At WTO, a defender of the South
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From: CUTS International
At WTO, a defender of the South
Vijay Prashad, The Hindu, May 9, 2013
Brazilian Roberto Azevêdo’s election as head of the World Trade Organization is a long overdue step towards global perestroika but his task of creating a fair, international economic order is not going to be easy
On Tuesday May 7, in Geneva, the World Trade Organization (WTO) received a new leader, Roberto Azevêdo of Brazil. The election of Azevêdo is significant not because he is the first person from the Global South to lead the WTO — that honour goes to Thailand’s Supachai Panitchpakdi, who ran it from 2002 to 2005. But unlike Supachai, Azevêdo comes with the backing of significant new blocs of the Global South, notably the BRICS grouping which put its heft behind his candidacy. This is the first time that a candidate of the Global South won against someone backed by the European Union, which in this instance had put its support behind Mexico’s former Trade Minister Herminio Blanco. The BRICS bloc was able to secure sufficient investment in Azevêdo, Brazil’s representative to the WTO since 1997.
The world pays a stiff price for the North’s monopoly over political and economic decisions. Global perestroika is needed. The recent issue of the U.N.’s Human Development Report 2013 is called The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World. The authors of this report note that it would be a good idea to “establish a new South Commission to bring a fresh vision of how the South’s diversity can be a force for solidarity.” Dr. Singh’s 1988 call for policies that affirm the “legitimate aspirations of the four fifths of humanity” when he was then head of the South Commission is once more on the table — to set a new agenda for world affairs. Azevêdo’s election sends a signal that the South might indeed have arrived. But having arrived, what will the South do?".
Read this article: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/at-wto-a-defender-of-the-south/article4696271.ece
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From: Dr Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Emeritus Professor of International Political Economy & Founder, The Evian Group @ IMD, Switzerland
After decades of war and countless atrocities the Atlantic powers finally devised a common vision. This was magnificently and succinctly encapsulated in the Atlantic Charter penned by Churchill and Roosevelt. There is, therefore, up to a point a common agenda and a common framework in the North. The North has been able to monopolise global power partly because of this element of commonality and solidarity, but also because of the failure of the South to get its act together. The fact that Dominique Strauss Kahn was replaced as head of the IMF by another European, indeed a French person, was mainly due to the fact that the South or the BRICS for that matter were totally incapable of taking any kind of initiative of a collaborative nature. Worse than that, the Brazilians refused to back the Mexican candidate, etc. The main obstacle to India gaining a permanent seat at the UNSC lies not with France or Britain, but with China. And so one could go on giving numerous illustrations. There is the urgent imperative for global governance reform. (Though I am not sure perestroika is a good metaphor: look at what happened in Russia after perestroika!) When I am in Brasilia, São Paolo or Rio, I hear Brazilians complaining about the US and the EU. When I am in Santiago de Chile I hear Chileans complaining about the protectionism of Brazil. How many of the BRICS can claim to have good, harmonious and dynamic relations with their neighbours? Brazil? No. Russia? Ask the Georgians (among many others). India? No. China? Hostilities with India, Vietnam and the Philippines. South Africa? Perhaps the best in the BRICS class on that score. But the competition is not stiff.
Personally I think it is excellent that the head of the WTO should come from the South. But will Roberto Azevêdo be able to accomplish anything? Especially in terms of creating a common Global South vision and agenda? I doubt it. Perhaps what is needed is a Global South Charter, comparable to the Atlantic Charter, that sets out succinctly the core principles and goals of the Global South and the means to achieve them.
Jean-Pierre
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From: Guy de Jonquières
If Roberto Azevedo is takes up his job dogged by perceptions that he is "defender of the South", then he is doomed to fail before he begins. The task of the WTO director-general is to be the defender of the multilateral trade system, not of the interests of any individual country or group of countries involved in it. If Azevedo is shrewd, and he appears to be, he will make that absolutely clear from day one.