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Fair Trade Archive: GTW E-Newsletters, Action Alerts, and Updates

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Opening September 19: Battle in Seattle - the WTO like you've never seen it before!

Don't miss Battle in Seattle, a feature film about the collapse of the 1999 WTO Ministerial in Seattle. The film is directed by Stuart Townsend and will premier this September:

For the latest updates on the WTO, please see the relevant section of our blog, Eyes on Trade.

Established in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a powerful new global commerce agency, which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into an enforceable global commerce code. The WTO is one of the main mechanisms of corporate globalization.

Under the WTO's system of corporate-managed trade, economic efficiency, reflected in short-run corporate profits, dominates other values. Decisions affecting the economy are to be confined to the private sector, while social and environmental costs are borne by the public.

In November 1999, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial Meeting in Seattle collapsed in spectacular fashion, in the face of unprecedented protest from people and governments around the world.

The WTO and GATT Uruguay Round Agreements have functioned principally to pry open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national and local economies; workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, women and other social groups; health and safety; the environment; and animal welfare. In addition, the WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, un-transparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the world's people. 

Find out more about the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.

»	Letter to U.S. Congress from 243 Civil Society Groups in 90 Developing Countries: To Combat Global Poverty and Allow Developing Countries to Develop Please Reject Pressure to Give President Bush New Fast Track Authority to Push WTO Escalation Via the Doha Round

»	Study Cited As Proof of Small Developing Country Gains in WTO (Inside US Trade)

»	Watch video clips of Lori Wallach exposing the unethical nature of the WTO and other flawed trade agreements

»	Why the WTO Doha Round Talks Have Collapsed – and a Path Forward

»	Read Lori Wallach's New Annotated Version of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration

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