REDWOOD NEEDLES Presented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, The REDWOOD NEEDLES Return to Article Menu From the Chair: Information on the World Trade Organization The following article describes the shocking activities of the World Trade Organization. Sierrans and other environmentalists, union members, women's organizations and countless others plan to protest against the abuses of the World Trade Organization at the Third Ministerial Summit of the WTO, being held from Nov. 30 - Dec. 3 in Seattle. -Marianne de Sobrino, Chair, Redwood Chapter ---------------------------- At first glance, the goals of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seem innocent enough: to promote global trade and raise living standards. Instead, the WTO has emerged as a powerful force for rolling back hard won health and environmental laws. >Sacrificing Democracy Creation of the 134-member WTO on January 1, 1995 shifted enormous power from local, state, and national governments to unaccountable international bureaucrats. Many international trade agreements override state and federal laws protecting the environment, food, safety, and labor conditions. Trade dispute panels of the WTO have the right to review and penalize any act of any government that in any way compromises WTO rules. These rules are designed to limit government actions that affect trade. So far, WTO panels have ruled against: • Europe's ban on beef treated with growth hormones suspected of causing cancer in humans. • US clean gasoline rules under the Clean Air Act designed to reduce urban smog. • US requirements that countries selling shrimp in the US market use turtle escape devices to save endangered sea turtles. The United States has eagerly complied with WTO rulings--and weakened our environmental laws -- to strengthen its hand in pressuring foreign governments to comply with WTO rulings: • The US has set weak standards to control imported agricultural and forest pests to avoid violating WTO rules. Already, invasive pests cost the US economy $138 billion per year. • The US has weakened border food inspections to comply with trade rules, possibly causing a recent spate of food poisonings. • The US has attacked proposed new standards to improve auto fuel efficiency in Japan and to reduce toxic pollution from electronic equipment in Europe as WTO violations. Government of, by, and for the Corporations Creation of the WTO has also shifted enormous power over environmental and health law from ordinary citizens to the corporations that dominate trade policy. More than 500 corporate lobbyists sit on 16 committees that advise the US Trade Representative (USTR)--the White House office in charge of trade negotiations. These committees are closed to public interest groups. Their deliberations are treated as national security secrets. In the past several years, Congress has rightly rejected industry-backed bills that would have weakened environmental protection laws at home. Corporate lobbyists have simply carried some of these same proposals to the USTR where they are built into "trade agreements." What You Can Do • Write! Send a letter to the editor calling for an environmentally responsible trade policy. • Organize! Help form a local responsible trade committee. • Join! Join our listserve: send an e-mail to dan.seligman@sierraclub.org Write to your representative at: House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Write to Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer at: U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510. Urge them to insist that international trade agreements must not compromise the environment--this should apply to any future agreements, including those made in Seattle, and to closing up the loopholes in existing agreements such as GATT and NAFTA. The preceding article has been excerpted from the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Campaign website, and from an article by Arthur Freyer that appeared in the Sierra Club newsletter, The Yodeler. For more information, contact: Arthur Freyer at freyer@earthlink.net or (510)549-2621; or the Dan Seligman of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program, at (202)675-2387 or dan.seligman@sierraclub.org, 408 C St, NW, Washington, DC 20002.   Return to Article Menu Last updated on 12/01/99 Comments or suggestions? Drop us a line at heyneedles@aol.com