Environmental impacts of trade liberalisation
The EU's responsiblity at the WTO: environment, gender and development
Making EU trade policy consistent with environmental sustainability and gender equity
Authors:
; Women in Development Europe (WIDE); Friend's of the Earth Europe (FoEE)
Publisher:
Women in Development Europe , 2006
This publication aims to contribute to a constructive dialogue between civil society representatives from the North and the South and representatives from the EU that could feed into an EU trade policy consistent with social and gender justice and environmental sustainability. It states that the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December 2005 proved once again that the WTO is concerned only with establishing a free trade regime which dismisses questions of social justice, the environment and sustainable development. Instead of putting "development at the heart of the WTO" as stated in the Doha Declaration of 2001, developing countries were pushed – by the EU, among others – to liberalise their agriculture, industrial goods and services sectors further. This report challenges the assumption that applying a one-size-fits-all-liberalisation strategy, increasing trade, and opening markets indiscriminately will yield equitable development. Instead, it promotes the need to open the free trade agenda to economic alternatives and heterodox policy options, with the aim of transforming it into a truly sustainable and just development agenda.
The publication consists of two parts. The first part reports on the public hearing entitled "The EU’s responsibility at the WTO: Environment, gender and development". It highlights issues such as the commodification of natural resources under the WTO, the importance of people’s food sovereignty, the gender dimension of the trade agenda, and biosafety. It also addresses the WTO negotiations in the area of agriculture and non-agricultural market access, taking into consideration the outcome of Beijing + 10, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millennium Development Goals. The second part consists of an analysis of the outcome of the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting from a feminist and environmentalist perspective.
