CUTS CITEE LInkages Update No.9

No.9, October-November 2001

Contents

DMD: A Balancing Act on Labour and Environment

News Roundup

Agreement to End Child Labour on Cocoa Farms

ILO’s Mission to Assess Government Actions

UNDP Launches Trust Funds for Energy and Environment

US House Brings Human Rights Bill for Sudan

Event Report

Symposium on Linkages: How do we bridge the gap? London 10^th October 2001 and Washington DC 19^th October 2001

Emerging Issues and Viewpoints

Creating WEO is not a Suitable Option

Open Markets and Growth Important for Improving Labour Standards: Zoellick

EU Insists on Environment Rules

Event Announcement

Launch Meeting of the ‘Investment for Development’ Project, 13-14 December 2001, Jaipur, India

Editor’s Note

DMD: A Balancing Act on Labour and Environment

On 26^th September 2001, the Chairman of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) General Council (GC) submitted the first draft of the Doha Ministerial Declaration (DMD) for the consideration of delegations. The Declaration provides a picture of the outcome that can be expected at Doha.

On issues of labour and environment, the DMD seems to have done a balancing act. On the one hand, by endorsing the Singapore Ministerial Declaration on core labour standards it tries to impress upon those who are staunch opponents of its inclusion in the WTO. On the other hand, on trade and environment the DMD puts emphasis on only those items of the 10-point agenda of the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) on which the European Union (EU) is more interested. In EU’s environmental agenda, the three issues which are on priority list are multilateral environment agreements (MEAs), eco-labelling and precautionary principle.

There are some hidden messages from the DMD as well. First, labour standards is down for the time being but definitely not out of the ambit of the WTO. Mere mention of labour standards in the DMD indicates that the WTO is still holding on to it as it did in the Singapore Ministerial Declaration.

Secondly, there is a push to bring environment into the mainstream. Besides instructing CTE and Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade to pursue their discussion on MEAs and eco-labelling respectively, the DMD also talks about supply of services. It means that agencies of developed countries would certify the environmental standards of developing countries.

Though the status of labour and environment is different in the WTO, but one thing is common, i.e. both are non-trade issues. Linking them with trade would adversely affect the exports of developing countries, which in turn may have negative impact on economic growth. The economic growth is essential as it enables national governments to spend more on improving labour and environmental standards. This has been empirically proved time and again.

Pradeep S. Mehta,

Editor

News Roundup

Agreement to End Child Labour on Cocoa Farms

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) welcomed the agreement between two members of the US Congress and representatives of the world chocolate industry to eliminate child slavery in cocoa plantations in West Africa, and also to end the worst forms of child labour in the global cocoa-chocolate sector.

The “Harkin-Engel Protocol”, named after US Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Elliott Engel, resulted in the agreement being signed in Washington to better identify and address abusive child labour practices in the cocoa-growing areas of West Africa.

The ILO, the International Union of Food and Allied Workers (IUF), the anti-slavery group “Free the Slaves” and the National Consumers League (NCL) were initial members of an advisory group that participated in the agreement. For more information: www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/2001/32.htm

ILO’s Mission to Assess Government Actions

An ILO High Level Team, headed by former Governor-General of Australia Sir Ninian Stephen was sent to Myanmar for a three weeks mission to assess the actions by the Government concerning forced labour.

This is for the first time that the ILO had an opportunity to travel around Myanmar to make its own direct assessment of the forced labour situation. The team’s specific mandate is to assess the practical implementation and actual impact on that situation of various legislative, executive and administrative measures announced by the Government in response to previous ILO action.

The team’s report will be considered by the ILO Governing Body, which will meet in Geneva, Switzerland in November 2001. For more information: www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/2001/29.htm

UNDP Launches Trust Funds for Energy and Environment

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched two major thematic trust funds in September 2001 to help countries pursue environmentally sound policies and promote energy as an engine for economic growth.

The new funds will complement existing global efforts by providing a window for the donor community to address local environment and energy needs that are not currently eligible for financing from other funds. The financial target for each of the new trust funds is US$60mn over a period of three years.

The Thematic Trust Fund for Environment will boost UNDP’s efforts in helping countries put in place effective policies and institutions that would both protect the environment and reduce poverty. The fund will also ensure alignment between national, regional and global environmental efforts. For more information: www.undp.org/dpa/pressrelease/releases/2001/september/10sept01.html

US House Brings Human Rights Bill for Sudan

A US congressional campaign to punish companies doing business with Sudan is forcing a debate over whether human rights should take precedence over the importance of keeping US capital markets open to foreigners.

The controversy, sparked by concern over reports of government persecution of Sudan’s Christians and enslavement of people from the country’s Southern Zone, is seen by combatants as a test case for an issue that wasn’t on the radar until this past decade. Before then, foreign access to US capital markets was limited mostly to major companies from rich nations. Today, the US competes with other global money Centres for worldwide underwriting business.

There is a pair of provisions in the House of Representatives version of the Sudan Peace Act that would bar companies “engaged in the development of oil or gas in Sudan from raising capital in the US” or trading their securities in any US market. The version passed by the senate doesn’t include those provisions.

Event Report

Linkages: How do we bridge the gap?

CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment (CUTS-CITEE), Jaipur, India in association with the London School of Economics and Political Science organised a one-day symposium titled “Linkages: How do we bridge the gap?” at London on 10^th October 2001. In Washington DC, the event was organised on 19^th October 2001 and in association with The Brookings Institution. For more information, please visit: http://www.cuts-international.org/press-sept-oct01.htm#press

Emerging Issues and Viewpoints

Creating WEO is not a Suitable Option

The International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), Canada has released its latest working paper, Whither MEAs? The role of international environmental management in the trade and environment agenda, written by Konrad Von Moltke. It aims to influence the debates in the lead-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg, in September 2002 and the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) process on international environmental governance in particular.

The paper surveys the current system of multilateral environment agreements (MEAs), probing for opportunities to strengthen it. It considers and rejects the idea of a World Environment Organisation (WEO), and proposes two other options, better fitted to the nature of environmental issues: a) ‘clustering’ of MEAs into groups that share common problem structures; and b) joint approach to various institutions used in common by most MEAs, among them science assessment and implementation review. For complete paper in pdf form: www.iisd.org/pdf/trade_whither_meas.pdf

Open Markets and Growth Important for Improving Labour Standards: Zoellick

In a press conference at the WTO Mini-Ministerial Meeting on September 1 2001 in Mexico City, US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick once again reiterated Bush administration’s position on core labour standards. He said that President Bush has made it quite clear that the most important step in terms of improving labour standards around the world is to try to open markets and encourage growth.

He further added that one of the best ways to improve labour standards is to support the ILO, and atleast among some countries, there is an interest in making sure that the ILO’s work is done in a cooperative fashion with the WTO’s work. For full transcript: www.ustr.gov/speech-text/zoellick/index.shtml

EU Insists on Environment Rules

Franz Fischler, European Union’s farm commissioner, has launched a stinging attack on WTO members for opposing the EU’s demands for environmental rules to be on the agenda of a planned new round of global trade talks. He warned that a failure to respect the EU’s wishes would increase public hostility to the WTO in Europe.

Brussels is having difficulty winning its demands for WTO talks on the environment because they make sense only in terms of EU’s internal politics. There are strong suspicions that France has now forced Brussels explicitly to link agriculture and environment in the WTO, in order to avoid Green politicians, activists and farmers before next year’s election. For full text:

http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=011008001517&query=+eu+insists+on+environment+rules

Event Announcement

Launch Meeting of the ‘Investment for Development’ Project, 13-14 December 2001, Jaipur, India

CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment (CUTS-CITEE) will be conducting a two-year research and advocacy project titled “Investment for Development” to create awareness and build capacity on investment regimes and international investment issues in selected developing and transition economies in collaboration with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and with the support of Department for International Development (DFID), United Kingdom.

Project-countries are Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Brazil and Hungary. The purpose of the launch meeting is to present the preliminary results of the research by partners and to bring together international experts on investment to debate issues surrounding investment such as the relationship between investment and development and how countries can design policies that “make investment work”. For more information, please see: www.cuts-international.org/ifd-event.htm

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