Food for a not fairly treated thought
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Human Rights Reader 124 (Sorry, the HRR I sent out last week was
No. 123 and not No 124)
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
Oblivious to the teachings of history, international free trade
is being promoted to the rank of 'development motor' as if de-
velopment would be the same as preparing the population for the
market economy. (CETIM)
1. The WTO is driven by a mercantilist philosophy; the focus of
what it does is not on the welfare or growth prospects of mem-
bers. Small, poor countries have little to offer and to gain in
the mercantilist WTO exchange. The multilateral-trade-
liberalization-drive championed by the WTO has been mainly
driven by corporate interests seeking access to foreign markets;
the WTO, therefore, is a good vehicle for advancing their inter-
ests.
2. It is not that industrial countries need the WTO; their firms
can and do obtain access to new markets directly. In fact, the
private sector has often concluded that the multilateral system
may be good, but is ineffective, so, they use non-governmental
routes.
3. On the other hand, it has been estimated that, if all (that
is ALL) global trade barriers to poor countries were eliminated,
approximately 500 million people could be lifted out of hunger
and poverty over 15 years. (Keep in mind that, if China is ex-
cluded, the number of hungry people has actually increased in
the last decade. This, despite the right to food being enshrined
in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
1948 and in the International Pact of 1966.
4. Eradicating protectionist barriers may be one of the best
ways to put food on the tables of poor people. Protectionism re-
sults in higher domestic food prices which mostly hurt poor con-
sumers as they spend proportionately more of their income on
food --and chronic food insecurity comes mainly from insuffi-
cient purchasing power of the poor. The main determinant of un-
dernutrition is thus low income.
5. As a Human Rights challenge, it is, consequently, more impor-
tant to advocate for raising income of poor persons than for
food self-sufficiency, i.e., raising rural incomes is more im-
portant than increasing food production. So, the right to fair
social and economic conditions is necessary to allow people to
feed themselves (FAO).
6. In addition, and as related, keep in mind that if the debt
burden of poor countries were significantly reduced or elimi-
nated as their terms of trade were made fairer, the amount of
aid required would also significantly diminish.
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
Mostly adapted from F&D, 42:1, March 2005, D+C, 32:5, May 2005,
and D+C, 32:7, July 2005.