A deadly document
The Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), signed into existence on April 15 by trade ministers from some 120 countries, is a deadly document. It condemns the world's poorest nations to deeper poverty — and in those countries, poverty is increasingly a death sentence.
"Least developed nations are the biggest losers under the Uruguay round ... The signing will further entrench the exploitation of the human and primary resources of these countries for the benefit of developed nations and multinationals", says Greens (WA) Senator Dee Margetts.
The agreement, seven years in the making, has yet to be ratified by national governments. It is, however, expected to come into effect by the end of the year. GATT will then disappear to be replaced by a new body, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which has the ability to enforce this and future agreements. This body of Geneva-based bureaucrats will wield enormous powers — it will be the UN of trade.
The agreement, which reduces or eliminates national trading barriers between companies, may well be used to turn back the most effective environmental protection measures. US consumer advocate Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group argues that the WTO will remove issues such as which pesticides can be used in growing food or laws protecting dolphins in fishing for tuna, from national — that is, elected — government.
"The danger for Americans in GATT is that the WTO would find many US health, safety and environmental laws to be illegal trade barriers, which the US must eliminate or face sanctions", says Public Citizen spokesperson on trade Lori Wallach. The same could apply in Australia. As with the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Community under the Maastricht Treaty, GATT/WTO will remove influence over social and environmental matters further from the people.
"Our" exports — code for Australian-based companies — are estimated by the industry commission to grow by $5 billion a year under GATT. Since much of this increase will be in primary products, this growth will put more pressure on our environment.
Intellectual property rights are an important target of GATT and will be stringently safeguarded. In the establishment media this issue is often portrayed benignly in terms of protecting the copyright of musicians and film makers from pirating, which it will do only incidentally. The main impact of the provision is to tighten the monopoly of transnational companies over technology, especially biotechnology, to prevent developing countries accessing this commodity, knowledge, unless they are able to pay a heavy and ongoing price.
GATT will not foreclose on the world recession because it does not expand the world market. It will make some goods cheaper for some Western consumers, but that will likely be offset by governments replacing revenue forgone by reducing tariffs with tax hikes or further cuts in social spending. Of course, there will be some winners — the already rich and powerful.