New report of Friends of the Earth reveals full scale WTO attack on health and environment.

The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth has published a report that provides a new insight in how WTO negotiations can be used to challenge existing rules. PSI and EPSU have worked with Friends of the Earth (and others) in the WTO and GATS campaigns. Friends of the Earth also has a critical position on the Services Directive and how this can be used to challenge environmental protection.

Friends of the Earth report on WTO attack on health and environment


The position of environmental organisations on the Services Directive


PSI analysis of GATS

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MEDIA ADVISORY Friends of the Earth International

Full scale of WTO challenge to health and environment revealed

AMSTERDAM, LONDON, BRUSSELS, MONTEVIDEO, WASHINGTON DC, May 23, 2005

Friends of the Earth International today publishes a revised analysis of the World Trade Organization’s newest threat to national laws protecting the environment, social well-being and health [1]. An increased number of governments [2] are now understood to be using the the WTO’s non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations [3],to make a breath-taking total of 212 challenges to the laws of other countries. This sweeping attack on government policy-making is now known to also include challenges to the following measures [4]:

- Policies that promote energy efficiency in household appliances, air conditioning units and heating (China, which lists a range of EU directives);

- The European Union’s CE Marking scheme (which ensures imports comply with the essential requirements of EU health, safety and environmental protection laws) (China);

- The Australia Heart Foundation’s ‘Tick’ Scheme which approves healthy food products (Malaysia);

- Requirements to label canned and processed seafood products if they have more than 1% genetically-modified ingredients (Thailand);

- Restrictions on trade in wild animals and products made from them (China, but India also says /"These [animal rights] campaigns could have various motivations not necessarily based on truth");

- Measures used to implement International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14000 and ISO 8000 standards - on environmental management systems and working conditions respectively (India);

- In relation to forestry, building codes and safety standards, measures designed to assist small farmers, government subsidies for education, training and forest research (New Zealand);

- Restrictions on the use of heavy metals, such as cadmium, lead and chromium in the production of electronic appliances (Thailand); and

- Certain trade measures used to implement the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) (the Philippines) and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Malaysia).

“It’s quite incredible that WTO members could have spent three years quietly developing this wish-list of national laws that businesses would like to see swept aside, seemingly oblivious to the public outrage that will inevitably result. The NAMA negotiations finally expose the WTO for what it is - an institution set up specifically to promote a corporate development agenda.”/ said Ronnie Hall of Friends of the Earth International.

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