Proposed negotiations on e-commerce in the WTO are inconvenient for developing countries, for our SMEs and for people in general. by Sally Burch, dec 2017
by RUTH W. GRANT, Duke University, and ROBERT O. KEOHANE
Princeton University
"Debates about globalization have centered on calls to improve accountability to limit abuses of power in world politics. How should we think about global accountability in the absence of global democracy? Who should hold whom to account and according to what standards? Thinking clearly about these questions requires recognizing a distinction, evident in theories of accountability at the nation-state level, between “participation” and “delegation” models of accountability. The distinction
helps to explain why accountability is so problematic at the global level and to clarify alternative possibilities for pragmatic improvements in accountability mechanisms globally. We identify seven types of accountability mechanisms and consider their applicability to states, NGOs, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, and transgovernmental networks. By disaggregating the problem in this
way, we hope to identify opportunities for improving protections against abuses of power at the global level."
"Key provisions of the proposals which are not acceptable from the point of view of important public interests include: a prohibition of requirements to hold data locally; a prohibition of otherwise regulating cross-border data transfers; a prohibition of requiring a local presence for goods/service providers in the country; and a prohibition of requiring open source software in government procurement contracts. It is also proposed that there be no border taxes on digital products.
Furthermore, it is being proposed to effectively give the WTO jurisdiction to adjudicate whether a national technology or data regulation was “reasonable,” “objective,” “transparent,” and “not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service.” WTO’s adjudication processes have historically tended to favour commercial interests, and giving them a blanket supervision of technology/ data regulation may go against governments’ obligation to ensure that services are operated in the public interest and respect human rights and freedoms
In addition, discussions in WTO and in so-called free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations are neither transparent nor inclusive, thus resulting in decisions that do not take into account the interests of all concerned parties. The processes are overly influenced by big business interests."
av Sally Burch; The data that we hand over in exchange for some apparently free services are the basic input of the new digital economy. As they are amassed and processed, they generate enormous wealth.
Professor Drahos: "So farmers, librarians, educators, cultural innovators, young people who want to culturally innovate, who want to parody for example a trade mark and suddenly find themselves threatened become theyre making fun of somebody. I mean there are so many people that have an interest in this. We live in a networked world. I see more and more networking amongst NGOs. I think there is a growing sense in which we have to realize we are not alone. That we can fight back."
Greg Palast intervjews Lamy and Martin Khor in Geneva. "GREG PALAST: But we got our hands on a document you certainly won’t find on the WTO website; something very confidential: a secret demand of the European Union and USA, leaning on emerging nations to
President Obama’s proposed “Copenhagen Accord” aims to shift from developed to developing countries the balance of “common but differentiated responsibilities” that have been bedrock principles of equity in the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Clim
Dans un mémorandum du 30 mars 2010, le Parti pour l’indépendance et le travail (Pit) a analysé les décisions prises par le Président Wade et son gouvernement concernant l’adoption du projet de révision du Contrat à durée déterminée (Cdd) et la loi sur la
"Focus has launched a process to update our strategic perspective and to identify new projects and approaches that will equip us, and our allies, to challenge power and bring about positive change. "
Interview with William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri - Kansas City (UMKC).
Vijay Prasad: " countries like Brazil, India, China, these countries are fighting to bring their own brands to market, to bring their own designs to market, and they are being held back by a global or international intellectual property regime that prevents many of them from pushing their brands forward. I mean, one of the real tricks in the 1980s that they are most upset by was the shift in intellectual property from where you copyright not the process by which you get to, say, a sneaker but the actual sneaker itself. "
Par Zaki Laïdi, directeur de recherche au Centre d'études européennes de Sciences Po, Le monde 15.3.2013: " Les Etats-Unis ont fait le choix politique de tirer un trait sur le multilatéralisme, et Obama n'a fait qu'amplifier ce mouvement. L'Europe doit-elle forcément les suivre dans cette voie sans l'assumer politiquement et sans en mesurer toutes les implications ?" "Si cet accord venait à voir le jour rapidement, il faut tout d'abord prendre conscience qu'il mettra à terre le système commercial multilatéral organisé autour de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC)."
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) has obtained from Wikileaks a complete copy of the consolidated negotiating text for the IP Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). (Copy here, and on the Wikileaks site here: https://wikileaks.org/tpp/) The leaked text was distributed among the Chief Negotiators by the USTR after the 19th Round of Negotiations at Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, in August 27th, 2013.
The WTO and the Global War System Susan George Mark Ritchie Alice Slater Steven Staples November 28, 1999 Hildebrand Hall, Plymouth Congregational Church Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. Forum proceedings edited by Estelle Taylor Northwest Disarmament Coalition "Globalization is creating a three-track society in which there will be the exploiters, the exploited and the outcasts, the people who are not even worth exploiting. "
a paper (2003) by Bhagirath Lal Das (an international authority on trade and WTO issues) on the implications of this and the position that developing counties can take.
Devinder Sharma, NEW DELHI, Nov 28 2013 : "India, a country which lived in the shadows of a ship-to-mouth existence when food would go directly from the ship to hungry mouths has over the years emerged self-sufficient in food production. This historic turnaround was possible only because India had adopted the two planks of what I call a remarkable famine-avoidance strategy: providing farmers with an assured price support for their produce, and introducing a food procurement system that provided for a guaranteed market and at the same time helped get food to the poor in the deficit regions through a network of ration shops. Withdrawing the price support for farmers or freezing it at the de-minimis level of 10 percent as applicable under the Agreement on Agriculture will make farmers vulnerable to the vagaries of the market."
Today in Geneva, WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo announced that governments have failed to reach agreement on a “Bali package” in advance of the December 3-6 Ministerial meeting in that city. The Council of Canadians, along with the global Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network, which has long opposed the talks on "trade facilitation" (see June letter), celebrated this outcome, while urging governments to focus their time in Bali on making permanent changes to WTO rules to allow developing countries to pursue food security.
Global Trends by Martin Khor Monday 2 December 2013 WTO food fight in Bali? Will developing countries be allowed to promote food security schemes that buy food from small farmers and also help poor consumers? This is one the issues at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference next week.
What are GPGs? Report. Definition: "The International Task Force on Global Public Goods has defined global public goods as "issues that are broadly conceived as important to the international community, that for the most part cannot or will not be adequa
"Putin, speaking at a joint news conference with the Kazakh and Belarussian prime ministers, Karim Masimov and Sergei Sidorsky, said the three countries would notify the WTO that their separate negotiations will be stopped." "Brazil, Russia, India and Chi
The WTO is widely misunderstood and misrepresented as an organization designed to promote "free trade." In fact, some of its most economically important rules promote the opposite: the costliest forms of protectionism in the world. The WTO's rules on inte
One common method for Policy Laundering is the use of international treaties which are formulated in secrecy. Afterwards it is not possible to find out who opted for which part of the treaty. Each Person can claim that it was not them who demanded a certa
once the current economic slowdown is over, "we will realise that we have a food crisis" sparked by resource constraints, triggered by a growing world population and rising demand for resource intensive foods, such as meat.
a book by John Cavanagh, Jerry Mander, Sarah Anderson, Andrew Kimbrell, Maude Barlow, Edward Goldsmith, David Korten, Vandana Shiva, Lori Wallach, & many others
Anne-Laure Constantin: here we are, divided between a sense of relief that a bad deal has been avoided, and serious concern that multilateralism is being severely damaged