Big Corporations, the Bali Package and Beyond:

Deepening TNCs gains from the WTO

Mary Louise F. Malig

14/11/2014

Opinión

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It is almost a year since the WTO Bali Ministerial where the Trade Facilitation Agreement was greeted with dismay by social movements and civil society organisations and with much acclaim by most governments and by Transnational Corporations and their associations. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) was first to congratulate WTO Director General Azevedo and the WTO Members on the deal. ICC Chairman Harold McGraw stated after the Bali Ministerial, “Our efforts to push governments to show the political will needed to conclude a deal here have paid off.”

"Big Corporations, the Bali Package and Beyond: Deepening TNCs gains from the WTO” revisits the WTO Bali Package and analyses the WTO from the perspective of corporate capture by the interests of Big Business and identifies key features of the post Bali WTO corporate road map.

The media has given necessary attention to the considerable delay in the governments' sign-off on the Bali package due to disagreements on the temporary 'peace' reprieve given to India and other developing countries on their right and responsibility to stockpile basic food staples for their citizens. This publication on the other hand focuses on the strategic implication of the outcomes of the Bali package for the benefit of corporations - analysing the post Bali corporate priorities such as- an international Trade Agreement on Services; a multilateral agreement on Investment; an agreement on environmental goods and services; bringing the Regional Trade Agreements under the WTO umbrella. It also exposes the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) as the 'crown jewel' ensuring adherence to the corporate agenda in the WTO.

This report, a sequel to the “Tailored for Sharks” published in 2013, delves deeper into the role the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its legal system play in the corporate architecture that benefits and protects interests of Transnational Corporations (TNCs); details concrete examples of TNCs behind trade disputes; and presents the post-Bali corporate roadmap.

November 2014

Co-Published by Transnational Institute and Serikat Petani Indonesia

Download the Report http://www.tni.org/briefing/big-corporations-bali-package-and-beyond

https://www.alainet.org/es/node/165499