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Media Advisory For immediate release
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Media Advisory For immediate release
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WTO deal endangers environment, development :
In a rush to secure a deal governments turned a blind eye to potential environmental and social implications. Friends of the Earth warned that the deal establishes an agenda for further negotiations that could threaten people and the environment worldwide ''Governments are trading away our environment at the WTO. The WTO was already used as a weapon against environmental protection and public health. With this deal, even more environmentally and socially sensitive sectors will be liberalised. Corporate lobby groups will be the big winners, the environment and the poor the big losers, '' said Alexandra Wandel of Friends of the Earth. [3] In particular, the agreement on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) threatens harm to the environment and developing country economies, according to Friends of the Earth International. The agreement proposes to include effectively all natural resources for either partial or complete liberalisation. [1] Despite some ambiguous language in the NAMA agreement on the concerns of developing countries, developing countries could face the loss of their ability to use national policies to promote development. The NAMA agreement could further deepen the deindustrialisation crisis in these countries, thus accelerating unemployment and poverty and forcing countries to rely more heavily on unsustainable and harmful exports of natural resources. The WTO agreement also puts undue pressure on developing countries to open up service sectors. Friends of the Earth believes these negotiations pose a threat to the ability of countries to regulate basic services in the pursuit of social and development goals. The WTO framework agreement ignores civil society calls to exempt essential services, such as education, water, health, and energy. [2] The so-called concessions by the EU and US in the agricultural
negotiations turn out to be empty promises, according to Friends of the
Earth. The commitment to eliminate export subsidies credits is missing
any substance as no end date is mentioned in the text. On domestic support
for agriculture, language in the framework agreement clearly opens the Friend of the Earth also criticized the extremely secretive and closed process used for negotiations in Geneva, including the exclusion of many country negotiators from key negotiating sessions and the complete barring of non-governmental organizations from the negotiating venue. David Waskow of Friends of the Earth US said: ''The WTO process is
completely undemocratic, and this framework agreement is the result. If
the WTO proceeds on the course just laid out, these negotiations will pose
a serious threat to people and the environment around the world." For more information contact Friends of the Earth: In Europe In the US In Asia NOTES TO EDITORS (1) All you need to know about NAMA: Why NAMA threatens development and
environment, available at (3) Based on already existing WTO agreements, a US-led coalition is using the WTO to undermine countries' rights to restric trade in genetically modified organisms, See http://www.bite-back.org
Friends of the Earth
Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the
protection of the environment, |