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WTO critics predict Cancun meeting will flop Tue September 2, 2003 06:49 PM ET WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Critics of the World Trade Organization predicted on Tuesday the group's upcoming meeting in Cancun, Mexico, would fail because of sharp differences between rich and poor countries. Sarah Larrain, an activist with the Chilean Ecological Action Network, said the Cancun meeting was destined to be "another Seattle," referring to the WTO's disastrous December 1999 meeting that ended in failure when governments could not agree on terms for starting new world trade talks. WTO members finally launched a new round of negotiations at their meeting two years later in Doha, Qatar, just a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Heading into next week's stock-taking session in Cancun, countries remain far apart on agriculture and other key issues such as whether to expand the negotiations in new areas like investment and competition policy. For the meeting to succeed, governments need to agree on a broad framework for negotiations on agriculture, services and manufactured goods, a task that appears challenging given their wide differences. Seattle was also marked by fierce street battles between the police and anti-globalization protesters. John Cavanagh, vice president of the International Forum on Globalization, said there would be some "street heat" in Cancun but probably not as much in Seattle. "You will likely have well over 10,000 primarily peasant and small farmer groups on the street, but in more peaceful protests," Cavanagh said in a telephone call with reporters. Many Mexican farmers feel they have fared badly under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which required Mexico to lower its tariffs on farm goods but allow the United States to maintain huge domestic farm subsidies. The United States still hopes to make enough progress at the Cancun meeting to keep the trade talks on track to conclude by the current target of January 2005. A variety of factors, ranging from lingering ill feeling over the war in Iraq and more skeptical governments in Brazil and other countries in Latin America, stand in the way of reaching that goal. "There are more developing countries who are willing to raise questions with business as usual," Cavanagh said. Return to newsroom page FAIR USE NOTICE: This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The International Forum on Globalization is making this article available in our efforts to advance the understanding of environmental, corporate accountability, human rights, labor rights, social justice issues, etc. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |