The latest rounds of negotiations by the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement form the current context for FAFIA’s research on trade and globalisation. Both of these grant strong rights to corporations and business at the expense of human and women’s rights. While the WTO proclaims the virtues of free and globalized trade for all and claims itself as an impartial trade policeman, it is clear that WTO policies benefit the corporate interests of rich and industrialized countries at the expense of the social dimension of trade policies, human rights, environmental protections and the fair and equitable distribution of the world’s wealth and resources. The WTO is the largest and most powerful trade arrangement in the world and for this reason, has generated a global civil society protest.

Social justice groups are not uniform in their strategies or political positions in relation to the WTO. There are obvious conflicts between labour groups in industrialized countries and in developing countries that unions work hard to negotiate. There are difficulties in ensuring that worker’s rights also include women’s rights which necessarily includes unpaid work, often not calculated as labour. There are some who want to reject the WTO wholesale, others who say there is no way to get rid of it, so we are stuck dealing with it. Others, particularly in poorer nations, argue that liberalised trade is their route to prosperity if arranged in their favour. There are some who argue that trade and globalisation can result in increased wealth and benefits for all if managed properly; others who say that under global capitalism there will always be some who gain on the backs of others. Many are agreed that the negative impacts of the Uruguay Round have not been adequately assessed at this point, and for that reason, are arguing that the Seattle meetings should not move ahead on the trade liberalisation agenda at this time but rather, use the meeting to fairly assess the impact of current policies and develop compensatory policies for the past and the next round of agreements. The president of the United States has offered an opening to social justice groups to be heard, at least in his address to the WTO meeting regarding the protestors in Seattle.

It is not an easy task to sort through the various positions. However, from FAFIA’s research so far, it seems that one good strategy to adopt is to insist that human rights, food security, women’s equality, environmental protections and appropriate development always should be considered “trade issues” that have to be ‘on the table’ first and foremost prior to entering any trade agreement. Canada, for instance, is a signatory to all United Nations human rights treaties. According to UN treaties, human rights are absolute and non-derogable, meaning that they are granted on the grounds of being human and they cannot legitimately be transgressed under any circumstances. One strategy to humanize the WTO is to compel WTO countries to not agree to anything that does not respect their prior commitments to human rights. In Canada, we have some opportunities to do this, for instance, by documenting the impacts of trade arrangements, translating them into the language of human rights and women’s rights, demonstrating how it is that Canada’s agreement to a particular macro-economic arrangement contravenes its obligations to guarantee economic, social and cultural rights to people in Canada and elsewhere. It is one strategy; there are many others with different implications that need to be considered.

FAFIA had accreditation with the WTO in Geneva and was represented by Shelagh Day from the FAFIA Steering Committee at the “Millennium Round” ministerial meetings and the NGO forum of the WTO in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999.