Do we need WTO in the present day of globalisation?

The process of globalisation has been impacted by the advancement of information technology. IT is

basically financial capital invested in the emerging markets capital market. In earlier period of

gradual globalisation, finances were invested in the form of FDI in factories and enterprises in

different countries. WTO was setup in 1995 to make an impact on bringing down trade barriers.

Government of India permitted license raj for nearly forty years, then from 1991 onwards it adopted

more market friendly policies. We are still moving ahead with two forward steps and one backward.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is among the most secretive and one of the most powerful

international bodies on earth. It acts as global government, of 134 nation-states, including the U.S.,

have ceded to its vast authority and powers. The WTO is often represented by the rule-based regime

of the policy of economic globalization. The central operating principal of WTO is that commercial

interests should supersede all others and any obstacles in the path of operations and in the expansion

of global business functioning must be subordinated. In practice these obstacles are usually policies

or democratic processes that act on behalf of working people, labour rights, environmental protection,

human rights, and national sovereignty. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) focused its

efforts throughout most of 1999 on the WTO and its relation to the larger issue of economic

globalization.

WTOs limited mission

The WTO replaced the better known GATT (General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade) which was

itself formed from the originally planned International Trade Organization (ITO). The ITO was to be

created after the second World War as the third pillar of the Breton Woods system and was meant to

take an integrated approach to many trade related matters.

WTOs role in globalization and marginalization

At the Singapore Ministerial conference many statements were made about globalization and the

contribution of WTO to this process. Technical innovations, capital concentration, the geographic

spread of production processes and other company strategies to improve profit-making worldwide 24

hours a day are not the only reasons leading to globalisation. Political decisions by governments to

remove institutional barriers to international trade and capital flows and to provide incentives for
companies have also supported the globalization process. The WTO is a very important regulator of

trade at international level besides it also sets the terms within which regional agreements can be

signed. In this way, from trade perspective globalization is managed at world level.

The WTO contributes to unequal competition

The WTO and the Uruguay Round agreements contribute to unequal competition because:

1. The developed countries give less market access to products from developing countries (average

4.3%) than those from among themselves (average 3.8%), and the former tend to impose high tariffs

on those products most valuable to least developed countries like clothing, leather, fish, agriculture.

2. The slow phasing out of quantitative restrictions for textiles and clothing exports to the North may

make it difficult for small and poor producers to compete.

3. The agricultural agreement has led to indirect competition between subsidized and unsubsidized

agricultural products in farm products of developing countries of the North.

4. Safeguard and anti-dumping rules are more frequently being used to stop competition from labour-

intensive products and still have loopholes.

5. The enforcement of intellectual property rights (TRIPs) is not being able to stop bio-privacy in

foreign companies and is likely to make necessary technology and essential goods (e.g. medicines,

seeds) too expensive.

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The 2007 Public Forum was held at WTO headquarters in Geneva from 4 to 5 October with
discussion on How Can the WTO Help Harness Globalization?. The benefits of
globalization are increasingly being challenged by both North and South, and concerns are
growing over the impact of globalization on the environment. That years Forum was aimed
to discuss the role that WTO can play in using trade as an engine of development, and in
todays globalized economy, how it can contribute to a better distribution of the benefits of
trade.

Primarily, the WTO is about making trade possible by creating trade opportunities through
multilateral trade opening and the building of multilateral rules to ensure a level playing field.
But, clearly removing obstacles to trade is often not enough for countries to reap the benefits
of trade opening. To fully benefit from further trade opening, countries require the right
domestic policy framework, institutional capacity and economic infrastructure to be in place.
The dialogue at the Forum, involving the public at large, on the issues confronting the
multilateral trading system provides ideas and input that can but strengthen the foundations of
the multilateral trading system and contribute towards ensuring that all countries and
economies benefit from trade opening. This publication presents a summary of the
proceedings of the different sessions that took place. Each report has been prepared under the
full responsibility of the individual organizer(s) of each panel. The publication is divided into
four main parts structured around the sub-themes identified for this years Forum, namely: (i)
global governance; (ii) coherence between the national and international levels of policy-
making and between different multilateral institutions; (iii) economic growth and the role of
trade as a vehicle for economic growth; and (iv) sustainable development. The discussions on
global governance in Part I address the challenge presented by interdependence and
globalization, and the role the WTO can play to ensure that globalization works to the benefit
of all peoples. The discussions in the different sessions focussed on: the need and priorities
for reform of WTOs governance to make global trade work for development; the need to
harness globalization; the role of innovation and technical change in harnessing globalization
and the contribution of the WTO, other institutions and actors; the participation of developing
countries in the WTO; the media coverage of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA); the
relationship between social standards and international trade; the need to rebalance trade with
global norms; ideas, policies and good practices necessary to build a more equitable and
sustainable multilateral trading system; how trade, labour and social policies, reinforce and
complement each other in attaining the overall objective of sustainable development; and the
changes to WTO rules that would most likely complement the development and growth
strategies of particular countries. WTO Public Forum 2007 How Can the WTO Help
Harness Globalisation? 1 Coherence between the national and international levels of policy-
making and the contribution of the WTO to the construction of a coherent multilateral system
is discussed in Part II. The main questions examined are: the role of the dispute settlement
system within the WTO and its relationship with other areas of international law and
adjudication mechanisms; the challenges that developing countries face from mainstreaming
international trade into national development strategies; the implications for the world trading
system of the rapid development of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) around the world;
benefits and challenges that result from the Single Undertaking; complementary policies and
institutions required for export-led growth to impact positively on poverty-reduction;
coherent strategies for trade liberalization bottom-up policies, regional agreements and
WTO-system compatibility; and finally, a discussion on the problems that coherence per se
raises. Part III addresses trade as a vehicle for economic growth and development. In
particular, this section considers the following issues: the contribution of services to
development and the role of regulation and trade liberalization in fostering economic
development and growth; the benefits and challenges linked to the expansion of trade in
agriculture and agri-food and the relationship between increased trade in agriculture and the
overall economic agendas of WTO Members; the need for policy space or flexibilities for
economic diversification and competitiveness for small and vulnerable economies; the need
for enhanced awareness among entrepreneurs of the opportunities of the ongoing multilateral
trade negotiations; the DDAs impact on development and growth; the WTOs record in
addressing trade-distorting subsidies and proposals for improving its performance; and the
contribution of the WTO towards increasing economic growth by providing a new
mechanism for the removal of non-trade barriers. The interaction of trade and economic
development, social development, and environmental protection is explored in Part IV, within
the sub-theme of sustainable development. The following questions are considered: the need
to restore morality to the global market; the effects of trade liberalization on the environment;
sustainable development in the areas of natural resources trade and services; how business-
NGO partnerships can contribute towards conservation and sustainable livelihoods; the need
for an agreement on agriculture that promotes economic growth and sustainable development
of rural communities worldwide; the link between trade and climate change; the potential role
of the WTO in supporting climate change mitigation efforts; and the link between trade rules
and sustainable development. The speeches delivered during the Opening Plenary of the
Public Forum by Pascal Lamy, WTO Director-General; HE Tarja Holonen, President of the
Republic of Finland; HE Olubanke King-Akerele, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Liberia; and Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, are reproduced in Annex I. Annex II
presents the programme of the 2007 Public Forum.

https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/public_forum07_e.pdf