Africa: WTO Agriculture Policies Undermine Human Rights, New Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18, 2005
Contact: Carin Smaller, in Geneva, 41 22 789 0734
Ben Lilliston, 612-870-3416, [email protected]

WTO Agriculture Policies Undermine Human Rights, New Report
Paving the Way for a People-Centered Food System
Minneapolis/Geneva – The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), threatens human rights by promoting a trade liberalization agenda that overrides efforts to improve livelihoods, finds a new report published by 3D ? Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).
The report, Planting the Rights Seed: A Human Rights Perspective on Agriculture Trade and the WTO, is the first in a series designed to analyze the WTO AoA. The full report can be read at iatp.org or 3dthree.org.
“The trade liberalization agenda promoted by the WTO is seriously undermining people and their human rights,” said Carin Smaller, author of the report and associate at IATP’s Trade Information Program. “It’s time for governments to start negotiating trade policies that focus on improving people’s lives rather than simply expanding trade.”
Approximately 70 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their income, food supply and livelihoods. Yet agricultural policies around the world largely focus on increasing production and trade rather than on livelihoods. Human rights law provides tools that can help define a global food system that guarantees human rights for all. All WTO members have ratified at least one of the international human rights treaties and should use these instruments when designing trade policies, the report concluded.
“It is important that human rights defenders ensure that all governments respect their human rights obligations in their trade policies” said Caroline Dommen, Director of 3D.
The WTO AoA came into force in 1995 and among its aims are to raise living standards, ensure full employment and increase incomes. The AoA is specifically meant to further the WTO’s aims by “establishing a fair and market-oriented agricultural trade system.”
The report claims that these aims are not being realized and found four ways in which the WTO AoA adversely impacts human rights:
1. It promotes the “right to export” over human rights.
2. It fails to tackle corporate control. In fact, trade liberalization has increased the market power of transnational agribusiness while taking away power from farmers. This type of oligopoly control of many agriculture sectors has pushed prices down below the cost of production for farmers around the world.
3. It allows agriculture export dumping at artificially low prices to continue. The AoA rules do not address the root causes of dumping, namely excess production and the market power of corporations. Dumping hurts developing-country farmers who are unable to protect themselves against under-priced imports.
4. It locks developing countries into an uneven playing field. This deprives developing countries of the policy space they need to take steps to manage the flow of imports or prevent dumped products from abroad.
The report found that the WTO AoA does contain provisions that could protect particular countries - or groups of people within countries - from the harmful effects of trade liberalization. Although these tools have not been aggressively implemented, they do offer openings within current trade rules to allow WTO members to meet their human rights obligations.
The background report makes recommendations for:
1. Stronger and simpler rules to prevent and counter dumping.
2. Taking non-trade concerns into account and using safety nets.
3. Making Special and Differential Treatment provisions more meaningful.
4. Conducting Impact Assessments of the first 10 years of the AoA.
5. Tackling Corporate Control.
6. Ensuring coherence between governments’ economic and human rights obligations.
“To promote true development and fulfill human rights, States must implement policies that have an explicit focus on the needs and capabilities of poor people,” the report concludes. “This does not preclude the expansion of trade, as trade can be a valuable tool for development. It does, however, require that trade policy be clearly people-centered. Trade seen as an end in itself will not improve enjoyment of human rights or contribute to lasting economic or social development.”
3D promotes collaboration amongst trade, development and human rights professionals, to ensure that trade rules are developed and applied in ways that promote an equitable economy.
IATP promotes resilient family farms, rural communities and ecosystems around the world through research and education, science and technology, and advocacy.
Read the full report at: iatp.org or 3dthree.org.