SUNS #4619 Friday 3 March 2000

south-north development monitor SUNS [Email Edition]

contents

Trade: Continuing conceptual divides at the WTO (Chakravarthi Raghavan, Geneva)

Development: Music industry holds export potential for South (Someshwar Singh, Geneva)

Development: Africa and the Biotechnology debate (IPS, Nairobi)

Argentina: Fish stocks depleted by EU boats, lax controls (IPS, Buenos Aires)

Sri Lanka: Globalisation erodes power of labour courts (IPS, Colombo)

Europe: Trafficking of women on the increase (IPS, Brussels)

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TRADE: CONTINUING CONCEPTUAL DIVIDES AT THE WTO

Geneva, 2 Mar (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Informal consultations at the WTO General Council this week has brought out a continuing conceptual divide between the major industrial nations and the developing world on ways to improve the functioning of the world trade organization and the public perception of it.

The consultations on Tuesday, at an informal General Council meeting chaired by Amb. Kare Bryn of Norway, related to 'pending issues' - some arising out of the Seattle meeting and others that have been pending for a long time in the General Council.

Bryn sought to focus discussions on procedure rather than substance, on how to structure the future work on the pending issues, and whether the time was ripe to hold substantive consultations and find solutions.

But the views of members and the priorities they indicated showed some continuing substantive differences, trade diplomats said. An item listed as pending issue, "Coherence in Global Policy-Making," showed that the leading industrial countries are continuing their efforts bring into the WTO 'non-trade' issues and use the trading system for normative purposes reflecting US-European political, cultural and other norms and use of trade instruments to enforce them.

DEVELOPMENT: MUSIC INDUSTRY HOLDS EXPORT POTENTIAL FOR SOUTH

Geneva, March 2 (Someshwar Singh) -- As part of the so-called cultural industries, the music industry in the services sector, offers considerable growth and export potential to developing countries, says a study published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

Dominated until now by Europe and North America and my transnational giants, the very economics of the world music industry are in for a change. Thanks to the impact of the new digital technologies, which are loosening of the grip of the major players in the market, the internet technologies are permitting new entrants on the market scene, according to the study.

'The Case of the Music Industry', published as an UNCTAD Discussion Paper (January 2000), has been co-authored by Birgitte Andersen, Zeljka Kozul-Wright and Richard Kozul-Wright.