Beiträge unter 'Liane Schalatek'
Liane Schalatek writes:
Sunday morning, leisurely breakfast finished, I am getting ready to walk to the Hong Kong subway system to head back to the Convention Center, when – head and blood-shot eyes red – our web and media guru rushes by. “The BBC just reported that there has been an agreement…”, Marc shouts excitedly and jumps into the next taxi cab. I hop in, too, adrenaline suddenly rushing through my veins. Quick, quick, no time to wait for my colleague in the lobby. Every minute counts!
“Convention Center, Convention Center, hmm, tunnel closed” mumbles our cab driver, promising nevertheless to get us somewhere “cose, really cose” to the Convention Center Ok, go! He speeds off, frantically screaming into his two-way radio and answering a phone call at the same time while the red cab dangerously sways as the slightly distracted cabbie frenetically switches lanes. Marc and I close our safety-belts and hold on tight. “You lucky, lucky, hmmm …”, the taxi driver assures as for the first time: He has all the information to get around traffic slow-downs, hold-ups and police barracks coming between us and our mission to be at the Convention Center. We are lucky indeed to be in his cab.
Some 10 minutes pass, we are heading now in the direction of the airport, when screaming back out of the radio apparently our driver hears the information that continuing in our direction would mean a 30 minute delay. “You lucky, lucky, hmm”, our taxi driver says again, as he executes a precise (albeit a bit dangerous) u-turn speeding back the same way we just came. Just stop at the next subway stop, we try to tell him. He nods and ignores us politely, the foot on the gas pedal presses harder and we fly away. Another 10 minutes pass. My anxiety and frustration and the taxi-meter all climb quickly, while Marc, who normally lives in Nairobi and has seen worse, reaches a zen-state of resigning himself to this fate. All of a sudden, the car is jerked to the left, screeching off a speed way ramp. We can hear it coming, and sure enough, there it is: “You lucky, lucky, hmm….” With vigorous head nods and a broad smile, butchered English and full-body language our driver somehow communicates that the tunnel is now open again. Hurray!
Through the tunnel, up the exit ramp—the wrong one, obviously, because now our cabbie utters what must undoubtedly be an improper Cantonese curse, pounds on his horn and just barely misses a truck with hazard lights stopped dead in the middle of the street: police barricade. Marc’s and my laughing now contains a hint of hysteria. Off to the side we go, “lucky, lucky, hmm…” Five minutes later, the mad-taxi-odyssey is over. Stopped just outside the security cordon, our cabbie can go no further (THANK GOD!) and delivers us proudly to the curb. Alive! “You lucky, lucky, hmmm”, he assures us one final time with a wave in the direction of where the Convention Center surely must lie.
Marc and I walk past police barriers as we pass exhausted cops slumped on the sideways with tired, exhausted faces and their helmets and battle gear by their side. In the middle of Lockhart Street is a wagon burg made of police vans, no, actually, it is a holding pen, imprisoning the South Korean protesters who since late last night’s protest have been trapped there. As we watch and walk and Hong Kong folks take advantage of the picture opportunity with their digital and cell phone cameras, one by one the South Korean Farmers, each one flanked by two cops, are led out of the holding pen and to a nearby police van for processing – poor guys!
An hour after we set out from our hotel, we finally arrive at the Convention Center. Instead of bustling excitement, there only measured, expectant quietude greats us. No agreement, no new text yet, instead speculations that the alliance of developing countries has broken during the night, that Brazil still stands firm and that the EU may present some new text proposal at 2 pm as a last ditch “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal. Uff, still plenty of time to catch our breath and the latest rumors. We haven’t missed a thing. “We lucky, lucky, hmm….” Indeed.
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
18. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek writes:
When I came into the NGO computer center late this afternoon, there was a big line in front of the photocopiers. This can, for the WTO-savy, mean only one thing: a new draft ministerial text and a bunch of adrenaline-driven civil society reps who all want to get a hand on a bloody copy. Now. Immediately, and no, I was in front of you and could you please wait your turn, thank you very much…
Anyway, a few minutes later, the 50 page document in hand, comes the next challenge – to find somebody, who – if not read – has at least glanced at the draft ministerial declaration, who is insider enough to know where the 10 or so most critical reference points are and who is either brave, smart (self-confident, in case the smarts fail him or her) or adventurous enough to venture an educated guess what the new draft ministerial means for the Hong Kong conference and beyond.
Everybody I asked seemed to agree on one thing: the text is not great, not by a long stretch of imagination. That means, of course, great in the sense that we would see a turnaround by EU and US. That they are conceding their ridiculously development-unfriendly maximum demands in NAMA and services while not willing to give an inch in agriculture. Or great in the sense that the real development concerns of the group of 110 or so developing countries would be placed center stage. No, the new draft ministerial text has nothing of the sort. It does seem to have some minimal concessions towards the development package that the G 110, which presented itself with so much bravado yesterday, listed as the bare minimum. Some references to it are there – but they are tacked onto the factually unchanged negotiating positions with which EU and the US came to Hong Kong.
So what to do now? The principled position I would personally like to see the developing countries take is to reject the text outright, pointing to the fact that there is not enough in it for them to see an honest good faith effort by the EU and the US. This would be the “chuck-the-text” option. The other possibility for developing countries is to throw all left-over negotiation energy into the last night, the last Green Rooms in hopes of getting some marginal improvements—crawling incremental change by incremental change to something maybe a little bit better before the negotiations are going back to Geneva. This would be the “tweak-the-text” option. To chuck or to tweak? Honestly, this really should not have to be the question……
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
17. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek writes:
After three days of public posturing and King Kong like breast-beating by the major players mostly for the sake of the media, to intimidate political opponents and to assure the folks at home, it seems that on the third day of negotiations in Hong Kong the exchanges have started to turn from mere talks and sometimes more, sometimes less polite exchange of views to—hello, wasn’t that why they all came to Hong Kong for? – negotiations…. Significant efforts to rework the draft declaration of December 7 seem to have finally begun with late Thursday evening “Green Room” meetings that – if the circles under the eyes of negotiators this Friday morning are any indication – lasted until the wee hours of Friday morning.
We hear that a draft text was presented on duty-free/ quota-free market access for LDCs. Part of the sport of NGO reps in the Hong Kong Convention Center, is of course, trying to get your hands on such a text, and not incidentally, your importance and standing in the “scene”, the proof of your level of connectedness and for the quality of your “sources” depend on whether you can produce the text, or at least are able to, when asked by those less-fortunate in terms of insider-knowledge, to casually and without hesitations spill out the contents of the sought-after text… It won’t come as too much of a surprise if, in the spirit of the WTO “confessionals” practiced as part of the talks/ negotiations earlier this week I admit that I didn’t get it…
But anyway: In a press briefing just a little while ago, I DID hear the Indonesian trade minister Mari Elka Pangestu say with a weary and tired semblance of a half-smile that she felt “some sort of optimism” and “comfortable with the language that is there” with respect to the whole notion of quota- and duty-free market access for LDCs. This is significant, since Madame Pangestu is the spokesperson for the G 33, which supports a strong development package for the LDCs, including, but going way beyond, duty- and quota-free access for LDC products. The developing country group of the G 33, coordinated by Indonesia, itself was formed around and is continue to push here in Hong Kong for the inclusion of specific language on special products (SP) and the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) into the final ministerial text. And there the G 33 and Madame Pangestu still hope for “stand-alone” (meaning not conditional on advances in other areas) and specific language in the outcome document of Hong Kong. They and Madame Pangestu, the latter tired and all, is prepared to discuss specific percentages – she would like 20 percent of tariff lines to be designated as special products—as well as specific criteria for determining these in the next Green Room meeting this Friday evening.
Of course, it doesn’t pay in trade negotiator circles to be too optimistic too early: With respect to quota- and duty free access for LDCs, there will be, as Madame Pangestu stressed, “very limited exemptions” of product lines, both by the developing countries who choose to participate in the deal and grant this access as well as by the developed world. For the United States, US-Trade Representative Rob Portman has already made clear that these exemptions could include, among other products, textiles. “It would be difficult for some tariff lines to go duty-free when for example Bangladesh is so competitive in textiles”, argued Portman on Thursday, pleading understanding that the US Congress would not be willing to swallow such an LDC access deal otherwise. Excuse me, not that I ever subscribed to it, but wasn’t this big deal about trading supposedly about using a country’s competitive advantage, at least according to those free-trade apostles (and you know who you are…) out there????
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
16. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek writes:
Tiny Tonga, the South Pacific archipelago of 169 islands with a total coast line of just 419 kilometers and the only monarchy left in the South Pacific, on Thursday night in a formal ceremony in Hong Kong became the 150th member country of the WTO. Its just 112,000 inhabitants depend mainly on a few agricultural products for export (vanilla beans, squash, coconuts and bananas). Those make up two thirds of the country’s income, the rest comes from tourism. Now, I was asking myself, what would such a small country hope to gain from joining the WTO? Is it the fear of being left behind while somebody else is making the rules, regulations and decisions that will shape the island’s nation’s own future, whether they like it or not? Is it the hope to literally appear on the global map by joining? Is it the expectation to at least gain a semblance of a political voice and a seat – albeit a backseat only, to be quite frank—at international negotiation tables? Probably all of the above…
Ultimately, it might just be the feeling of relative safety and belonging that comes from larger numbers. Tonga will closely work with other South Pacific island-nations, which, because they don’t have the means and capacity, try to devise negotiation responsibilities in the WTO in a sort of weird division-of-labor. This is how it will be that Tonga, with its just 240 Million US Dollar annual GDP, its bit of agriculture and tourism, but without a single manufacturing operation in the whole nation, finds itself from now on responsible for the region’s stance on …. you guessed it right, NAMA, the debates about market access for manufactured and industrial goods!!
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
16. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek writes:
It is very easy to get caught up in all the abstract “techno-trade-talk” in the conference rooms and halls of the Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Center. In discussions about the development impact of trade liberalization for poor and vulnerable countries, words and concepts like “special and differential treatments” (SDT), “special products” and “special safeguard mechanism” (SP & SSM) and “preference erosion” are exchanged like greetings or membership cards for a special club. So, it is the rare moment when negotiators and civil society representatives likewise are reminded very concretely that behind all this trade jargon – and having to live with the implications of these concepts put into action – there are real human beings with their livelihoods at stake.
For me, the theoretical trade concept of “preference erosion” was really given a human face in a plea that the trade minister of Dominica made to European NGOs just recently. He was hoping to save the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of people in his country. Come January 1, 2006, it will only be a short matter of time before they are lost for good. You see, Dominica, a tiny Caribbean island with about 70,000 inhabitants, basically just has one major export good: bananas. As a former British colony (only gaining independence in 1980), Dominica was allowed to export its bananas duty free to the markets of the European Union under the EU’s 30-year old preference agreement with the so-called ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) countries.
In Dominica, thousands of small family farmers, often with the help of all family members, produce these bananas exclusively for the European market. Turns out, they produce bananas that are more expensive than those that multinational corporations like the US-giant Chiquita can produce on plantations in several Latin American countries – not incidentally, because they are paying their wage laborers not too much. Now, these countries would very much like to sell more of their cheaper bananas to Europe. But, because the EU gives preference to the bananas from countries like Dominica, it used to slap a pretty high tariff on bananas coming from Latin American countries such as Equador and Honduras. These countries argued that this was illegal under WTO rules, sued the European Union under and won the case before the WTO. The EU were ordered to dismantle their banana import regime that favored the bananas from ACP countries by 2006 – and with it, effectively, the existence of thousands of small independent banana farmers of Dominica. So, the next time I hear somebody state that because of “preference erosion” some developing countries might actually loose under the current round of trade negotiations, I’ll will think about bananas and the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, and I will think twice about using the term “preference erosion” lightly.
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
16. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek writes:
What would an international trade system look like that would consider human rights, gender equality and sustainable development? Definitely quite different from the current one and with significantly more policy space for national governments, as the experts and activists agreed who participated in a joint seminar by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) on Wednesday in Hong Kong on the rights-based approach to development.
Can the WTO then be salvaged for such an understanding of development, which doesn’t focus on income and economic growth but on good jobs, secure livelihoods, adequate nutrition and food and comprehensive environmental protection? Only if the WTO, in a new global governance hierarchy, will be formally subject to legally binding and enforceable human rights and environmental conventions. The participants agreed that the WTO was not the right framework for considerations of environmental protection, human rights and gender equality. While the WTO should undoubtedly consider them in its negotiations and agreements, it should not regulate them.
As the experience with incorporating environmental questions into the WTO in form of a Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) has proved, such a move would be counterproductive: the CTE, while dealing with the impacts of environmental regulations for trade agreements, does not consider the implications auf global trade for the environment. On shutters to imagine the results aiming to create a parallel mechanisms dealing with gender in the WTO: gender equality would be branded as barrier to trade, gender-biased exploitation would be part of the official development paradigm. Now, where would that lead us? From Doha straight to Hong Kong…
Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
14. Dezember 2005
Liane Schalatek schreibt:
Wie muss ein internationales Handelssystem aussehen, das Menschenrechte, Geschlechtergerechtigkeit und Nachhaltigkeit beruecksichtigt? Anders als das gegenwaertige, mit deutlich mehr politischem Freiraum fuer nationale Regierungen, da waren sich die internationalen ExpertInnen und AktivistInnen einig, die bei einem Seminar der Heinrich Boell Stiftung und des International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) am Mittwoch in Hongkong ueber den rechtsbasierten Entwicklungsansatzes als den richtigen Ansatz diskutierten.
Ist die WTO denn noch zu retten fuer dieses Verstaendnis von Entwicklung, das nicht primaer Einkommens- und Wirtschaftswachstum sondern qualitative gute Arbeitsplaetze, anstaendige Lebensbedingungen und Existenzgrundlagen, ausreichend Nahrung und weitreichenden Umweltschutz zum Ziel hat? Nur, wenn die WTO formal und rechtlich bindend in einer neuen Hierarchie internationaler Organisationen und Vereinbarungen geltenden Menschenrechts- und Umweltschutzkonventionen unterstellt wird. Denn die WTO, da waren sich die TeilnehmerInnen einig, ist nicht der richtige Referenzrahmen fuer Umwelts-, Menschenrechts- und Geschlechterfragen. Die Welthandelsorganisation muss diese Belange zwar beruecksichtigen, darf sie aber nicht regulieren.
Das waere kontraproduktiv, wie die Erfahrung im Umweltbereich gezeigt hat: zwar gibt es einen Mechanismus in Form eines Umweltkomitees, dennoch beschaeftigt sich die WTO nur mit Auswirkungen von nationalen und internationalen Umweltbestimmungen als “ Handelsbarrieren”, beruecksichtigt aber nicht die Auswirkungen von Handel auf die Umwelt. Man stelle sich die Implikationen eines aehnlichen Gendermechanismuses in der WTO vor: Geschlechtergerechtigkeit als Handelshemmnis, geschlechterspezifische Ausbeutung als Entwicklungsparadigma – wo kaemen wir denn da hin? Ueber die Doha Runde direkt nach Hong Kong…
Liane Schalatek ist stellvertretende Leiterin des Büros der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Washington.
14. Dezember 2005
