispute.htm, which will help you find out what each
country really cares about.
Meanwhile, the WTO鈥檚 official advisory body on food safety, the UN鈥檚 Codex
Alimentarius Commission, tries to reach science-based agreements about food
trade before disputes arise
(www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/ESN/codex/Default.htm).
It will have a central role in the looming debates over genetically modified (GM) foods.
So far, disputes have dominated WTO decision-making. Imagine one side says
hormone-treated meat is safe, and the other side says it isn鈥檛 and refuses to
import it. In such a case, three people鈥攏ot necessarily scientific
experts鈥攈ear masses of complicated science from each side over a short
space of time, then arbitrate. There is no effective right to appeal. Is this
any way to run a global economy?
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Many say it isn鈥檛. Public Citizen, consumer champion Ralph Nader鈥檚 US-based
pressure group, discusses the often secondary role played by science in WTO
decision-making (www.citizen.org/pctrade/gattwto/wto-book.pdf). Meanwhile,
Canadian campaigners will help you through the economics: try their fun site at
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/question/splash.html. The Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy (www.iatp.org) promotes sustainable farming鈥攁
big issue for developing countries that could get lost amid squabbles over GM
food.
Just reading through the public meetings in Seattle listed by the
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (www.ictsd.org) is
dizzying.
This consortium of campaigners, from the World Wide Fund for Nature to the
Quakers, has posted the draft agreements that ministers will sign, or not, on
its site鈥� and it will be posting updates throughout the meeting.
