NEWS STORY: Vatican urges WTO to consider needs of developing countries

c. 1999 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican on Tuesday (Nov. 30) urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to give special consideration to the needs of developing countries in its proposed”millennium round”negotiations aimed at lowering barriers to the exchange of goods and services between nations. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican on Tuesday (Nov. 30) urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to give special consideration to the needs of developing countries in its proposed”millennium round”negotiations aimed at lowering barriers to the exchange of goods and services between nations.

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued a series of specific recommendations on issues ranging from agricultural tariffs and subsidies to genetically modified food, intellectual property rights and child labor in a 31-page document entitled”Trade, Development and the Fight Against Poverty.” The statement came as the four-day meeting of the Geneva-based organization opened with thousands of angry protesters taking to the streets of Seattle, successfully seeking to disrupt the opening. Many of the demonstrators voiced economic, environmental and labor concerns mirroring those of the Vatican.


In Washington, President Clinton _ a strong booster of free trade _ said he was”very sympathetic”with the concerns raised by labor and environmental groups who see the WTO as a threat to workers’ rights and to the environment. Clinton is scheduled to address the meeting on Wednesday.

The Vatican council asked the delegates at the WTO meeting”to address the needs of developing countries and the difficulties they face in gaining access to international markets.”Special and differential treatment in favor of developing countries, while providing them with technical, legal and financial assistance, constitutes a step in this direction,”the council said.”Viewed comprehensively, special and differential treatment goes beyond mere preferential tariffs and transition periods and addresses key elements of economic growth and development _ knowledge, technological skills and information,”it said.

Noting that most developing countries derive two-thirds of their export earnings from primary products other than oil, the council called on WTO to reduce obstacles to market access in the form of tariffs, domestic support and export subsidies for agricultural and processed goods from developing countries.”Together with tariff escalation, persistently high subsidization of production and exports in some industrialized countries has generated trade distortions on the world market, menacing small farming, self-reliance and local food production in poor countries by way of subsidized food imports,”the council said.”Unfair competition from heavily subsidized exports must not serve as protection for some rich countries at the expense of the poorer regions of the world,”it said.”Within developed countries, moreover, subsidies generally favor big agricultural enterprises rather than poor small farmers.” The council also advised caution in setting standards for the export of genetically modified foods.”Trade matters should never be viewed as more important than human and plant health issues. Standards have to be scientifically sound.”This is particularly important while formulating draft standards on genetically modified organisms, whose trade has increased significantly in the last decades and whose impact on plant, animal and human health is still being definitively tested according to internationally recognized standards,”it said.

The council expressed concern over the patenting for private profit of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers by biochemical and agribusiness firms, which have carried out biotechnical research on the plant and crop varieties nurtured by generations of smallhold farmers.”There is a move to privatize agricultural research and to focus it on biotechnological research deeply connected with an industrialized, capital intensive agriculture … that still need to be carefully evaluated,”it said.

Not only are the patented seeds and inputs more costly than others, the council said, but they threaten the preservation of biodiversity because they tend to displace local varieties and foster monocultures.

In stating the Vatican’s position on the interconnected issues of intellectual property rights, biotechnology and farmers’ rights, the council quoted from Pope John Paul II’s address to rock stars and other leaders of the”Jubilee 2000 Debt Campaign”on Sept. 23, in which he said:”The Catholic Church has consistently taught that there is a `social mortgage’ on all private property, a concept which today must also be applied to `intellectual property’ and to `knowledge.’ The law of profit alone cannot be applied to that which is essential for the fight against hunger, disease and poverty.” Calling the relation between trade and the protection of workers’ rights”a crucial issue,”the council said,”It is essential that respect for the dignity of the human being be shared by all countries, both developed and developing ones.” It urged WTO to work closely with the International Labor Organization of the United Nations.

The council, it said,”is very much in favor of a strengthened institutional cooperation between ILO and WTO and of a stronger support of assistance programs that involve the private sector (multinationals as well as national enterprises) in the promotion of the fundamental principles and rights at work and in the fight against the exploitation of child labor.”DEA END RNS


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