The agreement to begin WTO negotiations on investment should serve as a call to action for NGOs, socially responsible business leaders, and others who seek to promote the global public interest. Now more than ever, it is time to mount a proactive advocacy effort based on a positive vision of what constitutes “sustainable and ethical” investment rules.
Two years ago in Seattle, demonstrators in the streets brought previously esoteric negotiations of government ministers at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the world’s eye as never before. Less noticed, inside the meetings, African trade ministers denounced the lack of transparency in the proceedings. “African countries are being marginalized and generally excluded on issues of vital importance for our peoples and their future,” they declared in a public statement. The next day the summit adjourned with no agreement, as developing countries rebelled at being pushed aside, and Europe and the U.S. also failed to resolve their own differences.
The Group of Twenty (G-20) will meet in Ottawa in mid-November, the third meeting since the group was created in 1999. In addition to the G-8 (G-7 plus Russia), the membership of the G-20 consists of: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and, oddly, two institutional representatives–one for the European Union and one for the Bretton Woods institutions (the IMF and World Bank).
Weapons, from handguns to fighter jets, are a profitable business. Generous government contracts, huge profit margins, and inevitable cost over-runs ensure spectacular dividends for weapons producers. Conflicts burning throughout the world guarantee plenty of buyers. After a post-cold war decline, global weapons purchases rose in 2000 to $800 billion. In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies, arms production and sales worldwide will likely continue their upward trajectory–encouraged by national policies and supported by multilateral economic institutions.
Despite the seemingly upbeat political and media analysis coming from all corners, violence will not come to an end in Israel and Palestine until Israel ends its military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. “Violence,” be it used to describe legitimate resistance by a people under an illegal, military, foreign occupation, or be it state-orchestrated activities that violate International Law, United Nations Resolutions, and defy outright humanity, are natural components to foreign military occupation.
With the assassination of right-wing Israeli Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is once again on the front burner. In the coming days, neither side of this bitter conflict will be at a loss for rhetoric to explain their positions.
In response to the assassination of rightwing Israeli Minister Rehavam Ze’evi Israeli forces entered El Bireh, Jenin and Al-Azeria east of Jerusalem, taking control of the areas and declaring curfews and assassinated Fatah activist Atef Abayat. The military operations may spread to additional areas.
The objective of this discussion paper is to examine in broad terms the emergence of a transnational citizen movement opposed to the current forms of global economic governance, while providing sketches of main analytical tendencies within this diverse movement. Although largely a backlash movement—one that mobilizes against the negative manifestations of economic globalization and the associated role of the institutions of global economic governance—the main theorists and organizers have in the past several years taken tentative steps toward formulating alternative paths for the global economy and its governance.
One of Israel’s founding Ministers of Education and Culture, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur (1954), said it most sharply; “In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don’t agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force.” (History of the Haganah) With this theme as the explicit backdrop of a newly established State, it is no wonder that Israel has had little chance of being a normal member of the community of nations.
For most of the past decade Argentina had been the poster child of the IMF and Wall Street. No developing country in the 1990s had opened its financial markets more avidly, or privatized its state assets more fervidly. These structural reforms were supported by monetary reforms in 1991 that legally froze the peso/dollar exchange rate and tightly tied the money supply to the changing stock of hard currency reserves. To further gain Wall Street confidence, the Argentine government in 1991 announced a major foreign policy shift from nonalignment to an all-out pro-U.S. position–“in carnal embrace,” Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella sardonically put it.