WEDO
Primer: Women & Trade
November 1999
*Decision-making
and governance*Economic equity*Health and safety* Indigenous knowledge
A
Gender Agenda for the World Trade Organization
The World Trade
Organization (WTO) evolved from the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), an agreement between the architects of the Bretton Woods
institutions-the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). GATT
included a provision for establishing the International Trade Organization
(ITO), a UN specialized agency that would regulate global trade. The ultimate
goal was free trade with the objective of full employment for all.
For various
reasons, the ITO initiative failed. However, over time, the GATT was expanded
and given more authority even though in legal terms, it was only a temporary
organization. The result has been the creation of an international trading
system without constraints and with a far greater authority than was originally
intended. Moreover, its objective has changed from trade that would result in
full employment, to trade for the sake of trade.
The GATT has
expanded trade into all aspects of our lives. This encroachment has occurred
incrementally, beginning with rules to reduce tariffs for special categories of
products. The GATT followed with rules to eradicate tariffs, then to eradicate
non-tariff barriers to trade. These include food safety laws, product
standards, the use of tax incentives and investment policy as well as any other
domestic laws that affect trade. It then wrote rules to cover trade related
investment, trade related intellectual property and health and safety standards
for products being traded.
The WTO was
established on January 1, 1995 upon the completion of the 1986-1994 Uruguay
Round of trade negotiations. It has since become the primary regulator of
international trade with 135 member nations and 32 others that are seeking
membership. The WTO has executive authority over GATT and several other
multilateral agreements. It also has the legislative power to compel member
states to strike down national laws and programs it deems "barriers"
to free trade.
As the WTO has
expanded its authority, its rules and regulations have come into conflict with
local and national laws, and intergovernmental agreements. In every case where
such conflict has occurred, the WTO has prevailed. Thus, shrimp and tuna can be
imported into the United States whether or not they have been caught in nets
that protect turtles and other fish, as specified by national regulations;
hormone treated beef can be imported into the European Union despite European
concerns about the potentially negative effects on human health; and quotas
that protect Caribbean banana farmers exporting to the EU have been deemed by
the WTO inconsistent with its rules.
A major issue of
concern lies in the direction in which trade and finance ministers are steering
the WTO. It is a course that is unraveling the gains made over the last decade
in other intergovernmental meetings at global and regional levels, including
intergovernmental agreements that secure human, worker and women's rights and
environmental, health and safety standards, as well as national legislation
designed to advance local economic, environmental, social and cultural
priorities.
It has been the
trend in international environmental and social agreements to introduce new
moral ethics and concerns as global norms. But, the WTO is moving in the
opposite direction, replacing the still youthful architecture of economic,
social and environmental governance with a new construction of trade
globalization.
Global economic
and trade policies are not "gender neutral." Women comprise 70
percent of the world's 1.3 billion absolute poor. Worldwide, they bear the
brunt of economic and financial transition and crisis caused by market forces
and globalization. Yet, women's issues are not considered in trade
liberalization policy-making and analysis. The failure of governments and
intergovernmental organizations to formulate and evaluate trade policies from a
gender perspective has exacerbated women's economic inequity.
Women's work,
whether waged or unwaged, recorded or not in national accounting systems,
sustains all societies and merits recognition in trade liberalization policies.
While there is a clear need for more research on the impact of globalization
and free trade on communities, the studies that now exist show free trade and
market liberalization only serve to increase women's multiple responsibilities.1
Furthermore, governments, through the World Trade Organization, are
eroding women's right to equitable development as established in various
intergovernmental agreements during the last decade. These include ground
breaking accords reached at the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, 1992), World Conference on Human Rights
(Vienna, 1993), International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD,
Cairo, 1994), World Summit on Social Development (WSSD, Copenhagen, 1995),
Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and the World Food Summit
(Rome, 1996).
The 1992 United
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) safeguards the ownership
rights of keepers of indigenous knowledge, mainly women. However, the TRIPs
agreements of the World Trade Organization entitle transnational corporations
to "own" and patent this knowledge and to use it for commercial
purposes. The WTO may override international environmental agreements that
regulate trade in toxics,2 including the Basel convention ban on
exporting hazardous wastes from industrialized nations to developing countries
and the Montreal protocol on ozone depleting chemicals. The Beijing Declaration
reaffirms the equal rights of women and men as stated in the Charter of the
United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
international human rights instruments. Adopted by 189 nations, the Beijing
Declaration upholds "the involvement of women in economic and social
development and the full and equal participation of women and men as agents and
beneficiaries of people-centered sustainable development."3 Women's
right to economic and social equity was also endorsed at ICPD and WSSD. These
perspectives must inform the debate and outcomes of the World Trade
Organization's Third Ministerial Meeting in Seattle (November 30-December 3,
1999) and all future discussions of trade issues.
This primer4
describes how, in the name of trade, governments, through the WTO, are
undermining the gains women have made-gains endorsed by those same
governments-in governance, economic equity, health and the environment. It
describes the consequences of WTO trade policies on women and their families
and proposes gender-responsive approaches for change. WEDO offers this gender
perspective to raise awareness and to encourage the formulation of trade
policies that are more responsive to women's needs in the ongoing trade
negotiations at the WTO.
Male
Domination in WTO Arbitration Process:
The Dispute
Settlement Body
The DSB, which
arbitrates disputes between members, is dominated by men. All seven members
appointed to the Appellate Body are men.Of the 159 trade policy experts
selected for the roster of dispute panelists, 147 are men and 12 are women.
Source: Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, www.tradewatch.org
WEDO's
Gender Agenda for the WTO
Mandate
inclusion of women and gender in economic decision-making and governance
Strengthen women's capacity to attain economic equity
Protect women's control over their health and safety
Prevent TNC exploitation of women's indigenous knowledge and plant genetic
resources
1.
Mandate inclusion of women and gender in economic decision-making and
governance
Global
governance should be democratic, transparent, accountable, equitable and gender
sensitive. The WTO does not measure up, nor does it seek to build on existing
intergovernmental agreements and commitments. A democratic WTO would promote a
system of global governance based on women's active participation, a voice for
civil society and equal rights for member nations.
The WTO is alone
among intergovernmental organizations in its failure to recognize a gender
dimension to its policies. Throughout the last decade, global economic
institutions have been working to incorporate a gender perspective in their
procedures and activities. In 1997, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
resolved to mainstream a gender perspective in its work by "assessing the
implications for women and men of any planned actions, including legislation,
policies or programs in any area and at all levels." The following year at
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, gender was acknowledged
as a cross-cutting theme in the design and implementation of economic policy.
The World Bank
is making gender a focal point in its operational, research and policy work in
poverty reduction and economic management.5 The WTO is also required
to work with international standard-setting bodies to develop technical
regulations, draw on international trade policy experts as dispute panelists
and communicate with intergovernmental organizations, like the UN, where
appropriate.
In addition to
its lack of a gender perspective, the WTO is almost exclusively a male domain.
This is not to say that men cannot have a gender perspective or that all women
bring such a perspective to the table. But the degree of male exclusivity makes
it far less likely that the WTO will be presented with women's diverse
experiences.
Unlike other
intergovernmental organizations that have gradually opened their doors to civil
society, the WTO does not recognize NGOs as observers or consultants to the
General Council or its subsidiary bodies. Consultations, discussions,
negotiations and decision-making are closed to non-members.6 This
unfairly restricts the participation of civil society in WTO meetings, even
though it will be affected by the outcomes.
But not all
non-government actors find it hard to gain access to WTO processes. TNCs and
industry lobby groups are able to influence decisions at WTO meetings as
members of government delegations. These actors have a unique entry point to
decision-making in the WTO, both because of "old boys" networks and
because of shared interests between business and industry lobby groups on one
hand, and trade representatives on the other (see
box). The revolving door of economic officers moving from jobs
in the private sector to the public sector and back again creates a closed
network among some key players in the trade arena.
Neither are all
governments equal at the WTO. In principle, all governments are members and
have one vote, but wealthy, developed governments can often exert greater
influence over decisions. This occurs in "Green Room" negotiations,
which are closed bilateral talks between major trading partners. When two major
trading partners reach an agreement in a Green Room, they set a tariff for a
product or a trade rule that protects their economic or political interests.
Under the principle of Most Favored Nation status, which grants equal treatment
to all members of the WTO, a trade deal that benefits two major parties results
in a tariff level that applies to all other members. This occurs regardless of
the effects it may have on the economies of other countries.
The
Revolving Door of Corporate: Executive and Official Trade Positions
·
Edmund
Pratt, former CEO and currently Chairman Emeritus of Pfizer, attended numerous
GATT negotiations as the official advisor to the U.S. Trade Representative. He
was a leader in the U.S. private sector campaign to include Intellectual
Property in the GATT Uruguay Round.
·
Peter
Sutherland, Director-General of the WTO, is now Co-Chairman of BP Amoco,
Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International, UK.
·
Arthur
Dunkel, a former GATT Director-General, is now a registered WTO dispute
panelist, a board member of Nestlé and Chairman of the International Chamber of
Commerce Commission on International Trade and Investment, which is lobbying
for an investment agreement in WTO.
Source: Corporate Europe Observer, Issue 4,
www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer1/index.html
WEDO
Says
·
Women
should be equally represented in WTO decision-making bodies and governments
should work for gender balance in their WTO delegations.
·
The
WTO should conduct a gender assessment of the effects of trade liberalization
on women, highlighting harmful policies and building on areas where women have
benefited from increased trade.
·
Governments
should incorporate the views of civil society organizations in the formulation
of national trade policies and in all issues and options under discussion at
the WTO.
2. Strengthen women's capacity to attain economic equity
Women face
customary and legal barriers that limit their access to resources and their
ability to participate equally in economic activities and decision-making
processes. Government programs such as procurement, training for women
entrepreneurs and access to credit help overcome these barriers, but if the
government procurement agreement is extended, existing set-asides for women and
minorities could be eradicated. Women's livelihoods, already weakened by
globalization policies, will worsen if the WTO agreement on agriculture is
extended to remove protections.
Women-owned
businesses comprise between 20 and 30 percent of the global business population
and are fast becoming a global economic force. Governments and bankers have found
that women who own their own businesses are more likely than men to repay their
loans and to invest profits in their families and communities. In 1999,
women-owned businesses in the U.S. employed some 27.5 million people-nearly
twice the combined number of employees at the 50 biggest corporations in the
world.7 As noted in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action:
"When they gain access to and control over capital, credit and other
resources, technology and training, women increase production, marketing and
income for sustainable development."8
Government
programs to increase women's access to credit have been established in many
countries, including the U.S., the United Kingdom, Norway, the Philippines,
South Africa and Uganda. These programs cover a range of activities from
affirmative action on education to credit and training in entrepreneurial and
management skills.
The Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI), an initiative of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), proposed increasing the rights of
international investors and diminishing the rights of local and national
governments to impose any conditions on these investors. OECD attempts to
introduce the MAI were halted following NGO campaigns and a public outcry
worldwide. Efforts are now being made to integrate a modified MAI into the WTO.
If these efforts are successful, affirmative action programs and national laws
might be threatened,9 leaving women worldwide without the "step
up" they need to overcome economic inequity.
Even more
worrisome for women entrepreneurs is a move to extend the current WTO
Government Procurement Agreement. Almost all governments and their agencies buy
locally when procuring such goods and services as food or paper supplies for
state-run institutions including schools, hospitals or prisons. In most
developing countries, government contracts can amount to as much as 30 percent
of total GDP and are thus a major factor in local economic life.
For global
corporations, the area of government contracts represents a large and untapped
market. As far as transnational corporations (TNCs) are concerned, they should
be able to bid for, say, a contract to provide food for public schools in Peru
or the contract to supply paper to the Department of the Interior in China. But
while there are short-term gains when TNCs are awarded government
contracts-prices may go down, for example-in the long run, local suppliers will
be out of business and the local economy weakened.
At present, many
governments and local authorities use procurement practices as a way to promote
social and economic development. Many government procurement programs attach
additional conditions designed to raise environmental and social standards and
women's rights. In the U.S., for example, the federal government allocates five
percent of the total value of all prime contracts and subcontracts to
women-owned small businesses. In 1997, this allocation was worth US$5.7
billion. More than half these contracts went to small businesses owned by women
of color.10
From time to
time, national governments and local authorities have also used procurement as
a channel for communities to achieve other social and environmental ends, not
just in their own backyards, but internationally. For example, the U.S. state
of Massachusetts passed a law to discourage companies from doing business in
Myanmar (formerly Burma) to protest human rights abuses there. The "Burma
Law" is based on the same law in the U.S. that allowed various U.S. states
to apply sanctions on South Africa, and so played a role in ending apartheid.
If government procurement comes under WTO rules, such initiatives could be
deemed non-tariff barriers to trade.
The concept of
meeting national goals through government procurement set-asides for women is
new. Related programs to assist women are in their early stages. National
procurement programs have not solved the problem of gender equity, but they
have provided valuable and secure business opportunities for both women and
minorities. They need to be developed and nurtured-the lessons learned and
transferred-not halted in their infancy.
Women in
developing countries are the main producers of food within the subsistence
economy. Free trade and structural adjustment have already weakened this sector
and endangered women's livelihoods. This situation can only worsen if a
proposal to extend the WTO agreement on agriculture, by removing protections
and subsidies, is adopted.
In principle,
the shift to commodity agriculture could be advantageous to women farmers if
they are able to respond as entrepreneurs. In practice, there are gender
differences that severely restrict women from responding like men to the
potential advantages of trade liberalization, including lack of access to
credit, technology and land.11 While some large-scale producers have
benefited from measures aimed to galvanize the export sector, small producers,
of whom women constitute a majority, have not improved their productivity and
in many cases have lost some of their former prerogatives.
The WTO
agreement on agriculture pressures countries to buy their food from countries
where it is most cheaply produced. TNCs win again: most of the world's food is
controlled by just a handful of companies. Family farmers and subsistence
farmers have seen their livelihoods destroyed or put under threat, as a result,
while consumers have not benefited in price or quality. Women displaced from
agricultural work have been pushed into low-paying manufacturing work in Export
Processing Zones where TNCs are not required to abide by local labor standards,
women are paid 20 to 50 percent less than men12 and jobs are
insecure. As the international trading system has engulfed rural economies,
women have borne the brunt of the ensuing upheaval.
CASE STUDY: Women
Entrepreneurs Benefit From Government Contracts in South Africa
The South
African Technology for Women in Business (TWIB) program was launched in 1998 to
help protect small enterprises, particularly those owned by women, from the
impact of globalization. Access to technology by women in business was
identified as central to the creation of opportunities for competitive
women-owned businesses. Within two years, a number of South Africa's business
development service providers and parastatals have offered special programs and
conditions for women entrepreneurs. Telkom, the telecommunications giant,
offers small business women assistance on tender procedures. It also exempts
women in business from paying the customary performance guarantee, a condition
for being awarded a tender. Such programs are at risk if the government
procurement agreement is extended .
Source: "The Technology for Women in Business Programmes in South
Africa," by Matfobhi Riba in Trade, Sustainable Development and Gender, UNCTAD,
1999
WEDO Says
·
Governments
should conduct systematic assessments of the impacts of globalization on women
and use these to create more positive trade policies.
·
Governments
should retain the right to advance local and national, social and economic
goals, including programs designed to increase opportunities for women in
business. Any extended Procurement Agreement should preserve the right of
governments to set standards that protect women, communities, culture and the
environment and extend set-asides for women and minorities. If military
expenditures are exempted on the grounds of national security, this exemption
should also be applied to the environment, the domestic economy and families.
·
Governments
should oppose monopolization of food production and enact policies to protect
women's livelihoods in family and community-based sustainable agriculture.
3.
Protect women's control over their health and safety
Women should
have control over their health and the health of their families, and they are
entitled to consumer protections enshrined in national and international
legislation. However, WTO dispute settlement rulings have undermined these
efforts. Instead, some governments, through the WTO, propose broadening the
scope of these rulings. Such a move would prevent consumers from obtaining
product information, reducing women's capacity to care for their own health and
the health of their children.
Women's health
and the health of their families have been protected in national environmental,
health and safety standards and in international agreements that support the
Precautionary Principle. This principle states that when there are threats of
serious or irreversible damage to the environment or to human health, the lack
of scientific certainty on any particular subject should not be used to
postpone protection measures. This is explicitly stated in the Earth Summit's
Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Beijing Platform for
Action.
The WTO Sanitary
and Phyto Sanitary Agreement (SPS) requires nations to abide by international
food safety standards as approved by Codex Alimentarius, a self-standing body
of government-appointed experts outside of the United Nations system. If
national health and safety laws and standards are inconsistent within Codex's
obscure technical framework, they are presumed to be non-tariff barriers to
trade. Moreover, the burden of proof is reversed: it becomes the state's
responsibility to prove scientifically that the product in question is unsafe
and that the specific regulations are therefore necessary.
Scientists with
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warn that genetic engineering could make
foods toxic through increased levels of natural toxicants, the appearance of
new toxicants and a higher concentration of toxic substances in the
environment. Scientists worldwide have called for a moratorium on the
commercialization of genetically engineered crops and animal feed.
Increasingly, scientific evidence shows that such products could prove
hazardous to biodiversity, food safety, human and animal health.13
Some of the long-term health effects may include pesticide residues in the body
and increased immunity to antibiotics. Proponents of genetic engineering have
been unable to prove how the potential benefits outweigh the potential costs to
the health of consumers.
Codex, under the
SPS Agreement, has not set risk levels for GMOs or hormone additives.
Governments are restricted from labeling genetically modified products or those
that contain hormone additives. Codex's risk assessment process does not
consider the differential impact of various food additives on healthy women,
those in poor health or those who are pregnant or lactating. Further, the case
of Gerber in Guatemala shows the power of the new trade rules to override
national health laws, even when these follow international agreements (see
case study). Without information about the potential health
risks from chemicals and GMOs in food, all consumers are being forced to put
their health in the hands of international corporations.
It's
All in the Genes
THE GMO
DEBATE:
Genetically engineered foods contain organisms that have been modified and that
were not previously a part of the human food supply. These foods are not
subject to rigorous pre-market safety testing. In the global debate, some
scientists are vehemently against genetic engineering, while others proclaim
its benefits. Fundamental questions could be better resolved by fostering
public debate. In any case, the application of genetic engineering should be
delayed until all fundamental questions are resolved. Corporations, however,
have a vested interest in speedy application and are unwilling to wait while
there are patents to be obtained and profits to be made.
BEEF
HORMONES AND HUMAN HEALTH: When the European Union placed a ban on imports
of beef from the U.S., based on the Precautionary Principle, the bloc was
relying on a growing body of evidence that natural and synthetic hormones are
linked to rising incidence of cancer. The U.S. beef industry lobbied for action
from WTO along with the E.U.'s primary biotech lobbyists. Under WTO rules,
scientific proof that beef hormones are a direct threat to human health had to
be provided, but the beef hormone producers were not required to prove their
product is safe for human consumption. Because the E.U. could not prove conclusively
that hormone-fed beef was hazardous to human health, the WTO Dispute Panel
ruled that the ban was unjustified and should be lifted.
CASE
STUDY: Gerber in Guatemala
For four years
between 1990 and 1995, the U.S.-based Gerber Products Company launched a
campaign to force Guatemala to eliminate an infant health law that banned
pictures of healthy babies on labels for baby food and fruit juices for
children under two years of age. The Guatemalan law implemented the WHO-UNICEF
Infant Formula Marketing Code, which was developed to help protect infants by
promoting breast-feeding over artificial breast milk substitutes.
All of
Guatemala's domestic and foreign suppliers of infant formula and other breast
milk substitutes made the necessary changes to their packaging to comply with
the Guatemalan law, except Gerber. Guatemalan infant mortality rates dropped
significantly after the law passed, and UNICEF literature now holds up
Guatemala as a model of the Code's success.
Upon passing the
law, the Guatemala Ministry of Health negotiated with Gerber to seek
compliance. Gerber argued that its baby picture was its trademark, which is
protected by an international patent. After several years of watching Gerber
refuse to abide by its regulations, the government of Guatemala considered a
ban on the company's products altogether. It was at this point that Gerber
threatened the Guatemalan government with a challenge under the Central
American Free Trade Agreement and GATT. Although Gerber cannot personally
launch a GATT challenge to the Guatemalan law, it raised the specter of such a
challenge to intimidate the Guatemalan government and obtained U.S. government
support for its threat.
According to
Gerber's letter to the President of Guatemala, the intellectual property provisions
of the GATT Uruguay Round would uphold the use of the trademark over the
enforcement of Guatemala's domestic health law. By 1995, Gerber's threats of
trade sanctions succeeded when the Guatemalan Supreme Court ruled that imported
baby food products are exempt from Guatemala's stringent infant health laws.
Source: Public Citizen World Trade Watch, www.publiccitizen.org
WEDO Says
·
Amend
the SPS Agreement and Codex Alimentarius to ensure that standards and testing
reviews include a gender assessment component.
·
There
should be agreement on standard nutrition and GMO labeling of all food products
based on consumer rights and protection. These standards should be developed in
a participatory process that includes local citizens, independent scientists
and NGOs.
·
The
WTO and its surrogates are not the appropriate body for setting health,
environment and consumer standards. Trade rules should not be used to challenge
laws that are designed to promote and protect health and the environment.
·
WEDO
supports the development of a consumer protection body that is separate and
apart from the WTO.
4.
Prevent TNC exploitation of women's indigenous knowledge and plant genetic
resources
Women have
traditionally been the keepers of indigenous genetic resources, such as seeds
and medicinal plants. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement
(TRIPs) includes plant and human genetic resources. TRIPs permits transnational
corporations (TNCs) to appropriate, patent and profit from indigenous knowledge
and life forms. However, it does not require TNCs to compensate the communities
from which they acquired the knowledge.
Women in the
developing world are the main custodians and users of indigenous medicinal
wisdom. This knowledge represents a huge value to the communities where they
live. Indigenous women do not have the resources to make their knowledge more
widely available. But for the transnational corporations, such information
represents a vast untapped market with untold potential for making profits.
The Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD) promotes the conservation of biological diversity
and the sustainable and equitable use of genetic resources. For example, if the
commercialization of indigenous knowledge is achieved without compromising
biodiversity, the CBD calls for compensation to the owners.
The TRIPs
agreement opened up new terrain for corporations to claim intellectual property
rights. Intellectual property can be claimed, and a patent obtained, if the
patent-seeker adds anything, however small, to existing knowledge. Patenting
prevents original owners of knowledge-most frequently women in developing
countries-from benefiting from the commercial use of the patent, or from
putting their indigenous knowledge to traditional use once it has been patented
by a third party. Moreover, under TRIPs, when knowledge is patented, it
effectively creates a period of monopolistic use for the patent holder. During
this period the product cannot be developed, sold or priced by anyone else,
anywhere in the world. This provision threatens the livelihoods of women
indigenous healers and farmers in developing countries, and the many thousands
of people in the communities who depend on them.
In India, for
example, women farmers have used the Neem plant as a pesticide and fungicide
for generations. The Neem plant currently has more than 35 patents on it in the
U.S. and Europe, mainly for its pesticide properties. Local communities are
already victims of reduced access to this traditional resource due to greatly
increased market prices. A West African berry, Pentadiplandra Brazzeana, has
similarly fallen prey to corporate patents in the U.S. and Europe (see
case study).
The ambiguities
in what constitutes "intellectual property" have sparked a major
debate amongst governments. Efforts are being made within the WTO to remove the
ambiguities and obtain as broad a definition as possible of the term. Some
governments are trying to prevent this WTO agreement from eroding environmental
and economic gains made in previous intergovernmental forums on the
environment.
In situations
where TNCs have appropriated indigenous knowledge, local communities cannot
themselves present the case to the WTO dispute resolution panels. They must
depend on their government to present the case on their behalf. The Indian
government is considering taking such action in the case of a U.S.-based
pharmaceutical company being granted a patent on a plant-based remedy for
diabetes that has been used in India for years and is well documented in a
number of texts on medicinal plants.
Even assuming a
local community can come up with the resources to influence its government to
act, the transnational giants have greater power and resources to pressure the
government and to engage in a protracted legal battle, if necessary. One of the
most egregious examples of how TNCs operate against the public interest
involves the South African government's efforts to combat the AIDS virus that
has created a health emergency in the country. The government announced that it
would purchase supplies of AIDS drugs, not from the U.S. pharmaceutical company
that had patented the drugs, but from generic drug producers in Eastern Europe
offering the same product at a fraction of the cost. U.S. pharmaceutical
companies successfully lobbied their government to intervene to uphold their
rights to set prices as provided under the TRIPs agreement. In the end, the
U.S. dropped its threat of litigation.
CASE STUDY: The Brazzein Protein in West African Berries
Brazzein is the
name of a protein found in a West African berry that is reported to be 500
times sweeter than sugar. Unlike other non-sugar sweeteners, brazzein is a
natural substance and does not lose its sweet taste when heated, making it
particularly valuable to the food industry. Researchers at the University of
Wisconsin have obtained a patent in the U.S. and Europe for a protein isolated
from the berry.
Subsequent work
has focused on making transgenic organisms to produce brazzein in the
laboratory, thereby eliminating the need for it to be collected or grown
commercially in that region. The University of Wisconsin says corporate
interest in brazzein is strong: the worldwide market for sweeteners is
reportedly US$100 billion a year. The university researchers are emphatic that
brazzein is their invention and there are no plans for sharing benefits with
the West African people who discovered and nurtured the plant for their use.
Adapted from GRAIN (1998). "Patenting Our Food System, Patenting
Animals, Patenting Health Care Systems, Patenting People." Quoted in
Magdalena Kaihuzi, " LDCs In A Globalizing World: A Strategy for
Gender-Balanced Sustainable Development," in UNCTAD (1999).
WEDO Says
·
Governments
should ensure that the protection of indigenous wisdom, traditional innovation,
knowledge and practices, is consistent with the Convention on Biological
Diversity.
·
Governments
should amend the WTO TRIPs agreement to prevent plant and life forms from being
appropriated and commercialized by TNCs at the expense of indigenous
communities and global biodiversity.
End
Notes
1. Informal
Working Group on Women and Trade, Statement During the WTO Second Ministerial
Meeting (Geneva, 1998).
2. Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund study, "Trading Away Public
Health," cited in Danielle Knight, WTO Seen As Threat To Public Health,
Terra Viva, Inter-Press Service Daily Journal, November 5, 1999.
3. Articles 8 and 16 of the Beijing Declaration, adopted at the Fourth World
Conference on Women in 1995.
4. This primer is a sequel to Who Makes the Rules? Decision-Making &
Structure of the New World Trade Organization, No. 3 of WEDO's six-part series
on gender, environment and international economic issues, produced in 1995.
5. See www.worldbank.org/gender
6. WEDO Primer #3, Who Makes the Rules? Decision-Making & Structure of the
New World Trade Organization, 1995.
7. Data derived from the National Foundation for Women Business Owners www.nfwbo.org;
and Fortune Magazine Global 500 list, August 2, 1999.
8. United Nations Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15
September 1995, Document A/CONF.177/20, p.71.
9. This argument was made by Marceline White in her testimonial on behalf of
Women's Edge to the U.S. Congressional Briefing on Women and the WTO, June
1999. Viewable at: www.womensedge.org/
programs/WTOltr1.html
10. Women's Edge, "Will the WTO's Procurement Agreement work for
Women?" At: www.womensedge.org/Programs/wto_wobs.html
11. Patricia Bifani-Richard, 1999, "Notes on Trade, Sustainable
Development, and Gender," in UNCTAD, 1999. 12. Women's Edge,
"Statistics on Women and Trade" At: www.womensedge.org/Programs/stattrade.html
13. The Institute for Science in Society (ISIS), 1999: World Scientists'
Statement Calling for a Moratorium on GM Crops and Ban on Patents. At: www.i-sis.dircon.co.uk
Keeping you in touch with
the issues
Visit the WEDO
bookshelf
Websites
on the WTO
1.
World
Trade Organization: www.wto.org
2.
European
Commission: europa.eu.int
3.
Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy: www.iatp.org/
4.
International
Coalition for Development Action: www.icda.be
5.
Public
Citizen's Global Trade Watch: www.tradewatch.org
6.
International
Forum on Globalization: www.ifg.org
7.
Third
World Network: www.twnside.org.sg
8.
50
Years is Enough: www.50years.org
This primer
was researched by:
Riva Krut, Benchmark Environmental Consulting, with Naomi Gabarones