THERE WERE 132 WTO members with dates of membership in the WTO AS oF October 22, 1997. WTO Members: United States 1 January 1995, United Kingdom 1 January 1995, Israel 21 April 1995 Observer governments: Holy See (Vatican), Jordan International organization observers to General Council : United Nations (UN), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank http://www.fairtradewatch.org/wtomembers.html

January 30, 2002: #6047 - #15 - Membership to the 144-member organization, which sets the rules for most world trade in goods and services, is a high priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin considers joining the WTO as a vital step in reforming the Russian economy and integrating it fully with the world economy. "We're pushing them pretty hard on market access and equally hard on non-tariff measures," the U.S. official said...

On SPS measures, Russia has asked for a three-year phase in period upon entry to bring its regime into compliance. But the U.S. and many other WTO members insist they must be compatible upon entry. In 2000, Russia was ranked the world's 17th largest exporter with shipments worth $105.2 billion, according to WTO estimates.. Senior Bush administration officials are hopeful and optimistic that "Russia is genuine and will be flexible" in the WTO talks. http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6047-15.cfm

VATICAN (CATHOLICWORDNEWS.com) -- A Vatican delegation to the Seattle meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will issue a statement summarizing the views of the Holy See when those meetings end on December 3.1999. the Vatican is a "permanent observer" rather than a full meeting of the WTO. Therefore, Vatican delegates do not participate in WTO votes, but offer their opinions to the other national delegates. [For a Vatican critique of the WTO-- offered by Bishop Diarmuid Martin, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in an interview with the FIDES news service, see today's CWN Feature story.]

On November 18, the Vatican send the WTO member governments a document entitled "Commerce, Development, and the War against Poverty," which contained the reflections of the Holy See in preparation for this year's "millennium round" of WTO meetings. While saluting the WTO for the "significant progress" that had been achieved in promoting free international trade, the document cautioned that the world's most impoverished countries "still need more temp and assistance before they can join in the global marketplace." Bishop Diarmuid Martin, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, offered the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera two concrete examples of how the wealthy nations could aid the development of the Third World. First, he said, the developed nations should avoid protectionism in the agricultural and textile industries, "because those are the sectors where the poor countries can be most competitive." Bishop Martin told Corriere della Sera that the November document from the Vatican had reminded WTO members that "the economy of many poor countries is based-- up to 80 percent-- on one or two basic goods." If the trade in those goods is stymied by protectionist tariffs, he reasoned, those countries will be unable to escape from the cycle of poverty.

Second, Bishop Martin said that the poor nations often lack the "structures and personnel" they need to take advantage of opportunities on the new global markets. He recommended that the wealthy nations should send "specialized and semi-specialized workers" to help Third World countries gain access to "strategic services in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, and transportation." Bishop Martin cautioned against "demonizing" the phenomenon of globalization. The trend toward global markets, he said, could have the effect easing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or else making those inequalities more pronounced. The trend will be a positive one, he continued, if international leaders recognize poverty as "the scandal of our time." Unfortunately, he said, there is little evidence of progress toward that understanding. http://www.cwnews.com/Browse/1999/12/11697.htm

ROME (FIDES/CWNews.com) December 3, 1999 -- A Vatican official has sharply criticized the
leaders of the World Trade Organization (WTO), saying that they are "determined to settle international trade policies without listening to civil society."

In a December 3 interview with the FIDES news agency, Bishop Diarmuid Martin, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that the angry protests outside the WTO meetings in Seattle have been "obviously a sign of malcontent."

While condemning the acts of violence, the bishop observed that the demonstrations should be a clear sign to WTO leaders, and that the protests put forward by those demonstrations "must be taken into consideration."

"The WTO cannot proceed without civil society's support, making decisions and interventions from above," Bishop Martin told FIDES. "The civil society must be a main player." He argued that since individual citizens are the ultimate focus of any scheme for economic development, there should be a
concerted effort to educate citizens on issues involving global trade, so that individuals can make informed choices and express their opinion to policy- makers. The bishop also said that non-government organizations should have a consultative role in the WTO.

The WTO has an important role to play in the new global marketplace, Bishop Martin said, as "a multilateral organization to develop the rules of international business." However, he continued, "the rules are not sufficient" because of the inequalities in the world markets. He explained: "Even in a common juridical framework, poor countries do not have ready access to resources and benefits, and their capacity to negotiate is not in proportion with the strength of the rich countries."

In order to make the global marketplace fair as well as competitive, the bishop said, the poor countries should be given certain fundamental guarantees, allowing them to retain their best outlets for economic
development. As a concrete example of how that could be achieved, he suggested that the wealthy countries could help the poor nations by "eliminating protectionist measures… in the agricultural and textile
sectors."

Bishop Martin pointed out that many poor countries can provide work for their people by exporting textiles and agricultural products, and that in these fields the poor countries can compete successfully for the export market-- as long as their efforts are not frustrated by import quotas and protectionist tariffs. In the past, the industrialized countries established import quotas on textile products from Third World countries. During the Uruguay round of trade talks, in the 1980s, they promised a significant reduction of such protective measures. But despite those promises, the European Union and the United States have allowed only a 5 percent increase in textile imports. As a result, unemployment remains high in countries that have the capacity to manufacture inexpensive textiles: countries such as India and Bangladesh.

In the agricultural field, Bishop Martin charged, the rich countries invest $350 billion every year in efforts to protect their own farm industries by subsidizing exports. As a result, agricultural products are sold at artificially low costs in the Third World, undermining the local agricultural economy. According to UN data, the losses suffered by developing countries as a result of protectionist measures is in the neighborhood of $700 billion. Bishop Martin concludes: "This is why even the cancellation of foreign debt is useless, if markets fail to open to the products of poor countries."

Finally, the bishop lamented the lack of cooperation among the many international groups that deal with trade, labor, business, and the environment. "There must be cohesion in international policies," he said,
adding that the Jubilee Year would be a wonderful occasion for greater recognition of the need for solidarity among all the world's peoples.

Such solidarity, Bishop Martin continued, must entail an understanding that economic growth is not the only goal to be served by international policies. Leaders must take the common good into account, he said, and that common good involves issues such as social stability, the strength of family life, economic justice, protection of workers, and the preservation of the environment.

"Businesses in the private sector must also assume responsibility to improve human capacities and social infrastructures," Bishop Martin said. "We cannot forget man in the name of profit."

International organizations must serve the goals of all mankind, rather than concentrating exclusively on economic issues, Bishop Martin concluded. He said: "The only thing these organizations have in common is the vice of giving overall first place to economic growth." http://www.cin.org/archives/cinjub/199912/0020.html

Project Vatican is dedicated to the restoration of the Global Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the third millennium. The means by which this restoration is being accomplished are five-fold:http://projectv.nventure.com/ProjectV.htm

GLOBALIZATION, RURAL LIFE AND THE WTO

Brother David Andrews, CSC

Theological Education in Rural Ministries: National Catholic Rural Life Conference: One of several international examples was the following: In Zimbabwe, austerity, privatization , and deregulation have forced many rural fathers to take factory jobs in cities, leaving families behind. While there, it has become common for them also to take a "temporary wife. The fiscal retrenchment caused by the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up school fees beyond the reach of many families. The story in Zimbabwe is one of families being shattered by drugs, prostitution, and suicide, after the older children drop out of their rural school and enter into the urban wasteland.

In 1972, Pope Paul VI wrote, "The relationship between the Gospel and Culture (or should I say cultures) (Evangelii Nuntiandi) is the challenge of our time." At the same time he wrote said that justice was a fully constitutive dimension of the Gospel (Justice in the World). More recently, his successor John Paul II has outlined the Christian responsibility in terms reminiscent of those of Patriarch Bartholomew: "The church in America is called ... to cooperate with every legitimate means in reducing the negative effects of globalization, such as the domination of the powerful over the weak, especially in the economic sphere, and the loss of the values of local cultures in favor of a misconstrued homogenization." (The Church in America, No. 55) (www.vatican.va/)

Globalization is the economic and communications process being driven by multinational companies through nation-state subordination for global economic integration and restructuring.

It should be known that among the participants of the recent WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle were many faith based non-governmental organizations. I met participants from the Quakers United Nations offices, the World Council of Churches Urban Rural Mission, the Vatican, to name a few. The major day-long meetings and prayer experiences of the NGO community were housed in the Plymouth Congregational Church, St. James Cathedral, First United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Church, Gethsemane Lutheran Church. On November 29 at 7:00 p.m. in the evening the Jubilee 2000 Northwest Coalition held a prayer service and planned to form a human chain around the exhibition center. This protest was calling for the cancellation of debts owed by the poorest countries of the world by the end of the year 2000. It was a peaceful prayer service which then had the licensed line of march broken up by tear gas.

When I attended a USDA-sponsored listening session in preparation for the WTO held in Des Moines, Iowa, I learned first hand how the world of globalization has been structured for the powerful. The orchestration of the listening session in Des Moines reflected the attempted orchestration of the WTO. While giving some limited structural attention to democratic processes, the format made clear who was in charge, what the politically correct lines were, and a grudgingly acknowledged limited role for citizens. The session included Secretary Dan Glickman, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Patty Judge (the Secretary of Agriculture), U.S. government trade officials and the secretaries of agriculture from Kansas and Missouri. These were the official listeners. They were on one side of the stage in the lights, with signs in front of each of them identifying their names and official positions; each had a microphone.

On the other side of the stage, with five minutes each to speak, were three panels of four representatives of agribusiness such as Monsanto, IBP, Pioneer HiBred. They each had a sign and a microphone in front of them, and were seated under the lights. In the audience were persons like myself, representatives of organizations which had long experience working on the issues and agenda of the WTO. We sat in the dark. Our names were listed on the handouts, but without designation clarifying who we represented. We had microphones placed on the floor in front of the stage in the dark. No light over our places to speak, and a limit of three minutes was to be observed.

The voices of the government representatives and of agribusiness were the same: forcing Europe and Asia to accept biotechnology; forcing the rest of the world to remove any subsidy; getting rid of state market boards; pushing hormone beef on the Europeans; liberalizing trade everywhere to free markets from any so called "distortions." The challenges to these perspectives came from the "peanut gallery" of groups which took the time to be present in the room but for whom the hosts provided little light and minimal identification. Insiders and outsiders were clearly distinguishable. At some point, the outsiders were to have their say, their day came in Seattle.

Seattle was a turning point in global solidarity. It provided a new opportunity for a new consciousness to be developed, one which places the human global and biotic community in its richness and diversity above economic forces which would destroy nature human cultures. The Gospel has to find a voice in this new epoch. If I may conclude by quoting the President of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace (Archbishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan) in a recent address to inaugurate preparation for the World Jubilee Day of Agriculture, November 12, 2000: http://www.ncrlc.com/glruli_wto.html

VATICAN CITY, JUN 21, 2002 (VIS) - Fra Andrew Bertie, prince and grand master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and an entourage. - His Grace, Dr. George Carey, archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Anglican Communion, and an entourage. - Five prelates from the Episcopal Conference of Peru on their "ad limina" visit: - Bishop Luis Armando Bambaren Gastelumendi of Chimbote. - Bishop Miguel Irizar Campos of Callao. - Bishop Guido Brena Lopez of Ica. - Bishop William Dermott Molloy McDermott of Huancavelica accompanied by his coadjutor, Bishop Isidro Barrio Barrio. - Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. AP:AL/.../... VIS 020621 (100)