News Tip: WTO Protesting Misguided, Professor Says
The trade negotiations in Cancun represent the best opportunity to make progress on opening European and U.S. markets to developing countries, says Frederick Mayer
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Too many of the activists gathering during the fifth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference are focused on obstructing the talks, says a Duke University professor who is an expert on economic globalization.
"This is misguided and ironic," said Frederick W. Mayer, associate professor of public policy studies and political science at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
"The trade negotiations in Cancun represent the best opportunity to make progress on opening European and the United States markets to developing country agricultural exports, on loosening intellectual property rules to lower the cost of AIDS drugs in poorer countries, on clarifying the relationship between environmental agreements and the trading rules, and a host of other matters purportedly of concern to the protesters," he said.
Activists representing thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are gathering alongside the meetings of trade ministers in Cancun, Mexico, this week. The gathering will focus on the "Doha Development Agenda," negotiations that came out of the fourth WTO conference, held in November 2001 in Doha, Qatar.
"Many of these representatives of 'global civil society' will play a constructive role, pointing out ways in which the current trade rules are stacked against developing countries and pressuring trade officials to consider the broader environmental and social implications of free trade," Mayer said.
"Unfortunately for those whose goal is constructive, too many in Cancun will be more interested in obstruction. It is right to keep the pressure on, but derailing the 'Doha agenda' will do nothing to advance the interests of workers, the environment or developing countries."
Mayer is author of the book, "Interpreting NAFTA: The Science and Art of Political Analysis" (Columbia University Press, 1998). Mayer may be reached for further comment at (919) 613-7338, or fmayer@duke.edu.
