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View from the South
The developing countries are feeling a negotiation fatigue, because too many items have been brought into the ambit of Sustainable Development
Sajid Kazmi
WSSD marks the tenth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit--the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and hence it is often referred to as Rio+10. The world leaders agreed at Rio to a set of principles for meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations.
Some of the principles that they agreed upon say that human beings are at the centre of concern for sustainable development and the right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. They call upon the states to reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote appropriate demographic policies to achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people.
After ten years, these principles for sustainable development remain largely unfulfilled. As a result, bio-diversity loss, deforestation, climate change, extinction of species, and a boom in the world's population are damaging our priceless ecological resources. Human health is at risk worldwide due to pollution, water shortages, and degradation of farmland. In addition, a growing gap separates developing and developed nations, and a significant percentage of the world's people live in poverty. Moreover, growing conflicts as a result of these unresolved problems threaten world peace, dislocate people from conflict-ridden areas and put a heavy burden on the available resources in the host countries. The examples of Afghanistan and Sierra Leon are cases in point. Now the world cannot afford another decade of insufficient action. The World Summit offers us a rare opportunity to build international momentum for a sustainable future, in the twenty-first century and beyond.
The nations should build on the good things highlighted in Rio like the establishment of the environment-development link, North-South partnerships, government-NGO dialogues and equity between countries. There is a need to convert vision to plan and subsequently plan to action. The important issue of the negative aspects of unfettered globalisation should also be discussed at length such as corporate farming and imposition of non-tariff barriers. Governments should regulate companies through a framework convention of corporate accountability, regulation of financial markets, re-examining of Bretton Woods Institutions, reformation of WTO trade rules and review of global governance.
There are fears that whatever happens in Johannesburg would be subservient to the present trade regime fostered by the WTO with its tunnel focus on free trade to the neglect of sustainable development. Moreover, additional issues have been included in the final declaration of the Doha WTO Ministerial including investment, competition policy, and government procurement and trade facilitation. Paras 20 to 27 of the Doha Final Declaration relate to the new issues. These paras explicitly mention that, "We agree that negotiations will take place after the 5th Session of the Ministerial Conference, on the basis of a decision to be taken, by explicit consensus."
Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are among the countries that oppose the inclusion of such new issues due to the likely negative impact they will have on sustainable development in poor countries. Tanzania spoke on behalf of least developed countries and indicated the reasons why these issues should not be a part of the negotiations. The reasons are as follows:
a) This will overburden the WTO, and the issues that are important with regards to developing countries, such as implementation of earlier agreements, as has happened before.
b) The developing countries are feeling a negotiation fatigue. There are so many items that have been brought into the ambit of the WTO. If we look at the staffing strength of the developing countries at Geneva, it reveals that the staff hardly finds any time to concentrate on any agenda item usefully. One officer has to shuttle among many parallel meetings in a day. The rich countries have many more resources for analyses and staffing.
c) The unfinished agenda of the Uruguay Round, ie implementation of decisions already taken such as implementation of Special and Differential Treatment for the developing countries (SDTs) and the agreements on agriculture and textiles. There are provisions of review in many of the agreements, but none have so far been carried out. The correction of imbalances is needed in several WTO agreements including subsidies and countervailing measures, anti-dumping, TRIPS and TRIMS since these have major repercussions for development policy.
d) It is time for developing countries to be proactive rather than reactive in terms of suggesting issues of removal of trade barriers and debt relief.
e) Capacity building has been mentioned several times in the WTO agreements. The developing countries should ask the developed world to fulfill promises made in this regard.
f) New obligations will emerge from the introduction of new issues. A study process under various working groups should continue with a special focus on the socio-economic implications of placing new obligations on developing countries.
If the new issues are forced in the WTO, the developing countries fear a loss of economic sovereignty and a limitation in their abilities to construct national policies according to their development needs.
At the recently concluded Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) III meeting, the US, along with Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, actively opposed any action to boost renewable energy as part of the outcome of the Summit. Venezuela, as chair of G-77, should have been promoting developing country rather than oil exporter interests. Such positions should be contested at the forthcoming Summit.
Pakistan and other developing countries should ask the developed world to phase out environmentally harmful and trade-distorting subsidies in agriculture, fishery and forestry and redirect freed up resources towards environment-friendly and socially viable activities. They should also emphasise the need for free movement of labour, along with free movement of capital to equalise wage rates across the poor and rich nations and more equitably redistribute income.
Up until now, the West has promoted free movement of capital only, ignoring free movement of labour, whereas the developing world has a comparative advantage and abundance of supply. Free movement of capital is leading to economic imperialism spearheaded by the multinationals like Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Glaxo-Welcome and Smithkline-Beecham to name a few. Marine mining by trawlers owned by big companies is playing havoc with the environment and creating economic hardships for local fisher folk. Moreover, the majority of the developing countries are in a state of high indebtedness that limits the fiscal space they have to implement sustainable development policies. Thus, debt swap packages are highly recommended to give relief to the resource poor countries.
Finally, we are of the view that International Environmental Governance (IEG) should be strengthened keeping in view the apprehensions of the developing countries that environmental standards should not be used in a protectionist manner. Strengthening of IEG means the operationalisation of the fundamental principle of "Common but Differentiated Responsibility", transfer of environmentally sound technology, the provision of new and additional financial resources, and capacity building for meaningful participation in IEG and implementation of sustainable development.
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