Call for International Mobilizations in Geneva : STOP the WTO Corporate Agenda before Hong Kong

This Call is issued by the Geneva People’s Alliance

For More Information Contact: [email protected]

With December’s Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in view, WTO members are speeding up negotiations to ensure a successful outcome. The collapse of the trade talks in Cancun still in mind, the WTO changed their negotiating strategy. Negotiators will seek to resolve major conflicting issues in Geneva during General Council meetings – thus avoiding the public scrutiny and popular pressures that contributed to previous deadlocks. Decisions would thus be taken in an even more opaque and undemocratic fashion. Civil society must mobilize to counter this strategy!

The July Framework that was agreed upon last year exposes this change in strategy. During the this year’s July General Council, which ended without any substantial deal, the true character of trade talks became once more evident – the current round of talks will be just another round for large corporations, whereas the interests of family farmers around the world, women, workers, the poor and the environment are not taken into account. Given what is at stake in agriculture, services and industrial goods -- and the existing power imbalances in the WTO -- these developments are of grave concern. Therefore it is imperative that we ensure popular pressure and international attention, on the upcoming General Council meetings in Geneva,. Social movements and civil society must be present to hold WTO members accountable and ensure that developing countries, the interest of peoples around the world and the environment are not furthered trampled in the stampede of trade liberalization.

In the run up to Hong Kong, all attention is now being put into October’s General Council during which important decisions are expected in all areas. The Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong, therefore, may become little more than a stocktaking session, rather than a decision taking meeting. We are therefore calling on social movements and civil society organizations to mobilize for a week of action against the WTO corporate agenda, including:

• An international demonstration in Geneva on 15 October (start 14.00 in front of WTO, Av. de la Paix);

• An observatory of negotations, lobbying and symbolic actions from 17 to 21 October in Geneva.