Behind Closed Doors: The WTO at Work
An insider’s view of how the World Trade Organization (WTO) functions is presented by Barry Castleman in the paper entitled WTO Confidential: The Case of Asbestos which appeared in The International Journal of Health Services, Volume 32, Number 3, Pages 489-501, 2002.
Having served as a scientific adviser to the European Commission during the case brought by Canada against the French ban on asbestos, Barry is well-placed to comment on the fundamental flaws in the WTO’s dispute resolution process and its threat to national sovereignty. Exposing the WTO’s free trade bias, Barry is also critical of the lack of transparency, inappropriate use of experts, non-disclosure of industry links by experts, unsuitability of some Panel members and unacknowledged input of WTO Secretariat staff. He concludes that:
"The role of the Panel is largely ceremonial; the real players operate behind the closed doors of the WTO… National laws and regulations, which may have taken many years to develop, can be challenged in a WTO process that is far less rigorous than the legislative processes of many countries. It is ironic that laws developed in open societies with input from all sectors can now be penalized and even overturned in a closed process where only governments have standing to be heard. Only the greatest powers on earth, the global corporations, could have induced the governments of the world to discard their national sovereignty and accept this system of governance so ruled by commerce."
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Aug 16, 2002
