Dear Friends,

The Indian People’s Campaign Against WTO (IPCAWTO) held a meeting on 27 July 2006 in New Delhi to take stock of the developments in the Doha Round of negotiations in WTO. Shri VP Singh (Former Prime Minister of India), Com. Prakash Karat (Communist Party of India-Marxist), Com. AB Bardhan (Communist Party of India), Dr. Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), Mr. NK Shukla (All India Kisan Sabha), Mr. BK. Keayla (National Working Group on Patent Laws), Mr. Vijay Jawandhia (Shetkari Sanghathan), Dr. Devinder Sharma (Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security) and Mr. Prabhas Joshi (Journalist) addressed the meeting amongst others.

At the end of the meeting a statement and an action plan were adopted. The statement is attached while the action plan will be sent to you later.

Regards,
S.P. Shukla
(Convenor - IPCAWTO)

Statement from Indian People’s Campaign Against WTO (IPCAWTO)

27 July 2006

1. The Doha Round of Trade negotiations has been suspended following an unsuccessful meeting of the G-6 in Geneva. The blatantly undemocratic nature of the WTO was once again evident: The “suspension” was declared by the D.G. of WTO at the behest of the exclusive G-6 who could not save their non-transparent negotiations from a deadlock as a result of the intransigent stance of the trade majors. The large majority of the membership of WTO remained a mute and helpless spectator to this denouement. In this, the deadlock is not of the kind that the WTO had witnessed earlier in Seattle or more recently in Cancun.

2. The suspension of the negotiations, however, offers a temporary reprieve to developing countries as the Round was loaded against developing countries right from its beginning, notwithstanding the rich countries’ gimmick of naming it a ’Development Round. But there is no cause whatsoever for any euphoria or even complacency in the premature belief that the Round is dead.

3. The hopes raised by the 2003 Cancun meeting where developing countries forced a deadlock were soon dampened by the so-called July 2004 Framework agreement, a retrograde development where India and Brazil played a contributory role. The 2005 Hong Kong meeting again witnessed India joining hands with USA on the issue of services, breaking ranks with a large majority of developing countries. While no modalities of negotiations in agriculture and non-agriculture market access could be finalised at Hong Kong, indications were already available about the likely cave-in by prominent developing countries susceptible to the overt and covert pressure tactics of developed countries. What has happened now is not attributable entirely or largely to the emerging solidarity of developing countries. The primary cause of the collapse of negotiations is the deep differences between EU and US on the issue of agriculture, as indeed was the case earlier in the Uruguay Round; vis-à-vis the deadlock at Montreal in 1988, or that in Brussels in 1990. The US in is no mood to concede even a paper reduction in the ceilings on domestic subsidies, not to talk of any real cuts. This is due as much to the agri-business lobby as to the impending elections to the US Congress in November 2006. EU considers this as a totally intransigent position warranting no further opening up of its market for US products (beef, for example). Both are, however, united in pressing developing countries to open their markets, in agricultural, industrial and services sectors. US has been critical of both developing countries as well as EU that their offers in regard to agriculture are too niggardly and hedged in by exceptions. The so-called three S’ (Special Products, Special Safeguard Mechanism and Sensitive Products) constitute the special bugbears for the USTR.

4. There has been already a good deal of give away on the part of developing countries, particularly, India and Brazil, in the area of Non Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) or industrial products, as they have agreed to accept the Swiss formula of tariff cuts with low coefficients, involving more than proportionate, deep tariff cuts and almost universal bindings. This happened in spite of strong opposition by smaller developing countries to this formula because they feared it would cause loss of policy space and de-industrialisation.

5. In the area of Services, India still perceives its interests as co-terminus with the small but highly influential lobby of business process outsourcing industry and exporters of software services. Consequently it had joined hands with US at the Hong Kong meeting, thus breaking ranks with the large majority of developing countries. It has offered a wide spectrum of services for opening up to foreign service providers. It has also been pushing the negotiations on the rules to circumscribe the policy space for domestic regulations in services sector across the board. Thus this card too has been played out.

6. At the Press Conference held after the suspension of the negotiations, the EU Trade Commissioner, approvingly mentioned that India’s Trade Minister Kamal Nath had shown ’flexibility’ and offered to negotiate the number and treatment of Special Products. Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism are the two measures repeatedly cited by our negotiators as constituting the effective and adequate mechanism to protect the interests of our farmers. They claim that virtually all important agricultural crops and our small and marginal peasants could be thus protected from unfair competition. These claims are questionable ab initio. But Mandelson’s praise for Kamal Nath is proof enough that even these questionable and weak mechanisms sought to be built in ostensibly to protect the interest of our agriculture are now up for negotiations, that is to say, for further dilution.

7. It is not unlikely that in the coming months, EU and US come to some understanding on agriculture (as indeed they have done in the past in reaching the Blair House Agreement which resolved the USA-EEC deadlock on agriculture and paved the way in 1993 for the ramming of the notorious Dunkel Draft down the throat of developing countries). The heat will then be on developing countries to open their markets in agriculture, industrial products and services on the terms laid down by the two trade majors. At that point developing countries, particularly India, will have no cards to play. And Kamal Nath’s brave statements that he is not prepared to negotiate away the livelihood of millions of Indian peasants will turn out to be mere sound and fury.

8. This development must be seen in the broader context of the neo-liberal economic policies being implemented across sectors in India autonomously by successive governments, independent of the WTO. The policies of the present UPA government and the blatant steps being taken by various state governments to facilitate the corporate takeover of the agricultural sector calls for the launch of a nationwide peoples’ movement.

9. IPCAWTO, therefore, demands that Government of India use the opportunity provided by the present collapse of the negotiations to harden its stand

a. to insist on the right to impose quantitative restrictions on imports of agricultural products;

b. not to accept the universal bindings and deep tariff cuts on industrial goods;

c. to exclude the forestry, fishery and mining sectors from the NAMA negotiations in view of the livelihood implications for the vulnerable sections of our people dependent on these sectors;

d. to revise its offers in the GATS negotiations drastically and defeat the moves of developed countries to circumscribe the area of domestic regulations;

e. to revive the demand for the review of TRIPS mandated in the TRIPS Agreement and insist on the General Public License in Software and Bio-technology.

10. IPCAWTO further demands that simultaneously the GOI initiate a move for an inter -developing country Agreement on Trade and Cooperation in Agriculture based on a paradigm entirely different from the paradigm of the present AoA which is biased in favour of temperate zone, mechanised, large-scale, agri-business- driven, trade-oriented and peasant-insensitive agriculture. The new paradigm will eschew all these negative characteristics: it will be peasant-centric; it will be founded on concepts of food sovereignty and livelihood security; it will be based on the solidarity of the peasantry of the third world and their mutual cooperation based on their diverse needs and capabilities.

Participants:

Mr. K. Ashok Rao, National Confederation of Officers Associations
Mr. Dunu Roy, Sajha Manch, Delhi
Dr. Dinesh Abrol, All India People’s Science Network
Mr. Rakesh Tikait, Bharatiya Kisan Union
Mr. Raghu Thakur, Loktantrick Samajwadi Party, Delhi
Mr. Vishnu Dixit, Loktantrick Samajwadi Party, Delhi
Prof. Sanjeev Ghotge, World Institute of Sustainable Energy, Pune
Mr. Rajeev Dimri, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU)
Mr. Prasanjeet Bose, Communist Party of India-Marxist
Ms. Pratibha Shinde, Lok Sanghrash Morcha, Maharashtra & Gujarat
Mr. Suporno Lahiri, Peoples’ Forum against ADB
Mr. Prafulla Samantra, Lok Shakti Abhiyan, Berhampur, Orissa
Mr. Ashok Sharma, Financial Express, Delhi
Mr. Benny Kuruvilla, Focus on the Global South, Mumbai
Mr. Afsar H. Jafri, Focus on the Global South, Mumbai
Ms. Vidya Rangan, Equations, Bangalore
Ms. Dipika D’souza, Indian Center for Human Rights and Law, Mumbai
Mr. Dharmender Malik, Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movement
Mr. Robin Stevens, South Asian Network for Social & Agricultural Development, Delhi
Ms. Rakhi Sehgal, National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers, Delhi
Mr. Adil Ali, The Hunger Project, Delhi
Ms. Manshi Asher, National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune
Mr. Vijoo Krishnan, Forum for Science and Development, Bangalore
Mr. Biplov Choudhary, Centre for Trade and Development, Delhi
Mr. Kumar Gautam, Centre for Trade and Development, Delhi
Mr. Anand Sharma, Advocate, Shimla
Ms. Madhushree Banarjee, Oxfam Trust, Delhi
Mr. H.S. Sharma, Ex National Consultant of FAO for India, Delhi
Mr. Amit Singh, Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Mr. Asmita, Research Scholar, Cornell University,
And Others

S. P. Shukla
Convenor
Indian People’s Campaign Against WTO
3260, Sector ’D’, Pocket ’A’
Vasant Kunj
New Delhi - 110 030
INDIA
Email: manjuspshukla gmail.com;
wto.virodhi gmail.com