{"content":[{"text":"As rich countries have been allowed to \n maintain their level of agricultural subsidies \n (which are mostly handed out to large \n producers, not family farms), developing \n countries have not been allowed under WTO \n rules to subsidise food production for \n domestic consumption to guarantee food \n security, nor to protect their farmers from \n unfair dumping.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.045441,"width":0.400858,"height":0.14546099999999998}},{"text":"They are also seeking new rules to limit even \n further their tax liabilities; to ensure an \n unlimited supply of cheap labour, stripped of \n its rights, and to prevent their having any \n accountability to the communities in which \n they operate.","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.045441,"width":0.407983,"height":0.09697599999999998}},{"text":"At a time when most conversations regarding \n Big Tech are around the need for stronger \n antitrust and tax enforcement, and how their \n model of surveillance capitalism should not \n be allowed to shape the contours of our \n media, democracy, human rights, education \n and social relationships - or even how to \n break them up - they are working through \n the WTO, without public debate, to gain a \n new constitution that will consolidate their \n power and profits. They are aiming to \n conclude a new \"plurilateral\" in the WTO \n among nearly half the membership, by the \n next Ministerial in June 2020 in Kazakhstan. \n (Hint: the same provisions are in the \"new\" \n USMCA - in fact they are one of top gains \n celebrated by big business).","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.160088,"width":0.41028600000000004,"height":0.274754}},{"text":"Unfair agriculture rules contribute to global \n food crises and the impoverishment of \n millions - there are still nearly a billion \n hungry people in the world - and keep \n developing countries from benefitting from \n fair trade. And yet the US is currently suing \n India in the WTO for implementing the \n largest food security programme in the \n history of the world.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.207058,"width":0.389938,"height":0.14546}},{"text":"After Seattle, supporters of the WTO were \n able to get developing countries to agree to \n a new round of trade talks only by claiming it \n would be a \"development\" round, i.e. one \n that put the needs of developing countries at \n its heart.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.370189,"width":0.408136,"height":0.096976}},{"text":"The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism \n (DSM) is facing an existential crisis due to \n the Trump administration’s blocking of \n appointments, and everyone expects that \n the judicial arm of the WTO will be neutered \n as of December 11.","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.452512,"width":0.39729099999999995,"height":0.09697599999999995}},{"text":"Since then, unfortunately, developed \n countries have never delivered on their \n promises to address the constraints that bad \n WTO rules put on development. In ministerial \n after ministerial, and I have attended every \n one since the one held in Doha in 2001, they \n have refused to agree to the development \n agenda, of fixing WTO rules that constrain \n development, and instead pushed forward an \n agenda of further liberalisation, even when \n their own workers, patients, farmers and \n environment came under fire.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.484835,"width":0.409993,"height":0.19394599999999995}},{"text":"In reality, the problem with the dispute \n system is that it adjudicates according to a \n set of rules guided by corporate interests. In \n the 45 cases in which members have tried to \n use public interest regulations as a defence \n in a case, commercial interests have won out \n 44 times.","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.565643,"width":0.408307,"height":0.11313799999999996}},{"text":"The reality is that most developing countries \n that have gained from trade have done so by \n exporting to China, whose growth is usually \n attributed to its divergences from the WTO \n model.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.694936,"width":0.408272,"height":0.08081499999999997}},{"text":"Thus, there is a crisis in the WTO, but it is \n one of its own making. The crisis is that \n people around the world have suffered \n through nearly 25 years of a damaging pro- \n corporate trade model, encapsulated by the \n WTO, and the domestic policies of austerity \n that have led to uprisings on four continents, \n mass migrations, and the election of right- \n wing governments in many countries.","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.696451,"width":0.406099,"height":0.14546099999999995}},{"text":"And now Big Tech industry wants to use the \n WTO to write a new constitution for the \n global (digital) economy, to give them rights \n to access markets and to permanently \n privatise the biggest resource in the world - \n data - while handcuffing governments from \n regulating the industry in the public \n interest.","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.793421,"width":0.40190899999999996,"height":0.12929899999999994}},{"text":"To regain stability - and ensure true \n prosperity for their peoples - governments \n must address the fundamental flaws of the \n current system of corporate-led globalisation, \n not expand and entrench power imbalances.","bbox":{"left":0.529575,"top":0.859583,"width":0.411114,"height":0.08081399999999994}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}