Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

3.2 Trade rules by the World Trade Organization
The ever-extending reach of “free” trade rules must also be reined in. Trade
used to mean the commercial exchange of goods across national borders.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995, with a
mandate to enforce and expand the reach of free trade rules. Trade rules
have since been extended to cover exchanges involving any conceivably
tradable activity – including health, education, water and patents on life
forms. The claim that international rules on services, investment and
intellectual property are about “trade” is cynical deceit. These agreements,
whether multilateral, regional or bilateral, aim to guarantee transnational
corporations the right to access and control the world’s social, financial,
transport, communications, energy and cultural services as well as
knowledge, even at the cost of the most impoverished countries.
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The WTO claims to be a rules-based organization. Yet
• its rules reflect the dominance of the major powers;
• one after another, the deadlines in the so-called Doha “Development”
Agenda 12 to address concerns of the South have been missed;
• with equal consistency, the major powers choose to comply with or
ignore findings of the WTO, as suits their domestic economic and
political interests.
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The 4th ministerial meeting of the WTO held in 2001 in Doha (Qatar) agreed to give
more emphasis on development concerns.