From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERIn the Uruguay Round of negotiations that led to the creation ofthe WTO in 1995, the pharmaceutical lobby steamrollered through anagreement on intellectual property whose implications were unclearto many of those involved. Only after it came into effect did developingcountries realise the extent to which they had signed up to a majorextension of corporate monopolies and high-priced drugs that wouldamount to a death sentence for thousands of sick and dying people.Corporate lobbyists from the financial sector also spotted anopportunity to use WTO rules to prise open new markets through a‘General Agreement on Trade in Services’ (GATS). David Hartridge,Director of the WTO Services Division, later acknowledged that‘without the enormous pressure generated by the American financialservices sector, particularly companies like American Express andCiticorp, there would have been no services agreement.’ 105On some issues, companies use their influence to press for positivechange. In the Netherlands, ABN AMRO went to the Dutch parliamentwith Oxfam Novib to argue for stronger Dutch regulations on clusterbombs. In the UK, institutional investors such as Insight have lobbiedthe British government to improve its handling of the OECD guidelineson multinational enterprises. 106 Climate change, in particular(as explained below), has seen its share of both progressive anddamaging corporate lobbying.Using their clout to promote their private interests at the expenseof the public good is only one of the worrying aspects of corporateactivity that Oxfam has found in its work with transnationals in suchdisparate fields as coffee, mining, and garments. Other issues thatpoint to the need for better governance of corporate behaviour include:• Commodity value chains: Since the days of the East IndiaCompany, monopolies and cartels have allowed large corporationsto manipulate markets. In recent years, a small number ofTNCs have come to dominate the ‘value chains’ of productssuch as coffee, tea, grains, fruit, and vegetables. The six largestchocolate manufacturers account for 50 per cent of world sales.Just three global companies control 80 per cent of the soybeancrushing market in Europe and more than 70 per cent in theUSA. 107 Such market concentration ratchets up global inequality,344