Central America is Not For Sale!

Position Document towards the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Sixth Ministerial Conference, Hong Kong, China, December 13-18, 2005

The failure of the World Trade Organization’s Fifth Ministerial Round in Cancun, Mexico, September 2003 proved a historic gain for social movements working towards a trade system based on the principles of justice, equity and ecological sustainability.

The protests which took place outside the conference building in response to WTO neo-liberal trade policies, the immolation of Korean farmer and activist Lee Kyung Hae, and the walk out of 17 African countries due to the European Union’s refusal to remove their agricultural subsidies, were all important actions which led to the failure of the Cancun Round negotiations.

In response, in July 2004, WTO members of industrialized countries opted for a behind closed doors General Council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland with the aim to re-start negotiations. Here they agreed to a package of framework agreements on agriculture, cotton, services, development, trade facilitation, and NAMA (Non- Agricultural Market Access Negotiations); this last one calls for the reduction or elimination of taxes on all products not covered by the Agreement of Agriculture. This package became known as the “July Package.”

The Sixth Ministerial Round which will take place in Hong Kong at the end of 2005 will be an opportunity for WTO member countries to negotiate the Doha Round, the Singapor Issues and more importantly, the July Package. In practice, this means that governments will have to reduce their industrial tariffs and tariff barriers, leading to a major revision of the legal instruments of governments.

The Central America is Not For Sale movement is particularly concerned with the inclusion of NAMA: Non-Agricultural Market Access negotiations, which we view as a great violation towards society and the environment as it would commercialize all types of products, including flora and fauna, ancestral knowledge, intellectual property, and biodiversity.

The Central America is Not For Sale movement works for the defense of the natural environment and towards improving the quality of life for Central American communities, with the aim to highlight how transnational capital harmfully effects natural resources in the region.

We declare our Rejection of the WTO’s Sixth Ministerial Meeting which in our view promotes a trade expansion agenda at the expense of society, natural resources and the rights of local communities.

WE DEMAND:

1. Stop the WTO´s Unjust Trade Agenda pushed by Transnational Corporations: Transnational Corporations deprive governments of their national sovereignty, undermining the ability of communities to define their own socio-economic goals and strategies, and implement measures to protect the natural environment.

2. Stop NAMA! Non- Agricultural Market Access Negotiations: We categorically oppose NAMA (Non- Agricultural Market Access Negotiations) which will liberalize all products not included in the WTO negotiations on services and agriculture, such as natural resources and industrial goods. The liberalization of trade in natural resources presents the risk whereby in each country environmental laws and protection measures are seen as an obstacle to free trade. We have the right to live in a healthy environment which should not be violated by neo- trade policies.

3. Stop the General Agreement on Trade in Services: Education, energy, transport, water and the environment are inalienable human rights; therefore they should not be commercialized. Basic services should remain in public hands, rather than the hands of transnational corporations.

4. Take Agriculture out of the WTO! The agro-export model promoted by the WTO does not recognize the differences with respect to the conditions and levels of competition which exist between developed and developing countries. We should work towards alternatives for trade justice, food sovereignty and sustainability.

5. No to the Imposition of Intellectual Property Rights: The WTO’s Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights violates, makes invisible and appropriates the rights of communities as owners and promoters of traditional knowledge over ancestral medicine; in addition, this agreement threatens the sovereignty of our biodiversity and our capacity to take advantage of our own environmental richness. In this way it legitimizes the appropriation of our natural resources to transnational corporations, which only permit the access to her at the exchange of great financial quantities.

WE PROPOSE:

• The promotion of a model for building a sustainable, equitable and just society for communities, in order to counter the dominant neo-liberal economic model.

• The establishment of a North-South relationship which promotes trade justice, taking into account the socio-economic decisions of local communities in the South.

• We propose the implementation of the principle of economic democracy, which consists in the direct participation of communities in decision-making, thereby returning decision-making power to communities.

• The respect of national legislation and the decision-making sovereignty of each country, particularly in reference to policies which prohibit the entrance of genetically modified organisms, with the aim to protect their food security and the genetic properties of native seeds.

• The respect of international agreements and conventions which guarantee food security and sovereignty, in order to satisfy the food and nutritional demand as well as the respect of the capacity to the capacity and the production forms for communities to produce according to their own context.

• That intra and intergenerational equity be recognized as a principle of sustainability; Ensuring the redistribution of control over resources as part of the ecological inheritance of our countries.

• The recognition on the part of industrialized countries of the ecological debt of developing countries.