Geneva, November 1999

WTO Statement

Statement by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom to the Third Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization, Seattle, Washington, 30 November to 3 December 1999.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), founded in 1915 to work for world peace based on economic and social justice, on equity and on equality for all, calls on governments to resist entering into a new round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, from 30 November to 3 December 1999. We urge them to launch instead a thorough assessment of the impact the existing agreements under the WTO have on the development of developing countries and on the life of people and their environment everywhere.

There is a need for regulating trade in order to respond to the needs of global development which benefits all peoples. But there is no place in this new millennium we are entering for consolidating instruments that help the rich dominate over the poor. Unless the WTO becomes transparent and accountable to the people and works for the promotion of trade arrangements that are fair and benefit the people around the globe, there is no room for this organization in our global village.

Studies and reports issued by the United Nations and others show that the gap between the rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor citizens within countries, is widening. UNDP's 1999 Human Development Report (page 3), focusing on the effects of globalization, cites among other indicators the following:

"By the late 1990s the fifth of the world's people living in the highest-income countries had:

-- 86% of world GDP (the bottom fifth just 1 %)

-- 82% of world export market (the bottom fifth just 1 %)

-- The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998, to more than $ 1 trillion."

This widening disparity between rich and poor is causing social disintegration, violent conflicts and wars in all regions of the world.

The WTO trade regime favours the powerful corporations and financial institutions whose interests are to maximize profits for themselves and not to improve the lives of the working people and their families.

The big transnational corporations (TNCs) drive capitalist globalization, the process of consolidating wealth and power through trade liberalization, privatization and deregulation. The WTO negotiated trade agreements reinforce and accelerate the globalization process which aims to remove the obstacles to the global movement of capital and production of goods that have accumulated in the rich capitalist countries. In this process, developing countries and its citizens and the majority of citizens elsewhere are the losers.

The WTO also severely undermines democratic local and global governance , openness and accountability to the people all of which are basic to creating conditions for equitable sharing and stewardship of the world's riches.

This increasing economic and social inequity is taking a particularly heavy toll on women. They provide the bulk of cheap labour in the free trade zones where they are employed in conditions of slavery and where the most basic labour and environmental standards are violated. The ensuing disastrous effects on their and their offsprings' health is a crime that needs redress. An ever larger number of women is driven into prostitution, sex trafficking and slavery by the abject poverty to which they are condemned.

Food security of humankind is threatened by increasing consolidation of land for cash crops and the dominant power of chemical and biogenetic industries over crop cultivation. This is also negatively affecting the bio-diversity and ecosystem of the earth.

These conditions are accelerated by the iniquitous trade agreements negotiated under the WTO.

In summary, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

--Opposes any further liberalization negotiations, especially those which would bring new areas under the WTO regime, such as investment, competition policy and government procurement. We also oppose the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement;

--Calls for a comprehensive, in-depth review and assessment of the impact existing agreements under the WTO have on developing countries and peoples everywhere.

--Demands that every agreement that has been made under the WTO be revised to respect the fundamental rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the different covenants and conventions promoting and protecting human rights, women's rights, labour rights, health and education, and the environment, as well as the commitments made by governments to implement the plans of action resulting from the world conferences on environment and development, population and development, social development, women and the human settlements (Habitat II).