Another litany of WTO woes

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THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE
Issue No. 351 (2022/2) Click on cover to download the magazine (PDF) COVER: Another litany of WTO woes* The World Trade Organization after the 12th Ministerial Conference After a paucity of progress over the years, the World Trade Organization finally produced some tangible results at its latest Ministerial Conference. Unfortunately, these pro-corporate, anti-development outcomes were not what a troubled world needed from the international trade body. By Deborah James TRIPS Decision comes up short Arguably the most pressing need facing WTO member states at MC12 was to reach agreement on lifting intellectual-property-related barriers to the supply of COVID-19 medical products. Blunted by developed-country intransigence, the eventual decision is a major disappointment that could end up costing lives. By Sangeeta Shashikant MC12 and the WTO’s pandemic response The MC12 declaration on the WTO’s pandemic response often accords less emphasis to developing countries’ interests in favour of elements that could potentially impede their very capacity to deal with pandemic situations. By Kinda Mohamadieh Meagre harvest on agriculture and food security issues The Ministerial Conference yielded little in the way of concrete farm trade reform outcomes, with longstanding concerns of developing countries still awaiting resolution. By Ranja Sengupta No final fix (yet) on fisheries subsidies WTO negotiations on regulating fisheries subsidies in order to curb overfishing delivered an incomplete and inequitable deal at MC12. By Ranja Sengupta The MC12 Ministerial Outcome Document and the work on WTO reform MC12 set in motion a ‘WTO reform’ process that could fundamentally reshape the organisation – but will it be for the better or worse? By Kinda Mohamadieh Exclusionary unrepresentative processes behind the MC12 outcome The ‘real’ negotiations at MC12 took place in meetings from which most delegations were excluded, continuing a controversial practice from past WTO conferences. By Kinda Mohamadieh ECOLOGY The Amazon rainforest is disappearing quickly – threatening the Indigenous people who live there Nowhere is deforestation more marked than in the Amazon, and none in the region are more affected than its Indigenous inhabitants. By Félix Bhérer-Magnan CARICOM plans to boost disaster resilience Regional institutions in the Caribbean are girding up against the increased threat of hurricanes supercharged by climate change. By Marjorie Pons Piñeyro HEALTH & SAFETY The (vaccine) hoard heard around the world The world has confronted racist global health policies before. We can do so now. By Vidya Krishnan	ECONOMIC Debt restructuring, austerity and the urgency of fiscal justice: The case of Sri Lanka As Sri Lanka officially defaults on its sovereign debt repayments and enters negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for access to loans in return for structural macroeconomic change in response to the ongoing economic crisis, three Sri Lankan groups inform a critical understanding of these developments and alternatives that are preferential to dominated classes and oppressed groups. By Bhumika Muchhala World sees ‘unprecedented’ hunger as farm subsidies boost unhealthy foods A new UN food security report paints a grim picture of global hunger and advocates a restructuring of farm subsidies towards boosting healthier, climate-friendly food production. By Elaine Ruth Fletcher Our global economic system is broken. Are we headed for a mass revolt? How long can billionaires continue to amass wealth while the world’s poorest struggle to buy food? By Paul Rogers SWIFT dollar decline The dollar is the international currency of choice, but can the US maintain its financial hegemony? By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram WORLD AFFAIRS NATO and a war foretold Warnings of Russian hostility had already been sounded decades before the Ukraine conflict, but these went unheeded by the institution that was the very source of Russian ire – the NATO military bloc. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas JS Davies NATO triumphant, but the real victors are US war merchants With the Ukraine war thrusting NATO to centrestage, big US military contractors stand to make a killing from the alliance’s resurgence. By T Rajamoorthy Arms industry sees Ukraine conflict as an opportunity, not a crisis Western weapons manufacturers’ ruthless drive for markets – intertwined with imperialism – has propelled NATO expansion while inflaming wars from Eastern Europe to Yemen. By Jonathan Ng How Patrice Lumumba’s assassination drove student activism, shaping the Congo’s future Radicalised by the assassination of independence leader Patrice Lumumba, the student movement in the Congo pushed for full decolonisation of Congolese society and economy. By Pedro Monaville HUMAN RIGHTS Military onslaught in Myanmar’s eastern states amounts to collective punishment An Amnesty International report uncovers widespread and systematic attacks by the Myanmar military against civilians in two eastern states. WOMEN Perilous journey of a journalist: The murder of Shireen Abu Akleh Armed with microphone and camera, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli occupying force determined to silence the Palestinian story. By Jamal Kanj POETRY Lost empire Derek Walcott (1930-2017), the Nobel-winning poet and playwright who hailed from the Caribbean island state of St Lucia, frequently addressed the legacy of colonialism in his works. By Derek Walcott Third World Resurgence Page
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