Here, the Chairman's declaration falls way short of the points contained
for
instance in the Zanzibar declaration adopted July by LDC trade ministers,
which expresses the collective concern on implementation issues by
the most
vulnerable members in international trade 34 of whom are in Africa.
To begin with the question on special and differential treatment.
The
chairman's text simply affirms Article of XVIII of GATT 1994
as a providing
for S&D for developing countries and that recourse to it should
be less
onerous than to article XII of GATT 94. By contrast the Zanzibar
declaration, affirms the need for a Binding and full implementation
of S&D,
including adoption of new S&D measures to take into account problems
encountered LDCs in implementation. The Zanzibar document proceeds
further
to point to specific areas that S&D can be enhanced. For
instance, under
market access, it states that existing S&D provisions should be
improved in
an effective manner with a v view to ensuring the duty-free access
is not
nullified by non-tariff measures.
This position has been further underscored by the Conference of African
Ministers of Trade in Abuja. Affirming that S&D is a core
principle of the
WTO, it emphasises the need to ensure that S&D provisions
are made
meaningful and operational by adopting a decision at Doha to make them
legally binding.
Another area of glaring difference between the draft declaration and
the
positions of African countries is in the areas of Agriculture.
In the
declaration, the main elements of a future position on Agric remain
to be
elaborated. For the immediate, the declaration has two proposals.
The first
is that the general council takes note of the report by the Committee
of
Agriculture on the administration of f tariff rate quotas and endorses
the
decision by the Committee to keep the matter under review. Secondly,
it
"urges members to exercise restraint in challenging measures notified
under
the green box by developing countries to promote rural development
and
adequately address food security concerns". It is ironic that
in view of
the extreme difficulties that developing countries have expressed in
the
area of agriculture, especially the LDCs, all that the Chairman's text
could
offer is a non-binding language: urge developed country members to
show
restraint.
By contrast the Zanzibar declaration is full of specific proposals for
addressing the problems of agriculture for LDCs.
These include: (i)
Immediate implementation of bound duty and quota free market access
conditions to exports originating in LDCs, covering agric products
in their
primary, semi-processed and processed forms; (ii) full and effective
implementation of the decision NFIDCs.
With regard to the built-in agenda and future work in the area of
Agriculture, the Zanzibar declaration also proposes: (i) maintenance
of
article 15.2 of AoA, to protect LDCs against having to undertake commitments
on domestic support, export competition policies and market access
throughout the agricultural reform process; (ii) abolition of
export
subsidies for agric products of special interest to LDCs within the
special
sessions of the CoA before the review of second phase in March 2002;
(iii)
duty free and quota free market access; (iv) consultative group within
the
relevant Committees to receive requests for technical and financial
assistance in the areas of SPS and TBT; (vi) contractual and operational
provision under TRIPS to facilitate LDC access to appropriate technologies
and practices; (vii) coherence between Breton Woods c conditionality
and
WTO commitment; (viii) inter-agency revolving fund to support
specified LDC
difficulties and challenges; (ix) progressive reduction of trade-
and
production- distorting domestic support measures in developed countries;
The issue of Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIM
In order to develop a strategy for a global democratic change, we will first summarise the existing proposals and their relations to the contemporary institutional and world historical context, including social relations in the systems of finance and trade. Obviously, the line between conservative and transformative proposals is not categorical. If the relevant contexts are specified in sufficient detail, most global democracy initiatives, if implemented, would imply some transformations. Moreover, the difference, say, between a UN reform and the establishment of a world parliament may be small. Rather than categorical differences, we are talking about shades and degrees. Also by combining proposals into a systematic strategy, their transformative potential may increase and be reinforced by other simultaneous or subsequent reforms.
The key notion of this report is that a strategy of global democratic change requires a systematic analysis of the preconceptions and possible democratic improvements of different proposals. Tables 1-4 summarise the main points of Parts I and II. Who are supposed to have franchise in different proposal and models? What is the scope of the proposed institutional arrangements? What would be the degree of authenticity of democratic will-formation? How are the proposed changes justified? Is there relevant political support, actual or potential, for that kind of change? Is it politically possible to make the proposal real? Is the suggested institutional arrangement feasible? And last but not least, what are the transformative implications of different proposals?
Tables 1 and 2 review the main proposals concerning reforms of existing international organisations. Table 1 sums up the four main areas of UN reform: the Security Council (UN-SC); the General Assembly (UN-GA); the People's Assembly (UN-PA); and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Table 2 explicates the possible reforms of the Bretton Woods institutions, the WTO and the international courts. Tables 3 and 4 bring up proposed new institutional arrangements. Table 3 summarises initiatives to empower global civil society through the World Social Forum as well as proposals to establish a global truth commission, world parliament or global referenda. Finally, Table 4 tackles schemes of debt arbitration mechanism and global taxes, particularly the currency transactions tax and the global greenhouse tax.
All reviews or amendments of the UN Charter depend on the will of the permanent members of the Security Council. They have a veto right also on any changes of the UN Charter. Therefore, abolition or gradual phasing away of their veto power could release the possibility of other UN reforms. Proposals to democratise the SC are justified in terms of immanent critique (democracy is the accepted principle of most member states and in accordance with the spirit of the Charter); epistemological considerations (impartiality requires that also the positions of the permanent members can be criticised); and instrumentalist reasons (democratic reforms are necessary for an efficient and legitimate UN to tackle the salient problems of our times). None of the reform proposals would change the scope of the SC, but some would submit aspects of the SC work under the scrutiny of the General Assembly. The aim of most of the SC reforms would be to establish the principle of formal equality of sovereign states. Most of the explicit support for these reform proposals have thus far come from a few third world states - although many of them appear obedient or silent - and, in particular, global civil society. The problem is that a real SC reform would seem to be possible only if all veto-powers would give up their privileges. The main problem is the dominance of the US. Also Russia and China may be unlikely to relinquish their veto right in the foreseeable future (it could be time- and energy-consuming to convince the governments of the UK and France that their seat is a mere relic from the past, but this is at least possible).
The General Assembly has been marginalized. In principle, within the confines of the existing Charter, it would be possible to strengthen the position of the GA by activating Articles 13 and 14, which give it far-reaching powers to initiate processes concerning any matter related to peace, security or welfare. Moreover, according to the Charter Article 12, the General Assembly could prevent a Security Council action that violates the Charter. But also the potential of these Articles will remain unused until the GA will have better resources and the majority of the member states will have more self-confidence to challenge the dual hegemony of the US and neoliberalism. The world historical context has to change first. Any changes that would require amending the UN Charter appear highly unlikely. The most immediately "realistic" reform is to incorporate non-state actors to the work of the GA, but this means democratisation only on the condition that authentic NGOs and trade unions and/or democratic parliaments are playing the main role. Even then, the transformative effects appear fairly limited.
Under these circumstances, the proposals to establish a UN People's Assembly are bold. In most proposals, the People's Assembly would reflect the demographic realities of different countries; in some cases the non-governmental organizations would have a key role. In the most straightforward initiatives, however, the representatives of the UNPA would be chosen in direct global elections, like democratic parliaments are elected within countries. Franchise would thus be directly based on world citizenship. Usually the tasks and powers of UNPA are assumed to be limited, but possibly expanding. At first, it would be an opinion-making body, perhaps taking steps towards a world parliament proper. It is justified in universalist terms and supported mostly by some civic actors and movements only. It appears more difficult to make true than any of the major GA reforms, also because non-democratic countries may not find the idea of a UNPA acceptable (particularly in its more ambitious and universalist forms). Its establishment would also require an amendment of the UN Charter. If the purpose was to establish a world parliament in the longer run, it might have more profound - but contingent and possibly ambiguous - transformative implications. Otherwise, the transformative effects would seem to be fairly limited.
Originally, ECOSOC was supposed to be the core of the UN governance of world's social and economic affairs. It has, however, remained in the margins of the UN system. Most reform proposals concern making good of the promises of the UN Charter. If ECOSOC assumed its role as the main co-ordinator of social and economic institutions, it could actually help to make for instance the BWIs more accountable. The justifications for reforms are usually rather instrumental, the ECOSOC being a body that could help to establish certain social, economic and possibly democratic aims elsewhere. There is some support for this idea among the states and in the global civil society, but even as a topic of reform it has remained relatively marginal. The US, the BWIs and other neoliberal forces would also oppose reforms. Although they cannot block changes in the same way as in the case of many other UN reforms, any change would seem to have an external impetus. In a more favourable world historical context, and in the connection of other global democratic reforms, however, ECOSOC reforms might well have some transformative implications.
The prospects for democratic UN reforms do not look good. To the contrary, since the mid-1980s at the latest, the UN system has been domesticated by the US, downsized, neo-liberalised and demoralised. Most of the UN reforms of the recent past - or under consideration - have nothing to do with democracy, the only minor exception being attempts to incorporate NGOs in the working of various UN bodies. The key to many of the recent de-democratising transformations has been money. The US in particular has used open financial blackmail to get its will through. Moreover, although the prosperity and rapid growth of the bureaucracies of the BWIs indicates that there is a double morality at play, the ethico-political justification for impoverishing the UN system has been based on the representation of the UN as an excessively big money-waster. The essence of the neoliberal reforms has been to make the UN system more accountable to the main financial contributors, i.e. to accord more with the one dollar/one vote principle.
This however suggests that a new basis for the funding of the UN system might open up a way forward. A two-thirds majority of the General Assembly could decide to establish a ceiling of e.g. 10% on any country's contribution to the UN budget. This is difficult to establish because of the resistance of the US, although in principle this is not as difficult as a UN Charter revision would be. The most promising path, however, is that of establishing new sources of funding, such as UN lottery or credit card or, more ambitiously, global taxes. Some of this money could be fed into the UN system to empower the General Assembly, the ECOSOC and a number of UN organs and to relieve from financial conditionality. This would also be likely to change the political situation within the UN system that is now paralysed by the fear of reactions from Washington.
The BWIs are indeed twins in most regards. They have different tasks and bureaucracies, yet they tend to look the same. Although in principle the BWIs deal only with relatively modest volumes of lending for the purpose of monetary adjustments or development, together the BWIs control, to varying degrees, the economic and other policies of perhaps the majority of states in the East and the South. This control is based on debt-dependence and legitimised in terms of the doctrine of "economic neutrality".
The BWIs are perhaps the most utterly undemocratic part of global governance. Reform proposals can be reduced to two main categories. On the one hand, there are proposals that aim at restructuring the BWIs in order to make them function in a more fair, equitable and democratic way and, perhaps, to open up a pluralist discussion about their operational principles. On the other hand, there are proposals that try to reduce or redefine their scope and powers. But precisely because of their undemocratic structure, it is very difficult to reform the BWIs from the inside or outside. The one dollar/one vote principle, the de facto veto right of the US and other groupings, and the nature of their staff tend to make democratic reforms practically impossible. Only mere symbolic reforms, reminiscent of Orwellian manipulation of language, appear politically possible.
The Third World demands in the 1970s for a New International Economic Order were quickly defeated. Despite continuous revolts and worldwide mass campaigns against the BWIs since the early 1980s; and despite the systematic lobbying in Washington and elsewhere; the only effected minor change has taken place is in the area of environmental policies of the World Bank. In other words, the BWIs may be open towards some pressures coming from the White House or the US Congress, but otherwise they are closed systems. Democratisation of these organisations is thus unlikely. The best way forward would be to overcome states' dependency on them.
The World Trade Organisation is a more interesting case. On the one hand, its new scope and powers are nearly all encompassing. The successive expansion of the area of "free trade" has constituted a movement from the classical international trade of material goods to far-reaching liberalisation and de-regulation and, subsequently, neoliberal restructuration of economy. The WTO thus limits - almost constitutionally - the scope and authenticity of existing democratic systems. At the same time, the "consensual" agenda-setting and decision-making within the WTO does not mean that the WTO processes would be democratic in any meaningful sense of the term.
What could be done to make the WTO member states more equal and the system as a whole more transparent, equitable and democratic? Reform proposals concern transparency, the preparatory process, negotiations and decision-making procedures and the dispute settlement system. It is telling that at least some of these are being supported also by many of the major industrial countries. Because the states are formally more equal within the WTO than in the BWIs, it is easier to build pressure for democratisation. Of course, although a number of OECD countries and the EU have been in favour of a reform of the WTO practices and procedures, the main point may have been to enhance the legitimacy of the trade liberalisation process. Hence they may not be in favour of returning to a GATT-type arrangement with the least developed countries; or of opt-out mechanisms; or of limiting and redefining the scope of the WTO. Nonetheless, since the WTO procedures make also majority voting possible, in principle a sufficiently large number of states could turn the tide in the WTO. The WTO is not such a closed system as the BWIs are.
The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court do not grant democratic franchise to vote or participate. Rather these organisations aim at establishing a set of background rights to the states (ICJ) or individuals (ICC) and make these rights more impartially enforceable. The ICJ is already in place, the ICC is starting to function in 2002. The reform proposals deal with enhancing the powers of these institutions or encouraging all states to join the system of ICC. The former, in the case of the IJC, is unlikely because of the required revision of the UN Charter. As far as the latter is concerned, the US in particular will not only stay outside the jurisdiction of the ICC but intends actively - even militarily - to prevent any legal cases against any US citizens. The analysis of political possibilities notwithstanding, attempts to build systems of legal enforcement may be counterproductive or even contribute to de-democratisation. It depends on the context. Enhancing law and order does not necessarily mean democratisation.
The World Social Forum is the first serious attempt to create a shared platform for the bulk of global civil society. The WSF is built on an urge to develop initiatives and take active part in global agenda-setting. For one thing, it is an open space for any discussion or initiative, defined in terms of "civic" or "social". It empowers local, national and transnational civic actors to create new projects and alliances, possibly new identities as well. Thus far the WSF has not attempted to speak with a single voice. The WSF has thus not been recognised as an actor by any state or multilateral institution, although it may be evolving into a transnational political organisation. The will-formation within the WSF may have been relatively authentic, particularly as far as spontaneity is concerned, but it remains quite unorganised and ad hoc, and thus fragile.
There are two main justifications for the WSF. As a platform, it is an end in itself, creating a public space for democratic politics. There is also an instrumental justification. The WSF enables networking and building of alliances and thus empowers parts of the global civil society to act in a more organised and systematic way for transformative aims. It enjoys wide and intensive support, even if its idea and aims are locally and globally contested. Also many states, North and South, as well as multilateral organisations have expressed a lot of interest in it. Further development of the WSF is politically possible and may have far-reaching transformative implications. Its feasibility depends, at least in the short- to medium-term, on whether it will be able to build the necessary infrastructure also outside Porto Alegre and Rio Grande de Sul; and whether it will be able to address and resolve satisfactorily the problems of creating a democratic global organisation.
A global truth commission is an initiative that has emerged from the global civil society. It is difficult to assess this initiative because it is in fact a cluster of (thus far) rather unspecified proposals. It is not clear what the issues would be; or who would be allowed to take part in discussions; and what the moral, political or legal consequences of these discussions are supposed to be. The main justification is perhaps instrumental, i.e. the "truth" that will emerge in the discussions is expected to lead to reconciliation, sanctions or compensations (the aims of the main proponents may be contradictory, which is of course a good starting point for real debates).
This initiative has found support from civil society, but also many states could support a particular specification of the idea. It would seem to be possible to realise a global truth commission in one form or another. The problem is that if it is seen as an irrelevant club for selective discussions, it may not be a feasible institutional innovation. Likewise, if the idea is to establish "the truth" in order to establish a claim for massive North-South compensations, the initiative may be neither politically possible nor feasible (or even particularly democratic). So although this initiative should be politically possible if adequately specified, it may also turn out to be an ambiguous innovation. It would also be relatively conservative, assuming it would leave existing institutional arrangements intact.
The proposals for world parliament or global referenda may - and often do - come down to a straightforward attempt to re-establish the institutions of liberal-democratic states on a worldwide scale. In their more ambitious forms, WP and global referenda would give universal suffrage to every adult human being. Thus they would in part presuppose but in part also create a world citizenry. These ideas are justified in terms of moral universalism and equality of human beings, as well as in terms of analogies to the development of national states and federations (domestic analogy). At the moment, basically, only some parts of global civil society support WP.
There are also less ambitious WP proposals. In principle, there are two possibilities. The idea may be to start with a symbolic WP and extend its scope and powers gradually. The intended final outcome would be a legislative body, something akin to parliaments of sovereign states. However, it is also possible to try redefine the role and nature of parliament. A world parliament could, for instance, be a "framework-setting" institution, with carefully circumscribed powers. Unfortunately, these ideas are not usually specified in sufficient detail. A closer look tends to reveal a domestic analogy buried underneath the surface of the proposal.
Depending on the powers given to it, a WP would be a potentially transformative institution. The problem is that it may not be feasible. The social conditions for a world federation do not seem to exist (even a global pluralist security community is still unrealised). Besides, a world federation may not be desirable if it for instance implies homogenisation and exclusions. Now, if this kind of WP is not feasible, an attempt to establish it will not mean global democratisation. The solution might be to turn to, or to start with, less ambitious proposals. However, if the idea of a WP is linked to the UN, it may require a UN-GA reform and imply the establishment of a UN-PA. This is not likely to be possible anytime soon. Then, the more symbolic the WP is made, the less it would have any kind of transformative effects, and the more likely it would be to lack widespread popular support - or even passive legitimacy. So whatever the variation, the proposal appears ambiguous.
It seems to us that a reasonable way forward would be to organise a test referendum on different WP proposals. Only a statistically representative sample of world citizens would have to vote at this stage. This would make the idea more concrete; suggest the potential of the proposal in terms of popular support, which is probably very unevenly distributed; and, perhaps, give time and an opportunity to develop more innovative approaches to the idea of world parliament.
A debt arbitration mechanism is not a system of democratic will-formation in itself. The point is rather to establish minimal relations of rule of law in international financial relations. Widely accepted - and domestically self-evident - standards of impartiality, justice and "civilisation" would seem to necessitate this kind of reform. The establishment of a debt arbitration mechanism could, however, also have far-reaching democratising effects. The supremacy of BWIs over the economic (and other) policies of a large number of states stems exclusively from debt-dependency. A debt arbitration mechanism is a set of rules and procedures of solving insolvency. States would be given the same rights as public agencies - such as municipalities - in domestic law, nothing more, nothing less. Under contemporary global circumstances, however, this would lead to massive debt reductions and re-arrangements.
The best part of the story about debt arbitration mechanism is that it is possible to establish. It has widespread support from large-scale global movements and from many states, particularly from the South, but also from the North. In the absence of alternatives, even the BWIs and the US seem to have been taking these kinds of proposals quite seriously in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The US, with some major creditor countries, and the BWIs would certainly be willing to retain control over the economic policies of the majority of Southern and many Eastern states. This is prohibited by the well-established rules and practices of debt arbitration. However, since debt arbitration would not mean total debt cancellation, they might find it acceptable - under intensive pressure - to establish such a mechanism. They would still control the sources of finance. Other related mechanisms, such as credit rating, would tend to enforce the same kinds of neoliberal principles of economic governance anyway. Although thus only a partial reform, the establishment of a debt arbitration mechanism would seem to be reasonably transformative of the global context and perhaps, by reducing debt-dependency, could co-contribute to many other transformations.
Global taxes have emerged as a pivotal issue. The currency transactions tax and the greenhouse gas taxes both would tackle salient global problems. Both would yield huge revenues that could be allocated to global funds. Subject to democratic decision-making, these global funds could for instance help to empower the UN system; to contribute to a further solution to the debt crisis; and to create alternative sources of financing for development. In other words, the establishment of global funds of this kind could also serve the purpose of overcoming the power of the BWIs.
Of these two possibilities of global taxes, the currency transactions
tax seems more promising. The representatives of the movement supporting
it are already arguing for global democratisation. The concerns of this
movement and the logic of the CTT make it a more plausible candidate to
play a key role in a strategy for global democratisation. This is of course
contingent on the way the CTT will be organised. The tax base has to be
defined comprehensively; the system has to be global and open to all states
to join; the bulk of the revenues originating in the OECD-based transactions
have to be allocated to a global fund; and the CTTO has to be organised
democratically. On these conditions, the CTT would be very likely to have
important transformative effects by controlling some aspects of the power
of global finance and by creating new options for the states and other
actors to develop their own models within the global political economy.
The CTTO could also facilitate creating new interests and alliances for
further democratic reforms.
The WTO reforms should not be the only part of this strategy. The WTO reforms will be uncertain and contingent on the process of building up support for this vision. The other parts of the strategy should thus consist of empowering new political forces and establishing relevant new institutional arrangements. The WSF process stands out as a new major space created by and for global civil society. In a relatively short time, it is expected to have built the capacity to generate new projects and alliances - and by that time it may also have emerged as a unique but major political force on its own. The further empowerment of the global civil society via the WSF process in particular would seem to be an obvious component of a strategy for global democratisation.
Of the possible new institutional arrangements, a global truth commission and world parliament are interesting but ambiguous possibilities. Both need time to evolve into mature initiatives, and the social conditions for a global parliament in the currently prevalent senses do not exist (the latter claim could, however, be partially tested by means of a global proto-referendum).
The establishment of a debt arbitration mechanism and global taxes - and the currency transactions tax in particular - emerge as the most prominent possibilities. Since many crucial mechanisms of power in the global political economy are based on financial dependency, both the creation of a debt arbitration mechanism and the CTT would make a major difference. They would relieve the dominance of global finance over states, the rule of law and democratic politics. Simultaneously, they would create new and more enabling sources for financing development and other priorities.
What is common to most of either actually or potentially successful global democracy (or other emancipatory) initiatives is that they are based on the possibility that a grouping of countries can proceed, at first, without the consent of all the others. In almost every single instance, the common denominator has been the strong opposition and hard hegemonic will of the US. Depending on the context, also a number of other countries have tended to have reasons to oppose democratic reforms. The only way forward thus is to proceed without these countries. This has been true of for instance the International Criminal Court and the Mine Ban Treaty. It would also be true of the currency transactions and the greenhouse gas taxes. It is equally noteworthy that the WSF process has been independent of any state (except for the support of the state of Rio Grande do Sul).
The debt arbitration mechanism might be an exception. It is taken seriously also by the US and the BWIs, even though it is quite evident that they would like to retain the power to control, effective to varying degrees, the economic policies of 60-80 Southern and Eastern states. Some kind of compromise is possible, even likely, given the inadequacy of HIPC I and II initiatives and the pressures to recognise the de facto insolvency of a large number of states struggling with the debt problem. Thus one component in a strategy for global democratisation could well be universal, comprising all major states and giving also the civic actors and movements a right to speak.
However, other components will have to be less than universal to start with. Thus complementary systems of debt relief; the currency transactions tax; (perhaps) the greenhouse gas tax; and other possible elements not discussed in this report; would have to advance without the consent of the US and a number of other states. By tackling important aspects of the power of finance and by creating democratic forums and new public sources of finance, the world political context will be changed. Also, for instance, the UN reforms should become more likely if new sources of funding the UN system will be institutionalised. Partial reforms will in this way create new opportunities for further reforms.
It is important, however, that any new institutional arrangement is, and will remain, open to all relevant participants, and that the new systems of global governance are actually devised to encourage the momentary outsiders to join them. Democratic world politics must be simultaneously non-exclusionary and leave space for exit options and opt-out mechanisms.