Ten Years after the Battle of Seattle; the WTO must be dismantled and declared null and void. :: PEJ News :: Stories, Features, Opinion and Analysis

A. 1999 MESSAGE TO THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

Issued in 1999 for the World Trade Conference in Seattle and distributed by
Joan Russow (PhD) Global Compliance Research Project/

We are now living in the wake of negligence from years of
institutional collusion among governments, corporations and the
military. Currently there is a concurrence of disasters: the violation
of human rights, including civil and political rights, the denial
social justice, the degradation of the environment, and the escalation
of war and conflict. The WTO has been instrumental in fostering this
collusion to the detriment of the global community. In the year 1999,
the culmination of the decade devoted to international law, rather
than continue with this collusion which has jeopardized civil society
and the global ecosystem, the WTO should be dismantled and emphasis
should be placed on member states living up to their international
public trust commitments and obligations and adhering to the rule of
law.

DECLARATION OF ACTIONS

The Declaration of Actions was compiled from presentations, comments
and proposals that were made during the plenary sessions at a recent
conference

RECOGNIZING the Interdependence of Peace, Environmental Protection,
Human Rights and Social Justice;

NOTING that through more than 50 years of concerted effort, the member
states of the United Nations have created international Public Trust
obligations, commitments and expectations:

1. to Promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including
labour rights, the right to adequate food, potable water, shelter and
health care, education and social justice and the right to self
determination; 2. to Enable socially equitable and environmentally
sound development; 3. to Achieve a state of peace, justice and
security; 4. to Create a global structure that respects the rule of
law; and 5. to Ensure the preservation and protection of the
environment, respect the inherent worth of nature beyond human
purpose, reduce the ecological footprint and move away from the
current model of overconsumption

CONCERNED that trade organizations such as the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and
trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) undermine the UN's work of over 50 years in creating
obligations, commitments and expectations with respect to the matters
set out above:

DISMAYED by the continuing global urgency resulting from the failure
of member states of the United Nations to discharge their obligations
arising from conventions, treaties and covenants, to act on
commitments made in conference action plans, and to fulfill
expectations arising from General Assembly resolutions;

RECALLING the commitment made by all the member states of the United
Nations to "ensure that corporations including transnational
corporations comply with national codes, social security laws, and
international law, including international environmental law"
(Platform of Action at the UN Conference on Women: Equality,
Development and Peace, Beijing, 1995, and also in the Habitat II
Agenda, Istanbul, 1996);

We call upon all MEMBER STATES OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO TAKE THE
FOLLOWING ACTIONS:

1. 1 * TO CREATE a world based on true participatory democracy within
a framework of public trust principles;
* TO ACCEPT the inherent
limits to the Earth's resources
* to promote the peaceful coexistence
of all nations, races, and species;
* TO DEVELOP a stable and peaceful
international society founded on the rule of law;
* TO HALT the
consequences of unprincipled economic growth;
* TO STRIVE TO REMOVE
the inequitable distribution of resources * to stabilize population
and implement the commitments made through the international
conference on population and development

1. 2 To discharge the obligations, act on the commitments, and
fulfill the expectations arising from international Public Trust
agreements, including:

(a) signing and ratifying any existing international conventions,
treaties, and covenants that have not yet been signed and ratified;
(b) enacting the domestic legislation necessary to implement them or
to fulfill the legitimate expectations created by General Assembly
resolutions and declarations; and (c) acting upon the commitments
arising from conference action plans.

2. 1. To establish mandatory international standards and regulations
(MINS), based on international principles and on the highest and
strongest regulations of member states, harmonizing standards and
regulations continually upward with respect to:

(a) Promoting and fully guaranteeing respect for human rights
including labour rights, the right to adequate food, shelter and
health care, and social justice, and the right to self-determination;

* the obligation undertaken by States in various multilateral treaties
on human rights, that there must be no discrimination on the
following grounds: - race, tribe, or culture; - colour, ethnicity,
national ethnic or social origin, or language; nationality, place of
birth, or nature of residence (refugee or immigrant, migrant worker);
- gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or
form of family, - disability or age; - religion or conviction,
political or other opinion, or - class, economic position, or other
status;
(1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the
1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
among others);

(b) Enabling socially equitable and environmentally sound employment;
(c) Achieving a state of peace, justice and security; (d) Creating a
global structure that respects the rule of law; and (e) Ensuring the
preservation and protection of the environment, reducing the
ecological footprint and moving away from the current model of
overconsumptive development.

2. 2. to require that all use of natural resources must be in
accordance with the principles set out in paragraph 2. (1) that all
users pay a fair rent to the community for the use of those resources,
and that all public subsidies to activities, individuals or companies
that do not conform to the principles set out in paragraph 2. (1) be
immediately discontinued.

2.3. to promote the right to ecological governance and global
ecological solidarity and determine how to implement this governance.

2.4. to establish an urgent international network to protest
immediately any arrests and imprisonment of environmental, political,
social protesters

3. To demand compensation and reparations from investors or
corporations, and from administrations that have permitted investors
or corporations to, or assisted them in, degrading the environment,
violating fundamental human rights, or causing harm to human health,
especially where those actions occurred:

(a) in developing and developed countries, or
(b) on the lands of indigenous peoples, or in the communities of
marginalized citizens in either developing or developed countries.

4. 1. To revoke the licences and charters of corporations, including
transnational corporations, if those corporations have persistently:

(a) violated human rights or denied or colluded in denying social
justice, (b) caused unremediated environmental degradation or harm to
human health, (c) disregarded labour rights, (d) contributed to
conflict and war, or (e) failed to pay compensation for past
environmental
degradation or non-compliance with international agreements.

4.2. to set up a monitoring and reporting network to inform citizens
in the country of origin where corporations are registered of the
activities of the foreign-based corporations

4.3 to expose the relationship between corporate exploitation of
resources and war and the generation of social, human rights and
ecological refugees and immigrants.

4.4. to coordinate a conference on the social, cultural and
environmental impacts of the current model of overconsumption
especially that of the multinationals

5. 1 To reduce military budgets by at least 50% and to use the
savings:

(a) to guarantee:
- the right to safe and adequate food, which has been not genetically
altered or irradiated, or grown with pesticides,
- the right to safe and affordable shelter,
- the right to universal health care,
- the right to safe drinking water,
- the right to a safe environment,
- the right to ecological heritage
- the right to education, and
- the right to peace;

(b) to fund socially equitable and environmentally sound employment;
and

(c) to fund education and research free from corporate direction and
control.

5.2 to move towards global disarmament and the dissolution of
organizations and institutes dedicated to furthering of the cult of
war rather than to the promoting a culture of peace - dismantling of
NATO

5.3 to stress the necessity of anticipation and prevention of
conflict and an establishment of a culture of peace

5.4 to reveal the intricate relationship between the global arms sales
and the creation and extension of war and conflict

5.5 to expose the role of NGOs for supporting paramilitary actions in
the guise of promoting human rights

6. To increase funding for United Nations agencies and for
international, national and regional educational institutions so that
their missions will not be undermined by corporate direction or
control. All funding to the United Nations should be conditional on
and dedicated to furthering the objectives of international Public
Trust law, not vested interest economic agreements such as GATT, WTO,
etc. Since the Security Council is controlled by the nuclear armed
states, the Security Council should be disbanded, and a rotational
council should be selected from the membership of the General
Assembly.

7. To develop criteria for partnership with the United Nations so as
to ensure (i) the exclusion of corporations and (ii) that no partner
has in any way, in any of its activities, violated human rights,
(including labour rights), caused environmental degradation,
contributed to war and conflict, or failed to promote socially
equitable and environmentally sound employment.

8. To distinguish "civil society" from the "market economy" by
defining civil society as those elements of society whose goals are to
guarantee human rights, foster justice, protect and conserve the
environment, prevent war and conflict, and provide for socially
equitable and environmentally sound employment; and to declare and
affirm the principle that civil society has a valid and important role
to play, distinct from the market economy.

9. 1. To prevent the transfer to other states of substances and
activities that cause environmental degradation or that are harmful to
human health, as agreed in the Rio Declaration, UNCED, 1992. This
prohibition must cover activities such as those related to:

(a) producing, importing or exporting toxic, hazardous, or
(non-medical) atomic substances and wastes, (b) producing or consuming
ozone-depleting substances, (c) extracting resources by
environmentally unsound methods, (d) producing or distributing
genetically-engineered food substances and genetically modified
organisms, (e) producing or distributing genetically engineered
crop/pesticide systems, and (f) creating or increasing dependency on
greenhouse gas emission (g) ensuring that the governments of the
corporations act to prevent the transfer to other states of substances
and activities that cause environmental degradation or harm to human
health (h) ensuring that the governments of the developing countries
act to prevent the transfer to other states of substances and
activities that cause environmental degradation or harm to human
health 9.2 to prevent practices within a culture that violate human
rights: - to prohibit genital mutilation in compliance with the
recommendation of the world health organization and to call upon
international community to work towards this prohibition 9.3. to
prevent the introduction into another state of substances and
activities prohibited in the state of origin

9.4. to establish legal obligations to ensure that the multinationals
that have caused environmental degradation and harm to human health in
developing countries are brought to trial in their country of origin

9.4. to ensure that the above recommendation 9.3 is brought before the
European union/ African, Caribbean and pacific negotiations and before
the WTO meeting in Seattle in November 99

9. 5. to ensure compliance with international environmental
instruments (a) implementing the framework convention on climate
change, - conserving carbon sinks such as old growth forests and bogs,
-invoking the precautionary principle, -exposing the conflict OF
interest of scientists who deny the threat of climate change -
rejecting the proposal that nuclear energy is the solution to climate
change - rejecting the proposal that the solution lies in emissions
trading which endorses the right to pollute - acting on the
obligation to the reduce of greenhouse gases

- calling upon major green-house gas producing states to assume their
responsibility to respect the rights of future generations - ensuring
that the developing countries are supported by the developed states
in the commitment to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and
that the developed states assist through supplying socially equitable
and environmentally sound practices - calling upon civil society,
politicians, scientists to collaborate before the march united
nations convention - moving away from car/truck-dependency and
promoting environmentally sound transportation - (b) implementing the
convention on biological diversity - conserving biodiversity and
identifying biodiversity - invoking the precautionary principle to
justify banning environmentally unsound practices that destroy
biodiversity (c) applying the framework convention on climate change
and the convention on biological diversity to the preservation of
temperate and tropical old growth forests

10. 1. To act upon the commitments made at recent United Nations
Conferences to move away from the over-consumptive model of
development, to replace the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an
indicator of economic well-being with the Genuine Progress Indicator
(GPI), the Criteria of Public Trust (CPT) or some other measure which
reflects the general quality of life rather than gross economic
activity.

10.2 to redefine "development" in ecological, social and equitable
terms

10.3. To reject the economic dogma that maximum economic growth will
resolve inequitable income and wealth distribution.

10.4. to factor in the social and ecological costs of development -
discontinuing all [socially inequitable and environmentally unsound
practices and public subsidies not conforming to public trust law. -
adopting tax policies, which ensure the socially equitable
and environmentally sound use of the land and resources as a right to
a common heritage - requiring that all users pay a fair rent to the
community for the use of all land and natural resources.

11. 1. To prohibit all trade zones that circumvent obligations and
commitments intended to guarantee human rights, including social
justice and labour rights, or to protect, preserve and conserve the
environment.

11. 2. To phase out all socially inequitable and environmentally
unsound industries while implementing a fair transition program for
affected workers and communities.

- including the following:

(a) banning genetically engineered foods and crops
-banning the patenting of life forms
- ending the exploitation of the knowledge of farmers, peasants and
indigenous peoples - promoting a global support program for organic
agriculture and other forms of ecological farming (b) replacing the
chemical pesticides with environmentally safe and sound alternatives
(c) dismantling civil nuclear plants and phasing out dependency on
fossil fuels and the promoting of environmentally safe and sound
alternative renewable energy (d) preventing the cruelty to animals at
all levels including in food production especially battery and factory
farming, medical experimentation, and in human amusement (e)
promoting a move away from the current model of overconsumption by
refusing, reusing, reducing and recycling - providing that recycling
does not introduce socially inequitable and environmentally unsound
practices and substances such as recycling plutonium from dismantled
nuclear weapons

11.3. * to discharge the diverse obligations incurred through the
framework convention on climate change (1992), the convention on
biological diversity (1992), the Basel convention on the transfer of
hazardous waste, the Vienna convention on the elimination of the
production and consumption of ozone depleting substances (1985) and
other relevant international environmental agreements;

12. to forgive all developing-nation debt and if the debt has been
paid all interest arising from loans by international bodies such as
the world bank and the IMF, and to terminate all structural adjustment
programs (saps) which seek to ensure repayment of such debt at the
expense of ordinary people, including programs that mandate:

(a) the indiscriminate privatization of state-owned enterprises,
(b) the indiscriminate reduction of government expenditures,
(c) the indiscriminate liberalization of trade regimes,

(d) the indiscriminate opening of states to increased foreign
investment, especially where this entails the attraction of foreign
capital by deregulating markets, offering low wages, implementing high
interest rates, or providing little or no environmental
protection,
(e) the indiscriminate encouragement to produce goods for export at
the expense of crops, products or services, which serve the needs of
domestic peoples, or (f) the creation or exacerbation of an imbalance
between imports and exports.

12.2. to ensure that the banks and international institutions
responsible for the lending of money for inappropriate corporate
development are financially responsible for the cancelling of the debt

13. 1 To ensure that no state relaxes environmental, health, human
rights or labour standards in order to attract industry, and that no
corporation allows a branch or subsidiary to engage in manufacturing,
transferring substances, or other practices that
are banned, restricted or otherwise unacceptable in the controlling
corporation's state of origin.

13. 2. To ensure that fulfilling a state's obligations under
international Public Trust Law shall be an absolute defence against
legal action by any state, corporation, or investor.

13. 3. To expose the extent to which citizens have allowed their
pension and investment funds to support corporations that have
violated the public trust, and to urge citizens to invest in the
promotion of the public trust.

14. To ensure that no state shall justify trade with a country that
violates human rights, including labour rights, on the grounds that
such trade will lead to a betterment of human rights, except where
such trade is conditional on eliminating human rights abuses.

15. To establish an International Court of Compliance to which
citizens can bring evidence of state and corporate non-compliance with
international Public Trust Law, including the duty to:

(a) protect and advance human rights, including the right to adequate
food, shelter and health care, labour rights, and social justice, (b)
protect and conserve the environment, (c) prevent war and conflict,
and (d) enable socially equitable and environmentally sound
employment.

16. To abolish the doctrine of "corporate personality" - the notion
that corporations are persons and have the rights of ordinary people -
thus preventing corporations from invoking the rights proper to
individuals.

17. To ensure the right of citizens to sue corporate owners and
officers, in criminal and civil courts, for any violation of human
rights, including labour rights, for denying social justice, for
causing serious harm to the environment or to human health, or for
contributing to suffering and waste through the international arms
trade.

18. To eliminate weapons of mass destruction including nuclear,
biological and chemical (a) banning all nuclear weapons and adopting
the abolition 2000 proposed treaty for the abolition of nuclear
weapons (b) de-alerting all nuclear weapons by December 31 1999 to
prevent potential y2 k problems (c) discontinuing the circulating and
berthing of nuclear capable and nuclear armed vessels (d) banning the
transfer of plutonium in the form of MOX

19.1 to prevent the corporate and corporate front group intrusion
into the educational system - exposing the origin and funding of the
educational materials

19.2 to introduce environmental literature especially of a
philosophical nature

19.2. to support ecological facts by introducing scientific data and
especially by stimulating critical thinking based on eco-philosophy,
and to develop and to disseminate a list of obligatory reading
related to a philosophical base as a foundation of the essence of
ecological thought

19.3. to promote educational programs related to the furtherance of a
culture of peace

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