Human Rights and World Trade: Hunger in International Society by Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez

Author:Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez [Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, Political Economy, General
ISBN: 9781134273102
Google: SFXjulqGFuIC
Goodreads: 17015230
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2004-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

To keep the momentum of the present system, it is necessary to juggle the agreements for further trade liberalisation with internal protectionist measures. A balance must be struck to ensure that domestic production survives the expansion of trade. In terms of the problem of hunger, the current structure celebrates its contribution to the reduction in the number of hungry people by 20 million during the 1990s; this is considered a success bearing in mind the population growth. However, estimates suggest that on existing levels of reduction (2.5 million a year), it will take over a century to achieve the WFS target to bring down the number of undernourished to about 400 million.

Assessment

This option suggests that the existing economic structures will slowly solve the problem of hunger, but that the targets in the international agreements will be met much later than the time frame set by the states. This long-term strategy will work, however, only if the system survives the internal tensions between the protectionist and liberal elements. This is reflected, for example, in the rhetoric of the Doha Declaration and the growing protectionism in agriculture.

The EU agreed at Doha to reduce its direct support to farmers, although it later insisted that its commitment was subject to its trading partners applying similar measures. Hence, the US farm bill was a setback in this process, as was the lack of commitment from the European Union to cut subsidies, even after the reform of redistribution of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) approved in 2003. The CAP affects developing countries in two ways: it undermines producers by dumping subsidised goods on their local markets and it reduces the potential for developing countries to export farm products to European markets (Green, 2002: 3).

The US farm bill, signed into law by President Bush on 13 May 2002, introduced a contradiction between that country’s demands for trade liberalisation abroad and its own national politics (Murphy, 2002: 2). The impact of the bill on the economies of developing countries has been criticised by both governmental and non-governmental sources. The member countries of the South American trade group, Mercosur, as well as the EU and Australia, have openly challenged the legality of this agreement in relation to WTO rules. They unanimously considered it a ‘big step backward’, and the World Bank called 13 May 2002 ‘a sad day for world farmers’ (ICTSD, 2002: 1–4).

These measures cause a great deal of damage to the world’s poor. Even if their global economic repercussions for poor countries have not yet been calculated, they have a clear impact on the production of developing countries, whose foodstuffs cannot compete with those of highly subsidised countries. For example, initial predictions forecast that Argentina and Brazil will suffer combined losses of some US$3.9 billion per year resulting from a drop in their exports of commodities such as soya beans, cotton and cereals (ICTSD, 2002: 1). These two protectionist mechanisms also have repercussions for the conditions of the international market which is flooded by those products through the dumping mechanism.

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