3

IAFFE 2000

August 15-17, 2000

Istanbul, Turkey

Hilkka Pietilä, M.Sc Independent researcher, Finland

e-mail:

FREE TRADE AND HUMAN RIGHTS – an impossible equation?

Women’s Human Rights in the World of Disparity and Distress

I would like to discuss the issue of the relationship between human rights and international trade with the focus on women. This is an issue so complex that it has to be utterly simplified in order to understand what is at stake. This is the way I will try to elaborate the issue.

Strong forces have worked in recent decades to promote free trade, liberalization of exchange of goods and services, and free movement of capital and investments. These forces have wanted to eliminate all tariffs and other means, with which the national states have been protecting their own development, their self-reliance in food and other necessities, and the stability of their currencies. The economic integration of Europe has limited the power of Member States to manage their own economies for the benefit of their people. On the other hand Europe has tried to strengthen itself in competition against the other economic blocks.

Free trade and liberalization of economies implies free competition. But unabated competition between the poor and the rich, the weak and the strong, the small and the big is bound to be a failure to the poor, weak and small. Thus the liberalization and free competition as the guiding principle in the trade is disastrous to many, since we live in an extremely inequitable world.

Technical, economic, social and cultural development, health, education, food and quality of life of people depend on economic resources in the country. When economic resources are developed and distributed extremely unevenly between the countries and continents, great disparities between people and countries are bound to prevail. These disparities are constantly increasing and the consequences accumulate on women in South and North.

These disparities are man-made during the centuries, in particular during five hundred years of colonialism.

There is also an other kind of disparity, disparity in natural resources, in the potential of living nature to grow and produce resources, raw-materials and food for the people. It depends on the climate, the biosphere, which varies greatly in different zones of the globe. And it depends on the minerals and fossils, which are distributed very unevenly in the globe.

This disparity is due to nature, the Mother Earth and she will not come to the negotiation table at the WTO, her terms are not negotiable. The humanity should be wise enough to take the terms of nature into consideration in a sustainable way in order to provide for themselves. Even the needs of forthcoming generations should be taken into consideration and the minerals and fossils should be shared equitably and sparingly.

These are very simple facts, easy to understand to anyone.

Disparity is good for profits

Why, then, the corporations and business forcefully demand liberation of trade, free movement of capital and labour? Because unequal world is profitable business environment, through free trade they can effectively benefít from the disparities. The enterprises are merging into each other in order to become big enough to be able to transgress the state borders and national regulations and to operate globally.

We know how they operate: they move their labour intensive production to the countries, where there is cheap labour, low taxes, no social security charges and no environment regulations. And where jobs are not protected, workers not unionized, and where they find plenty of young, obedient, diligent and handy women and children workers, who have no protection and no power to demand decent working conditions, and who have no choices but accept any kind of jobs.

We know also what happens when capital and labour are moving freely in an a world of disparity: the capital is moving to the countries of cheap labour and low production costs, and the labour is moving towards the countries where there is, so far, better incomes. The movement of capital leaves behind deprived communities and people without jobs. The migration of people is eroding social structures and families in both ends, in the countries of departure as well as arrival. All this has been seen, for instance, in Europe already for decades.

These processes agitate women in rich and poor countries against each other, they are made competitors for same jobs. The women in the North see their jobs being transferred to Southern women, who have no power and no choice of livelihood. However, both women in the North and South are victims of the same phenomenon, free trade and free movement of the capital.

Now these processes have evolved much further than this. The WTO plans were to expand the free operations of corporations into all fields of life in the North and the South. The public services, culture, government procurements etc. are to be privatized, commodified and commercialized. All the protection and subsidies of agriculture should be lifted, the supplies and quality of food should be relied on traffic and trade.

The business operations across the borders and continents have great advantages due to inequalities between the countries and regions. The peace researchers call these structural inequalities as structural violence. This kind of violence is as devastating as physical violence. In present world more people - especially children - die because of structural violence than physical violence.

The unabated competition in neoliberal economies perpetuate these disparities. It drives people to compete, everybody with everyone, to work without limits and accept the squeezing social circumstances. The utterly competitive working market is particularly unfavourable for women. Most of them have also other loyalties and responsibilities in life but work, therefore their “competitiveness” is not as good as men’s. The free trade and competitive economies will never bring about justice and equity. We know the consequences of all this for women.

Human rights linked with trade?

In most parts of the world people today have very few choices. Women have to accept conditions whatsoever in order to support their families. The worst signs of the hardships are increasing sex tourism, prostitution, trafficking in young women and girls - even by their own families.

Today many Southern governments pursue very confusing and alarming policies in international negotiations at various fora, such as the WTO and in the implementation of the Beijing PFA. In the WTO they fought for delayed time tables for the liberalization processes, because they don’t find themselves able yet to compete on the terms envisaged by the WTO plans. This is the minimum they could require. They hope that their capabilities to compete successfully will improve in due course, if they were given more time.

In their dilemma the Southern governments are objecting also many issues concerning human rights. They don’t want to speak about prohibition of child labour, neither about the Social Protocol, which would set targets for improvement of the rights and protection of the workers. They demand lifting of protection and subsidies of agriculture in Northern countries, because they want their agricultural products to have free access to Northern markets, albeit great proportion of people in the South are still living in the shortage of food.

Many Southern governments are not willing to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW Convention, because they know that there is still a lot of reasons for complaints in their own countries. Neither are they willing to negotiate about the trafficking in women and children. Some countries still oppose all the progress in women’s sexual rights.

But they also have serious reasons for being reluctant. What should a country do with prohibition of child labour, if “child labour is their only comparative advantage in trade”? How could a country address the trafficking in women and children, if sex tourism is their most profitable and flourishing field of trade? Or what to do with “social clause”, if their low paid, diligent, obedient and skilful women workers are their best attraction to get investments from abroad?

These are some of the most dramatic examples, how human rights are linked with international trade. There are unsurmountable obstacles to advancement of women’s human rights and implementation of the Beijing PFA due to international disparities. And at the same time the rich and strong countries are forcefully demanding further liberation of economies and free trade, which only increases disparities.

These are the issues, which I wanted to bring up to us here. What can and should we, women in the Global North, do for the elimination of these obstacles from the road of our sisters and their countries towards better life in the Global South, to eliminate the gulf of disparity, which is behind all these problems?

The roots and deep grounds of these disparities are here in our countries, in the Global North, in the economic policies and goals of our governments and the companies operating from these regions. What would be the tasks and strategies for us to grip the roots of these odds and to make change towards more humane, equitable and sustainable economy and culture for all in this world?

What did women do in Seattle?

Women’s international organizations and networks participated in numbers in the NGO preparations before the Third Ministerial Meeting of WTO in December 1999. During the preparations the issue of Human Rights and Trade came up forcefully in appeals, declarations, moratoria and papers and discussions. The point was made that Human Rights, as they are defined in international and regional conventions, should not be violated by trade agreements, policies and rules. The International Human Rights Covenants are by far superior to all trade agreements.

More definitely, the trade agreements and WTO policies should be bound first of all by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1979, ratified by WTO Member States. The same states are members of the UN and the WTO, therefore they are obliged to be consistent in their policies and decisions in the WTO and respect the Human Rights conventions they have adopted in the UN and ratified individually in their respective countries. If they fail to do this, their credibility is not much worth.

Concerning the obligations undertaken by governments for women, we can only take as an early example the Article 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:

The State Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure the equal rights of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights set forth in the present Covenant.

This article provides for women’s economic rights and the duties of the government’s for us. This was adopted by the States Parties in the UN as early as in 1966 and is ratified by about 140 of them today. It is worth while for us to read the text of the whole Covenant in the light of this Article. This gives an idea, what a tool this Covenant is, together with several other human rights covenants enforced later, in order to put the trade agreements and policies in their due place in the order of priorities.

Women particularly referred also to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for the empowerment of women, which was adopted by 189 governments, among them also all the WTO Member States, and to the other resolutions and programs adopted in Rio 1992, Vienna 1993, Cairo 1994, and Copenhagen 1995. The Member States are obliged to apply also the other programmes and platforms to promote human dignity and life, empowerment of women and protection of environment, which they have adopted in many other events.

Trade is not gender neutral

The second demand, women made, was based on the fact that trade liberalization and deregulation is not gender neutral, it has very different impact on women and men. In recent years it has had many adverse effects on the quality of women’s lives, reaching even to trafficking in women themselves. However, there is no reference to women’s rights and needs, neither in the Agreement establishing the WTO, nor in any of the agreements adopted so far by WTO Ministerial Meetings.

When the Seattle meeting failed, the governments have to reconsider their whole perceptions and policies with the WTO. The demand of women and many other people’s organizations was that

“State Members of the WTO should launch a comprehensive review and thorough assessment on the multiple impacts of the WTO and other multilateral trading and investment agreements and economic liberalization programmes on social development and Human Rights in member countries.”

Now the demands for this kind of assessment could be pursued further, since nothing was agreed in Seattle. Now there are indications that positive moves are emerging among ministers and other decision-makers about the necessity to make a thorough assessment and revision of the rules and procedures of the WTO. Therefore the failure of the WTO Ministerial Meeting was a victory for international civil society, countries of the Global South and for women.

Now there is an opportunity to push new thoughts forward and time to work for these basic principles of human rights to become the first and foremost rule also for trade and business.

Our point of departure

The women’s point of departure was that trade is only of instrumental value and not an end in itself. It should serve of all people and not, as is the case now, create poverty for the greater number on the one hand, and accumulate wealth for the few on the other. The satisfaction of basic human needs should not be put at risk. Food security, environmental and social protection are crucial to women and men everywhere. Public services are needed to ensure equal and affordable access for all people to water, health care, education, transport and energy. The knowledge and skills women have developed and preserved over the centuries should be recognized and practised and not appropriated for profit. Life forms should not be patented, it is unethical and immoral.