1 - 2002

Church and Globalisation

Reform of the World Trade Order

A Catholic Statement on Trade Policies and the Interest of Poor People

The German Commission on Justice and Peace has put the "Political Steering of Economic Globalisation" in the center of its work since 2000. This has resulted in two declarations published in June 2001 - the first on how to make the World Trade Organisation more compatible with the interests of the World’s poor, and the second on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rigths (TRPS) as a threat to human rights of poor people. Following is the Commission’s summary of both statements.

The German Commission for Justice and Peace - a specialist organisation of the Catholic Church with responsibility for development, human rights and peace policy - presents two declarations on reforming the world trade order. The one declaration ("The Reform of the World Trade Organisation and the Interests of the Poor") makes a number of proposals on changing and modifying the World Trade Organisation and its rules and regulations. The other declaration ("The TRIPS Agreement threatens the Human Rights of the Poor") addresses the currently particularly controversial aspects of patent law within the world trade order...

The German Commission for Justice and Peace advocates a World Political Order as a necessary development to provide a globalisation of politics as an accompaniment to the globalisation of the economy and to counteract the spiralling depreciation of politics which is proceeding in view of the globally-networked economy.

The two declarations also demonstrate that the WTO rules and especially their concrete interpretation are far removed from corresponding with the protection of the human rights of the poor and from defending and promoting the justified concerns and interests of the poor. This is illustrated through examples from the Agreement on Agriculture and the TRIPS Agreement:

• For example, the implementation of the Agreement on Agriculture has resulted in many developing countries opening their domestic local markets for products from industrial countries. Since the production and often the export of these products from the North were frequently highly subsidised, the policy resulted - as proven by the FAO in various studies - in the mass decline and demise of smallholder farms in the countries of the South.
  
  
• The TRIPS Agreement threatens the human rights of the poor to health, adequate food and the right of people to freely dispose of their own natural wealth and resources. In concrete terms this means it undermines farmers’ traditional rights to retain seed from the harvest and to process or otherwise use it (farmers’ rights) and encourages growing dependence of the smallholder farmers in developing countries on major international corporations. In fact, the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement essentially also result in the selective breading work of the local population, which constitutes the prerequisites and basis for modern research, is hardly being given any consideration in the form of fair and appropriate benefit or profit sharing arrangements. Seen against the background of the HIV/ AIDS pandemia, the (meanwhile withdrawn) legal action by leading pharmaceuticals manufacturers against South African legislation on the reproduction of drugs has met with great public interest and attention. This case shows that the scope of the exemption provisions to the TRIPS Agreement, which limit patent protection in "circumstances of extreme urgency", has not yet been adequately clarified.
  

The German Commission for Justice and Peace makes a number of demands for the reform of the world trade order:

• The WTO should be affiliated to the UN system by means of international treaties to provide it with a structure which is in harmony with human rights and social and ecological standards. It must be ensured that international human rights agreements and conventions are taken into full consideration within the framework of the WTO regime, meaning that these have priority in cases of regime conflict. The WTO must also acknowledge that the contents of international social and environmental agreements are binding for its own actions.
  
  
• The procedures of the WTO must be transparent and the impact of the agreement on the poor must be systematically surveyed and examined. In order to guarantee this, civil society organisations must be allowed to participate in the WTO negotiations and in its arbitration procedures.
  
  
• The exemption provisions for developing countries (the first of which are already in place today) must be strengthened in the interest of the poor. By contrast, the privileges enjoyed by industrial nations, especially protectionism in the agricultural sector, must be abolished without delay.
  
  
• In the medium term, minimum social standards (ILO core labour standards) have to be integrated into the WTO regime. Particular significance attaches in this respect to the right to form independent trade unions (freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining).
  
  
• Voluntary commitments by corporations to secure human rights and social and ecological standards are to be welcomed and politically strengthened when these are subject to transparent external controls.
  

Justitia et Pax makes the following demands for the reform of the TRIPS Agreement:

• Traditional farmers’ rights relating to the use of seeds must be included in the TRIPS Agreement.
  
  
• Farmers from the South must receive compensation for their selective cultivation work and their traditional knowledge, when corporations develop new varieties on the basis of seeds developed in the South or develop new drugs on the basis of existing biological resources. A system of benefit/profit sharing must be formally accepted by the concerned population before a patent can be issued.
  
  
• Article 31b of the TRIPS Agreement must be interpreted as meaning that it allows governments to issue compulsory licences to produce generic drugs in the case of essential drugs.
  
  
• No country must be forced to issue patents on living organisms.
  
  
• Public research in the agrarian and pharmaceutical sectors must be extended and provided with greater support within the framework of international development cooperation. Cooperation agreements between the public and private sectors should also be concluded in this field (public-private partnership).

Summary of the Declarations on the "Reform of the World Trade Organisation and the Interests of the Poor" and on "The TRIPS Agreement threatens the Human Rights of the Poor", published by the German Commission on Justice and Peace in June 2001 (slightly abridged).