It's Your Turn
Current Consultations
Coherence Among International Organizations Roundtable
The Canadian Institute of International Affairs,
Glendon College, Toronto, Ontario
July 9, 2002
Table of Contents
Summary:
The purpose of this meeting was to examine ways of establishing a greater cooperation and linkage between
international organizations and institutions so that more balanced common global objectives could be achieved. The
discussion was held in response to concern that international institutions are promoting trade policies without the
input of socially-minded institutions. There was a sense that the inability of international trade institutions to
develop policy in concert with the sustainable development and human security objectives of the UN represented
the need for greater coherence at the international governance level.
The meeting involved the participation of approximately 25 people, representing NGOs, government and the
academic community. All of them offered thought-provoking questions and insightful commentary that contributed
greatly to enhancing the overall quality of the discussion. For the most part, there was a consensus of views that the
international finance and trade institutions, particularly the WTO, had previously been pursuing trade policies
geared towards the interests of the industrialized countries, while failing to reflect and consider the interests of the
developing world, environmentalists, and labour rights groups. Participants recognized the undertakings of the Doha
Development Round, and emphasized the need for change to allow these groups a more equal voice at the
international policy table, to improve human security and ensure future political stability.
Speakers:
Len Edwards, Deputy Minister of DFAIT said that he wanted to focus on two levels of
coherence:
- Coherence at the international level, in policies and institutions; and
- Domestic/internal coherence, and state trade policy.
- Mr. Edwards stated that the U.S. and others have recognized the role the WTO has in establishing a global
architecture for economic policy. This mandate has affected relations with other institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in two ways: 1) Institutionally, mandates and membership differ;
and 2) In Multilateral Agreements there is a struggle to determine how these agreements will transfer into actions.
He pointed out that the Monterrey Consensus called for an annual spring meeting between the UN Economic and
Social Council and "Bretton Woods" Institutions to help rectify these disparities. Coherence is discussed regularly
in these institutions/organizations but there has not yet been a common intergovernmental forum to ensure
coherence. He said that Canada tried to bridge the gap at Monterrey, but it remains a tremendous challenge.
In the WTO's relations with these organizations there were two areas covered:
- The relationship between trade and labour
Mr. Edwards believes that the objectives of the Doha Declaration are unachievable if the WTO
does not effectively address the challenges of coherence. At Doha he said that Canada had
difficulty getting any reference at all to labour rights, as the Least Developed Countries were not
interested in it. The best Canada could do was suggest linkages with the ILO and the World
Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. The Commission will examine and
report on policy coherence issues in order to advance both economic and social goals in the
global economy.
- Trade and the Environment
Mr. Edwards explained that the Doha agenda underscored the importance of coherence between
trade and the environment. This relationship was reflected in two ways:
- the agenda provides opportunities for trade and environmental goals to be supported and pursued. One
opportunity is in negotiations on tariff and non-tariff barrier reductions in environmental goods and services. There
is also increased support for environmental assessments, which will in turn help strengthen cooperation between
environment and trade officials; and
- at Doha, it was agreed there would be negotiations on linkages between WTO and multilateral
environmental agreements.
These are in addition to existing supranational linkages established by trans-governmental cooperation seen through
the G-8, G-20, La Francophonie, the Commonwealth and others.
He said that coherence at the international policy level is not possible unless there is effective coherence internally.
Trying to bring together traditional trade policy and mixing it together with our domestic agenda, particularly in
protecting and preserving the values of Canadians, is a real challenge. Establishing cooperation among federal,
provincial, and municipal governments is also a challenge. These objectives are only achievable if we agree to do
more on transparency. Increasingly Canada must be willing to negotiate in a public environment: our citizens
demand it and we must persuade our partners to do the same.
The Deputy Minister for International Trade said that in terms of key outcomes for Canada, we have already seen
results. Since Doha, Canada has taken a number of steps to support development objectives, including the recent
announcement that we would be opening our market to the 48 least-developed countries, with the exception of
supply-managed products such as dairy, which are excluded from this initiative. Canada has announced $1.3
million this year for an integrated framework plan for LDC's; Canada has announced $700 million in debt relief;
and the recent Kananaskis Consensus reinforced the government's $20 million action plan for Africa. Canada has
only covered a fraction of the issues however, is starting to see results but >we still have a long way to go. Coherence
is a work in progress in which the WTO has an important role to play. Mr. Edwards closed by saying "We are on
the right track; we just need to put additional effort to get there."
Jim Stanford, Senior economist for the Canadian Auto Workers expressed his
skepticism about international organizations, especially those related to trade. In his eyes, the
problem is not a lack of coherence. To the contrary, it is a very coherent system strongly
promoted by the U.S. in which deregulated private markets led by the actions of profit-seeking
private firms and financial investors are given maximum leeway to make decisions that benefit
them. It seems to him that the policies of organizations such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank,
etc., follow quite consistently with this neoliberalist model of international development because
the minute they try to act against private business, especially American business, they lose all
their power. In this respect he is in favour of any lack of coherence between the international
finance and trade institutions, and other multilateral organizations that focus on environmental
protection/development needs, therefore, this type of "incoherence" he supports. In fact,
defending this lack of coherence has been a top priority of NGO's, labour, and environmental
groups who are seeking to limit the power of these trade institutions.
He suggested that what he called the "asymmetry" of these institutions has led many to ask why they are not used to
try and enforce labour standards, the environment, or human rights? He contends the existing labour and
environmental side agreements in the NAFTA do not reflect any effort in this respect. They are recognized as
superficial and purely political in nature. This behaviour has led to a hardening of opposition against the growing
power of the WTO. The labour movement was greatly discouraged by the WTO's failure to put any statement
about the role of labour rights in international development at Doha.
Mr. Stanford's vision would be for more diversity and more balance in international governance to "go out and
strengthen institutions which are designed from the outset to promote labour, the environment, and human rights."
Secondly, he would work to roll back the power of trade institutions such as the WTO, and bring them under the
umbrella of the UN. Thirdly, he argued for the power enhancement of domestic institutions to tax, spend, and
implement policy to make their own societies better. This powerlessness, he thinks, is one of the goals of what he
referred to as the "neoliberalist doctrine."
Gerry Barr, President of the Canadian Council for International Development, agreed with Jim
Stanford that there is a coherence taking place between those institutions and organizations that
are promoting neoliberalism. He argued that most NGO's agree that this goes against the
original objectives set out by Canada and many other nations when they created the GATT. He
says they made it clear that increasing trade was not by itself an end, that it was really about
"raising the standard of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily increasing
volume of income." In the UN as well, a very detailed Charter of Human Rights was signed on
to.
He said commercial interests have been the main guiding force shaping trade policy. Trade rules
are more and more seen as extending the interests of the powerful without regard for the
environment and the poor. The agreement on agriculture is a case in point. It has had harsh
consequences for LDC's, where agriculture accounts for 70 to 80% of employment. The
agreement exposes southern economies to dumping from the north and has undermined LDC's
ability to pursue the right to food security. Small farmers have been marginalized and dislocated
by the millions. Though this flatly contradicts the objective of sustainable development, it has
nonetheless been vigorously promoted by the WTO in the agreement on Agriculture. So you
have here incoherence. Trade laws should instead be subject to a state's superseding obligations
under international law to respect and protect human rights, The WTO as a creature of the
international legal system should be obligated to respect international human rights law.
There have been a lot of proposals for more coherence between the WTO and other bodies in the
UN system. They include allowing UN bodies to be present and intervene at WTO meetings.
Greater transparency and openness to scrutiny by civil society associations would also help to
bring the international lens on environmental and human rights issues to bear on WTO
deliberations. Barr's organization and others have talked about the need for a clause in trade law
that allows countries to invoke domestic policy measures in a defence against trade challenges.
Such a clause would assert the primacy of human rights agreements that reinforce the capacity of
governments to pursue domestic social policy and meet human rights obligations.
He feels that the overhaul of the WTO is therefore in order. He suggested that Canada support a
call for a complete review under the UN to assess the capacity of the WTO's current governance
arrangements, and identify major structural reforms needed.
Discussion
A professor from the University of Toronto started off by asking if the Government of Canada was prepared to
review or renegotiate Chapter 11. In his view, it was allowing private firms to seriously undermine the power of all
internal levels of government to ensure transparency and balanced laws and policy.
Mr. Edwards acknowledged that the government is indeed trying to limit the scope of Chapter 11 and reinforce the
ability of governments to initiate balanced policy and laws.
Another University of Toronto professor recommended that Canada have sustainable development assessments
conducted in countries that we trade with, in order to obtain a better understanding of the effects of our trade on
their economies. Len Edwards noted te suggestion.
To get back to the comment on Chapter 11, a former Canadian representative to the IMF, felt that the U.S. NAFTA
negotiacronym titles at the time clearly knew the effects Chapter 11 would have in favour of private business, when they
negotiated for its inclusion at the time.
Gerry Barr pointed out the Prime Minister said Chapter 11 was working quite well. A participant commented that
Canada did not at the time want to sign on to the tribunal section of Chapter 11 but that the Mexicans insisted on it
because for them it was the deal breaker; they needed it to attract investors to Mexico. Mr. Edwards stated that
Mexico has resisted our attempts to renegotiate Chapter 11.
A Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto asked if the government was now seeking greater international
equity and more effective environmental protection in international policy talks? He is skeptical because in his
view in recent years CIDA has made every effort to bring its policy more in line with neoliberalist objectives.
Mr. Edwards took the view that trade policy development has been moving more towards a transparent and open
process, where broader values are being reflected and where the role of private business is becoming less important.
The role of the UN
According to a participant from the UN Association in Canada, the greatest threat to democracy is
the power of multinational corporations because they are governed by no one, yet they can affect policy on
a whole range of things. Coherence for him was less important than ensuring the rule of law through a
strong UN.
Len Edwards suggested the behaviour in the past few months of the U.S. (i.e. Kyoto) has made
many people nervous. Perhaps building WTO-style "rule of law" into UN systems might be a way forward.
A professor asked what was driving the Monterrey consensus (on fighting global poverty at the
Global Summit on Financing for Development, 18-22 March in Monterrey, Mexico) and asked if there is a
way to bring NGOs and civil society into a new consensus in the same way as the trade side? For Gerry
Barr, the Monterrey declaration was a pretty empty document. He said it was supposed to be about
development but focused rather on foreign direct investment and getting the macros right, just as occurred
at Doha.
Jim Stanford added that he viewed recent steps at greater transparency in the system as reflecting
a crisis of credibility for the "neoliberalist doctrine." It resulted from the protests in Seattle against the
one-sided nature of the trade agreements. An obvious response of governments and the WTO has been to
try to be seen to be responding to these concerns on transparency. This is an attempt to buttress support for
the whole system and agenda.
Barbara McDougall, the President & CEO of CIIA and the Chairman of the meeting, asked how
Canada could possibly avoid overloading institutions like the UN as we define solutions. And how do we
ensure that they have the capacity to institute what they are asked to do so. Coherence and international organizations
An international business and trade lawyer believed that we should refocus the notion of
coherence and concentrate on the institutions Canada has now and trying to make them function better. He
said "we are not going to re-work the whole international system overnight." Len Edwards remarked that
in his opinion the participant was absolutely correct in his assessment, but he felt that the quality of
leadership of international institutions was improving. He said strong leadership is required, and he
believed that we are getting there.
A UNICEF Canada official posed two questions. First, how far away is the Canadian government
from introducing social impact and child impact assessments to go hand-in-hand with trade negotiations?
Secondly, her concern was with respect to "mandate drift." The World Bank, for example, is increasingly
providing funds for early childhood development, and development policy frameworks. She noted that
these are normally UN body responsibilities. She was thus concerned about the attraction this penetration
into other lines of business will have on traditional donors of support in the UN system. She said we may
see as a result a decline in the ability of those UN organizations to perform efficiently.
A DFAIT official remarked that the comment about mandate creep was very interesting. He said
the international system has only one trade organization (the WTO) but a dozen others who want
to deal with a variety of issues that have become newsworthy: children, globalization and
sustainable development. He suggested that member-states in the international system should ensure
that these organizations do not drift into the mandates of other organizations. UNICEF for example,
has been involved in child labour while it was really the ILO's responsibility. He contended that the
WTO is the only organization that has stuck to its initial mandate, and it should be congratulated for
not indulging in "mandate creep".
A participant asserted that "if we do not allow business to have a greater understanding of what governments will be
doing, then the private sector will go where they will be able to thrive easier." He said that business in essence
"wants to continue to do business" so it makes good sense for them to respect human rights, the environment, and
labour legislation. Business should have the opportunity to work closer with governments and participate more
fully in international trade policy discussions rather than be put on the backburner.
A participant expressed his belief that the way to understand international organizations is to form an external
constitution for each state. First, citizens should have the capacity to know what their external constitution is
because it affects children's lives and our social policies. Secondly, we should have our courts facing the questions
of the power of international law on us. The Mexican and Columbian high courts have already begun this process.
The CIIA or other organizations could help push this process along.
A participant proposed having an annual review in Canada on all the international institutions Canada is associated
with, and rank them according to their effectiveness in meeting their own mandate. We could discontinue our
funding for those on the bottom of the list. We must ask if we need a new international institutional configuration
that better corresponds to Canadian values.
Barbara McDougall commented that during her time as Minister of External Affairs for Canada, her government
tried to back out of one UN agency and the reaction that it produced and the constitutional implications of being
able to un-sign what we had already signed on to were enormous. She said it was a "defeating exercise".
A participant commented on the "conceptualization" of the coherence issue and what we mean by "trade
liberalization for economic development and for social development". First, this should be examined, and .second,
he asked what lessons have we learned from past discussions on coherence. His third point had to do with the
"institutionalization' of coherence; how to do it, as if we want to put coherence in the WTO then he felt Canada has
to do what the Havana Charter stated in 1947. The Charter linked employment, trade, and development, including
financing development.
A participant wondered how an effective model could be created to better include civil society, and not necessarily
just industrialized world organizations and NGOs, in the WTO? She noted it is governments of the LDCs that are
reluctant to include civil society in negotiations and asked what our government could do to pressure the WTO to
ensure that its members will have to include the opinions of civil society in their policy-making.
Closing comments
Gerry Barr said there is a need for reform of global institutions to ensure greater transparency, developing world
voices and civil society role and that nothing good will result if Canada does not undertake such reforms. He said
there needs to be an acknowledgement of the overwhelming public desire to see the social agenda reflected in trade
arrangements and there is a need to get a transparent public debate on these issues.
Jim Stanford agreed that there is a lot to be learned from the Havana Charter. He also liked the idea of reviewing all
the arrangements Canada is part of and dropping the least important. Regarding Chapter 11 of NAFTA, he said it is
an effective international instrument, and has changed things significantly. He said guaranteed unemployment
insurance as a supplement when employees get laid off is no longer a guarantee any more. Chapter 11 has
contributed to this increased power that corporations have over workers and job security. He was sceptical about
the explanation that the original negotiacronym titles did not know what Chapter 11 would signify.
Len Edwards said that greater coherence among international institutions will mean that the WTO will have to be,
for example, more sensitive to social issues such as corporate social responsibility, and the welfare of children. He
added that Canada should use whatever instruments it has, to try and improve things: if it means a little step, then its
better than no step at all. He sees the World Bank's support for child development as potentially beneficial, as long
as it is working in accordance to guidelines set by the UN. He found very useful the suggestions that the
Government review and create an inventory of our international obligations and consider an annual state of the
world debate in parliament. Regarding WTO reform, the role of developing countries in the WTO has increased.
He said that Canada will push for a greater involvement of civil society at the WTO, but the developing countries
would need to be brought along.
The chair, Barbara McDougall suggested too much onus is being put on the UN and particularly the WTO, to try to
accomplish too many objectives. She expressed a bit of personal unease on the issue of coherence if it means a
"monolithic" coherence. Sometimes strong organizations are needed to carry out their individual mandates, and
work with other organizations to carry them out effectively. Her last point focused on civil participation; if they are
going to be involved then some thought must be given to 'who' and 'how.'
Interesting links:
Trade Negotiations and Agreements website
Canadian Institute of International Affairs
Canadian Auto Workers
Canadian Council for International Development
York University
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