Africa/Global: Understanding human rights and the WTO

Over the ten-year history of the World Trade Organization (WTO), distrust and misinformation have controlled the relationship between human rights advocates and trade experts. Yet it is now evident to both 'sides' that trade-facilitated globalisation has profound human effects, as explicitly acknowledged in the Doha "Development Agenda." Adopted at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in 2001, the Doha Ministerial Declaration establishes a framework for negotiating WTO agreements that respects the human dimensions of development. The interactions between trade and human rights are complex: bidirectional, direct and indirect, and positive and negative. A July 2005 International Federation of Human Rights report examines this relationship.