An Inter Press Service Commentary

NEW YORK, Mar 24 1994(IPS/TWN) - Attempts to bring global environment management into a trade body like the proposed World Trade Organisation (WTO) are politically, ecologically and economically misplaced.

Though motivations differ among experts, there is an emerging consensus that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its proposed successor, the WTO are not the appropriate platforms for dealing with environmental issues.

There is a consensus against unilateralism in the form of future trade sanctions in supposed defence of the environment -- a 'green 301' applied by a 'green GATT'.

While the proposals for a green GATT come in a green guise, they are in reality aimed at trade protectionism and at increasing U.S. domination in global decision making.

The U.S. Administration and environmental groups based in Washington D.C. might display concern for the environment in Third World countries as reason for use of unilateral trade instruments.

But this concern is totally missing when it comes to fulfilling obligations that emerged from the Rio Earth Summit in June, 1992 -- or by acting to stop the U.S. export of environmental problems to the South.

The issue of trade in goods banned at home was buried in GATT, due to U.S. attempts to save trade in pharmaceuticals, pesticides and chemicals. U.S. environmental groups backing sanctions to protect the South's environment, are silent on the role of the U.S. government and corporations in export of environmental hazards.

Northern environment groups must look at their own corporations and governments, and not turn the Third World into a scapegoat for their failure to deal with powerful domestic interests.

These double standards indicate that it is not environmental protection but the protection of U.S. economic and political interests driving proposals for a Green 301 or a Green GATT.

Also such trade related environment measures (TREMs) are technically impracticable in most situations. They track process and production methods (PPMs) using methodology that is at best fruitless.

At worst, since it can only deal with simple primary commodity production, it will be selectively used against primary producers of the South, such as tropical timber producers.

Three conditions must be met for TREMs to be effective and just: when those responsible for environmental damage are clearly identifiable; when ecosystem boundaries allow assessment of the full environmental impact and its internalised ecological costs; and when those affected by the environmental impact, and how, are identifiable.

In such a scenario, the case of non-sustainable rice production in the United States or meat production in the Netherlands will not be taken up -- because of their complexity and because of the fact that such an audit will hurt the powerful interests of the North.

The impact of rice production in the United States and free trade in rice would have to include depletion of soil and water and the intensive use of chemicals. It would have to include energy costs of transport of rice to countries where it was grown where production was protected under domestic agricultural policy.

It will also have to include the social and ecological impact of displacement of rice production in the regions where rice has evolved and where it is ecologically a more suitable crop.

The impact of meat production and trade in Europe would have to include the environmental and social impact of cultivation of tapioca in Thailand or soyabean in India or Brazil.

It would have to include the environmental externalities of intensive factory farming of cows and pigs for meat. It would have to include the impact on African pastoralists and ecosystems when that meat is dumped on African cities. It would have to include the social and economic costs of that poverty.

These are major issues for internalisation of costs and taking into account the environmental costs of PPMs. But GATT is not the place for this because it has no ecological competence, and because its rules apply to governments, not trans-national corporations.

Ecological audits of global production systems will require independent research to throw up the full ecological costs of free trade before we can bring environmental accountability into trade.

In the absence of this homework, TREMs are merely yet another instrument for the assertion of brute force and power, not for the protection of the environment.

When citizens' movements grow, the trade and environment issue will be more democratically and ecologically addressed through new mechanisms and/or institutions.

Maybe Rio's real failure was it did not create an international environment organisation for building up global competence in assessing the environmental impact of international trade. But if the environment is a serious enough issue we should push for a full-bodied environment body under the U.N.E)

Environmental objectives will not be met by making the environment a responsibility of the WTO. A trade organisation has no competence and jurisdiction in this area which is vital to the survival of people everywhere, but even more urgently in the South.

While free traders and Northern environmental groups differ in terms of paradigms, they share certain assumptions about the world.

The 'discovery' of the environment by the industrialised West is like the 'discovery' of America by Columbus. It denies ecological cultures across history and across the world and the grassroots movements of Third World communities who put their lives on the line in struggles to protect their environment -- their land, water and biodiversity which are the very basis of their livelihoods.

Free traders very creatively use the concept of 'sovereignty' -- each country should be able to pursue policies that reflect its values -- and 'diversity' -- domestic variability in institutions, policies and practices -- to resist Northern environmental groups who want globalisation through trade sanctions.

In the South, sovereignty and diversity are the key principles on which the peoples' movements to protect their livelihoods, resources and environment are based.

The South's primary concern about GATT is that in the Uruguay Round it has overstepped its role of rule-making for international trade by undermining domestic policy, practices and institutions in areas like agriculture and intellectual property rights which are better left to domestic policy-making in accordance with the principles of sovereignty and diversity.

By pre-fixing 'trade-related' to any domestic issue, it can now be subjected to external control through trade retaliation.

From a Southern perspective, TREMs are thus scientifically flawed, undemocratic, and asymmetric instruments of power.

If principles of sovereignty and diversity have to be protected as central to democratic governance, not only should we say no to TREMs in WTO, we should also seriously evaluate the Uruguay Round in terms of its violation of these fundamental principles.

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