.Doha is coming: Further Briefing on the GATS, compiled by Sarah Sexton
from ATTAC newsletter "Sand in the Wheels" 101, 24.10.01
"And non-government organisations(NGOs) and trade unions are demanding that services in the public interest be clearly exempt from GATS.
Many countries reluctantly agreed to GATS only if they could choose which of their services were covered by the Agreement. The US took care, however, to include clauses mandating further liberalisation in future.
Once a government has committed itself under GATS to opening a service sector to foreign competition, it must not keep money from being transferred out of the country to pay for the relevant services (Article XI), except when the country is experiencing serious balance-of-payment difficulties (Article XII). Such exceptions must be temporary and justified by an International Monetary Fund assessment of the country's financial situation.
Governments that currently use non-market mechanisms, such as risk pooling, social insurance funds, block contracts and cross-subsidising, to deliver public services to as much of their population as possible could find such practices challenged as anti-competitive.
If these proposals were adopted, all domestic regulations would have to be "pro-competitive",even if no foreign firm was involved. A WTO disputes panel could require countries to unbundle a public monopoly such as health care and substitute competing service providers or competing health care insurers. Health systems researchers Allyson Pollock and David Price point out that these proposals "would transform the WTO from a body combating protectionism to a global agent of privatisation".
In essence, the aim of GATS is to regulate governments, not corporations."
WTOs regler vedtages på fuldstændig uacceptabel og udemokratisk vis. For det første får de ikke den samme grundige behandling i parlamenterne som national lovgivning
SANDS, p. xvii: "In Britain, as in most countries, the great majority of treaties are not scrutinized or debated by the national parliament; there is no parliamentary committee which oversees Britain's treaty negotiations, or a decision on whether not to ratify a particular treaty. This is a startling gap, especially as the European Community increasingly signs up to treaties on behalf of its members. This democratic deficit is made all the more significant by the fact that new rules are often accompanied by new international courts and tribunals to ensure that obligations are complied with."
For det andet er der en tricks og manøvrer (møde i Nairobi fordi U-landene ikke har så mange ambassadører der) og den helt horrible fremgangsmåde, der blev anvendt mod OPEC landene i forhandlingerne om Klimaforandringskonventionen. Dirigenten på et møde, der behandlede et kompromisforslag, valgte at overse, at de pågældende landes repræsentanter bad om ordet !! Det er yderligere et demokratisk problem i behandlingen af internationale traktater. SANDS, p. 86
For det tredje er handelsreglerne ensidigt til de store internationale selskabers fordel, selvom de på overfladen ser værdineutrale ud. SANDS, p.96.
SANDS, kap 5 behandler WTO, forhandlingerne herom, handelskrigene mellem USA og EU. WTOs regler er de mest komplicerede, tekniske og ugennemtrængelige internationale regler hidtil set. (SANDS, p. 99).
290306 ?, Asia Times, Henry CK Liu, THE WAGES OF NEO-LIBERALISM; PART 1: Core contradictions. "The surviving Bretton Woods twins. Two related super-national institutions were organized by the US-sponsored Bretton Woods conference: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), more commonly known as the World Bank. Both institutions have been dominated by the US since their inception, as the United Nations has been. Together, these two super-national agencies helped build the US global financial empire through world trade conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, the rules of which are set by the strong, well-developed economies to the disadvantage of the weak, developing economies...This of course is a free-trade view favored by the dominant economies, such as prewar Britain and the postwar US."
Frank Ackerman, The Shrinking Gains from Trade: A Critical Assessment of Doha Round Projections, Global Development and Environment Institute, WORKING Paper No. 05-01, Tufts University http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae. Illustrerer uden direkte at udtrykke det i ord, at man narrede de fattige lande til at liberalisere handelen med "videnskabelige", vanskeligt gennemskuelige, økonomiske prognoser for, hvor gavnligt det ville være !
Dokumentet er sidst redigeret: