Corporations Are Not Humans :Not Even Close --- Episode 32

 THE WORLD'S HIGHEST JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE 
                                             BODY 

                   THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

   The third institution called for by the Bretton Woods meeting ---the International Trade Organization ---was stillborn because of concerns in the U.S Congress that its powers would infringe on U.S. sovereignty. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) served in its stead, with a somewhat ambiguous status, as the body through which multilateral trade agreements were fashioned for nearly fifty years, until the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations quietly gave birth to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995.  It was a landmark triumph for corporate libertarianism. What the World Bank and the IMF had accomplished in institutionalizing the doctrines of corporate libertarianism in low-income countries, the WTO now had a mandate and enforcement powers to carry forward in both high-and low-income countries. 
   The key provision in the 2,000-page agreement creating the WTO is buried in paragraph 4 of Article XVI : "Each member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations and administrative procedures with its obligations as provided in the annexed Agreements." The "annexed Agreements"include all the substantive multilateral agreements relating to trade in goods and services and intellectual property rights. This provision allows a WTO member country to challenge any law of another member country that it believes deprives it of benefits it expected to receive from the new trade rules. This includes virtually any law that requires imported goods to meet local or national health, safety, labor, or environmental standards that exceed WTO-accepted international standards. Unless the country against which the complaint is lodged can prove to the WTO panel that a number of restrictive provisions have been satisfied, it must bring its own laws into line with the lower international standard or be subject to perpetual fines or trade sanctions.
   The WTO's goal is to "harmonize" international standards. Regulations requiring that imported products meet local standards on such matters as recycling, use of carcinogenic food additives, auto safety, toxic substances, labeling, and meat inspection are all subject to challenge. The offending country must prove that a purely scientific justification exists for its standards. The fact that its citizens simply do not want to be exposed to the higher level of risk associated with the power WTO standard isn't acceptable. 
   
   Conservation measures that restrict the export of a country's own resources---such as forestry products, minerals, and fish products --- can be ruled unfair trade practices, as can requirements that locally harvested timber or other resources be processed locally to provide local employment. Cases can also be brought against countries that attempt to give preferential treatment to local over foreign investors or that fail to protect the intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights) of foreign companies. Local interests are no longer a valid basis for local laws under the new WTO regime. The interests of international trade, which are primarily the interests of transnational corporations, take priority. 
   Challenges may also be brought against the laws of state and local governments located within the jurisdiction of a member country, even though these governments are not signatories to the new agreement. The national government under whose jurisdiction they fall becomes obligated to take all reasonable measures to ensure the compliance of these state or local administrations. Such "reasonable measures" include preemptive legislation, litigation, and withdrawal of financial support.
   The fact that local laws are subject to challenge under the WTO does not necessarily mean that they will be. However, there are numerous cases in which these same types of laws were successfully challenged under the previous, less stringent, GATT rules. Even before the GATT-WTO was ratified , the United States, Canada, the  European Community, and Japan had each compiled extensive lists of one another's laws that they intended to target for challenge once the agreement was in place.
   Although the GATT-WTO is an agreement among countries, and challenges are brought by one country against another, the impetus for a challenge normally comes from a transnational corporation that believes itself to be disadvantaged by a particular law. For example, tobacco companies have repeatedly used trade agreements to fight health reforms intended to reduce harm from cigarette smoking. 

   When a challenge to a national or local law is brought before the WTO, the contending parties present their case in a secret hearing before a panel of three trade experts, generally lawyers who have made careers of representing corporate clients in trade issues. There is no provision for the presentation of alternative perspectives, such as amicus briefs from nongovernmental organizations, unless a given panel chooses to solicit them. Documents presented to the panels are secret, except that a government may choose to release its own documents. The identification of the panelists who supported a position or conclusion is explicitly forbidden. The burden of proof is on the defendant to prove that the law in question is not a restriction of trade as defined by the WTO. 
   When a panel decides that a domestic law violates WTO rules, it may recommend that the offending country change its law. It becomes, in effect, the world's highest court. Countries that fail to make the recommended change within a prescribed period face financial penalties, trade sanctions, or both.
   
   Under the proposed rules, the recommendations of the review panel are automatically adopted by the WTO sixty days after presentation unless there is a unanimous vote of WTO members to reject them. This means that over 100 countries, including the country that won the decision, must vote against a panel decision to overturn it --- rendering the appeals process virtually meaningless. 
   The WTO has legislative as well as judicial powers. GATT allows the WTO to change certain trade rules by a two-thirds vote of WTO member representatives. The new rules become binding on all members. The WTO becomes, in effect, an unelected global parliament of trade lawyers with the power to amend its own charter without referral to national bodies.