Date Line The Telegraph - Weekly (Nepal)

D A T E L I N E

Suresh Bhattarai

Can the nature be valued in terms of money? Well yes, if Costaza et.al. (1997) are to be believed; they formulated some interesting technique to put price tag on nature. Costaza and array of experts estimated annual nature service to be around $33 trillion; the study encompasses those areas not considered among the market economy i.e. nutrient cycle, atmospheric gases.

As we know from our school day geography that two third of the world is covered by water. So, it is easy to speculate that marine system contributes a big chunk on nature turnover; study estimates their share to be around 62% with much of the contribution coming up from the coastal areas. The terrestrial system, mainly forest and wetland contributes the remaining 38%. However, being left out from market economy these services are either ignored or undervalued, often leading to error of construction project whose social cost far outweigh their benefits.

The economic boom of nineties in the south and south-east Asian counties has started taking its toil in terms of rising cost of environmental management. Yet "satisfied and relieved" governments are reluctant to acknowledge it. However, from a perspective of sustainability, the "conflict" between environment and economy is ludicrous.

Within the confines of the current economic paradigm, there should no doubt that environment and economy are indeed in conflict. This is largely because 1) economic gains are projected exclusively in terms of monetary exchanges, with natural capital (soil, air, water) and their associated natural function (waste treatment, drainage etc.) completely overshadowed. 2) Economic growth, the symbol of success that tops priority agenda far and wide, should be pursued for sake of human well being, despite the imminent catastrophic consequences.

Current global economic mantra is "either be competitive or die". Promising economic growth of China, India and other south East Asian countries has send loud and clear massage that they are the new economic force to be reckon with. Fast and quality output of these Asian nations has aroused an obvious fear among westerners rubbing salt to their economic woe. Desperate unscrupulous measures of there economic bullies of the past resulted into formation of GATT, UNCTAD and now most effective lethal economic weapon WTO is terrorizing the third world economy, putting billions of human life in stake.

WTO

General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), established at the wake of Second World War, recorded unprecedented growth in global trade in second half of the nineteen century. World Trade Organization (WTO) is the youngest yet belligerent multilateral trading system which came to an existence only in 1995 as sequel of GATT. Series of trade negotiation that stretched over many countries and continents held under GATT resulted in the formation of WTO. Today 150 countries are members of WTO, and WTO accounts for 97 % of the global trade.

The official WTO website introduce itself as "….only organization dealing with global rules of the trade between nation. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predicatively and freely as possible."

Several rounds of negotiations at different level from 1995 onwards have tried to redefine the role of WTO to address the ongoing changes on global trade. In 2000, agriculture and service were discussed and later incorporated into a broader work programme; the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was lunched at fourth WTO ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in 2001. A range of issues were put forward by developing countries i.e. non-agricultural tariffs, trade and environment, anti-dumping, intellectual property right etc. as difficulties they face in implementing the present WTO agreements.

Hostile scene at Seattle, USA and Cancun, Mexico has exposed an unexplored part of this global project. The unruly, disproportionate and unfair treatment of the economic goliath resulted into deep indignation especially among the farmers sadly resulted into self immolation.

WTO and Environment

The WTO though doesn’t have specific agreement dealing with the environment still address environmental concern under some agreements. WTO action in environmental issue is limited to only when environmental policies have a significant impact on trade. The WTO principles do not conflict with trade measures needed to protect the environment, including actions taken under the environmental agreements. It also notes that clauses in the agreements on goods, services and intellectual property allow governments to give priority to their domestic environmental policies. Yet the shrimp-turtle and dolphin-tuna case has exposed its weaknesses, how economic superior country tries unfair means to discourage environment based trade.

Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) and WTO

Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) came to an existence in the 1992 Rio conference with an objective towards sustainable development and environmental regulation. The sustainable development and environmental regulation is multifaceted task and can only be achieved through multilateral agreement rather then unilateral one. Out of 200 MEAs in existence only twenty concerned with trade, both WTO and MEA share some on the issue though different perspective. Occasional conflict must be mitigated thorough some way to ease future environmental conflicts between those two but would find each other on the collision course now and then in future.

Disagreements are most likely to surface when an MEA allows those who sign to impose action against non-signatories because this privilege of signatories is against the WTO principal of non-discrimination. For example, the signatories of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Basel Convention are allowed to restrict trade against non-signatories countries than to those who have.

Developing country and Nepalese Context

Over the three quarter of the member state of WTO are developing countries, though on paper they have some privilege over other i.e. more time to implement agreements, build new infrastructure and technology transfer. The developing nations are subjected to receive a harsh treatment from the developed nation. When European Commission pressed for good to be produced in an environmentally-friendly fashion, India and allied developing nation opposed saying that ".. they are opposed to a list that would include products based on so called ‘production and process method’ or PPMs. Intellectual Property Right (IPR) is another issue which is subjected to erupt lots of hot debate in the years to come.

The thorny and delicate issue under the WTO is agriculture subsidies, which many poor WTO members consider to harm their exports. The issue has always raised heated debate in the WTO meeting between developed and developing nation. A WTO head, who preferred to be anonymous, estimated that developing countries granted subsidies worth one billion per day to their farmers, creating a major obstacle to free trade. Defending the European Union he added "The European Union-as any other nation, holds legitimate right to support its agriculture to maintain food security, safety and quality, to protect its natural environment and to maintain rural livelihood.

The Cancun meeting granted membership to Nepal as 148th member of WTO. The accession process of WTO has ignited discussion among the "elites" few. Some of the self proclaimed "experts" blasted government for not seeking their advice on the process, while some went unhappy not to be included in "touring" party with the government official in trade related travel. Full membership of WTO would pave a difficult path for us as we are compelled to enforce some international treaty that we have signed.

Participants at South Asian Watch on trade economics and environment (SAWTEE), a leading institution in Nepal keeping close eye on our WTO process, raised very vital issue that Nepal is subjected to face in near future. The participants pointed towards issues concerning special and differential treatment (S&DT), Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) that need meticulous attention. Yamula Ghale, one of the paper presenters in the seminar, said "The issues such as genetic resources, patent rights, sui generis options must also get priority". The experts sighted the need to revamp our 20 yrs agricultural plan to make it compatible to the WTO agreement.

Conclusion

To borrow a metaphor from Lee Kaun Yu’s latest book From third world to First; "The world doesn’t owe us a living". We have to survive on our own. We need a greater effort to be compatible with the imminent global competition. It would be an interesting discussion, how could country like Nepal with so poor infrastructure complete with the already ruling big economic superpower. Global competition will bring out best of everyone and developing world has already falling behind because of poorly trained manpower and equally poor infrastructure. Nepal can’t raise its standard overnight and don’t even have experts to debate and defend its legitimate rights. The case like Dolphin and Shrimp tuna will be more frequent in the days to come as powerful west are anxious to grab a huge benefit from this global feast. Nepal, being an underdeveloped country, shares lots of its problem with other fellow struggling nation and we should join with these countries to raise common voice in global forum. We should make a plan to prioritize our resources. Efforts must be made towards the capacity building of people who are likely to handle this issue for a long time. As now it had become apparent that there is no alternative to WTO, we should use this global platform to seek concession towards greater and secure market access.