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World Headquarters Rue Mauverney 28 |
Speech Transcript |
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World Headquarters Rue Mauverney 28 |
Speech Transcript |
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WTO High Level Symposium on Trade and the Environment
(15 March 1999)Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser
Director General, IUCN - The World Conservation Union
On behalf of IUCN – The World Conservation Union let me first congratulate the WTO for organising this high level meeting on trade and environment and the meeting on trade and development.
Today’s event is an example of what we all wish to see in the future. It has been made possible by the efforts of a number of key intergovernmental and international institutions, all of whom should be thanked for what they have done.
I am pleased to share this platform with close personal colleagues and institutional partners of IUCN. Both UNEP and the World Bank have done much to lead the way in the trade and environment dialogue.
However, we would like, in particular, to recognise the role that you Sr Ruggiero have played in ensuring that these meetings take place.
Your leadership of the WTO through its critical first years has done a lot to formalise the trade and environment debate in this high level meeting today.
IUCN is the world’s largest union working for the environment. It is comprised of 74 governments, more than 180 state and government agencies, and 650 NGO members.
We have a global secretariat and a vast network of more than 12,000 scientists and lawyers working as volunteers. Our members and volunteers operate in 138 countries. We have 42 offices worldwide. IUCN can reach from the micro to the macro level of science and policy and back again.
With such a balance of members and interests what is our mission? Our mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.
We therefore take a deep interest in trade and environment issues.
Building on our mission we wish to see global and regional trade regimes that place a premium on conservation and the rights and responsibilities of communities, countries and corporations to sustainably use and equitably share the benefits of natural resources.
And we are prepared to play our part.
While the subject of trade and environment is young, IUCN has a comparatively long history of work in this field:
- IUCN has worked extensively on trade and the threats it poses to species. TRAFFIC established jointly with WWF (Trade Record Analysis in Flora and Fauna in Commerce) works closely with Convention in the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
- We are working on the impacts of trade on biodiversity. This includes specific work on the impact of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) rules on biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and distributional equity. This includes detailed recommendations to the scientific bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at its meetings this year.
- We are building capacity in our members and others (particularly governments and civil society in the South) on the relationships between trade rules and the mandates of the multilateral environmental agreements.
- We are developing international law and policy analysis and co-ordination through the work of our Environmental Law Centre. Their analysis the development of trade rules between the conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the Singapore Ministerial Conference (from Marrakech to Singapore) and its implications for the multilateral environmental agreements is essential reading.
- We develop better understanding of sustainable use and equity in conservation and natural resource management, to better gauge the impacts of trade liberalisation on communities’ capacity to manage resources.
Here the issue is that even where liberalisation has promoted growth, the benefits of that growth are often poorly distributed and repatriated with devastating consequences for natural resources, communities and human and environmental security.
- We focus on the role of incentives and subsidies within trade rules in supporting sustainable use of natural resources, from fish, to freshwater, to plant biodiversity, to entire ecosystems.
- We had a role in the creation and the work of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and can play a role in nurturing multi-stakeholder dialogue on these issues
But what of the future? There is an increasing desire in IUCN to focus on the positive role trade might play in promoting conservation, sustainable use and social equity.
However, we all know that, to enable the WTO and others to promote this role this meeting will need to send strong messages – on substance and process.
- Capacity Building. We must build stronger capacity within countries to understand the linkages between environment and trade, probably most efficiently on specific issues as they arise.
For example, we are working in three regions to identify the linkages between the CBD and WTO rules, in the fields of agriculture, fisheries and forests.
- Intellectual Property Rights. The trade and environment communities must make a concerted effort to address the specific public concern related to intellectual property rights, the sharing of benefits from the international use of genetic resources, and biosecurity.
Our law centre and biodiversity unit, together with our regional programmes are working to make specific recommendations to the CBD and the WTO. We stand ready to bring different parties together to forge a way forward in this critical post-Cartagena period.
- The need for a forum: We need to create a forum for regular high level dialogue and action, such as a standing committee on trade and environment the development of which has been promoted by IUCN since before the Singapore Ministerial Conference of the WTO.
- Civil Society. We must continue to recognise the role that civil society (environment, development, unions, women) can play in looking at the necessary synergies between environment, development and trade policy.
We welcome the increased recognition by WTO that greater transparency is not only an important element in its dealings with civil society, but an essential element of an open and efficient trade regime. However, we hope that lessons can continue to be learned from the UN and environment conventions which in last 10 years have become open and more responsive institutions.
IUCN has a wealth of experience in and a strong mandate to promote the engagement of civil society and will play a fuller role in developing procedures for greater access and participation
- We welcome calls for evaluation of the Uruguay round on sustainable development ( e.g. Sir Leon Brittan) but ask that the evaluation be extended to the rules that are applied today and that conclusions be drawn to inform the 2000 round. IUCN also gives importance to the agriculture negotiations which will have significant direct and indirect impact on biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods.
All of the above will require at the international and regional level the highest level of co-operation and erudite input from academia, the legal profession, trade experts, the conservation community, the development community, other organisations of civil society.
Issues which are highly technical and complex should be distilled and made more accessible to broader communities - that is our collective responsibility.
Let me conclude by saying that IUCN will be proactive in responding to these challenges.
One contribution we hope to make will be to convene small, technically focused trade and environment forums – globally and regionally.
The forums will bring together different expertise, experiences and perspectives. They will be places where we can roll up our sleeves and find common ground. They will be designed to add momentum to trade and environment dialogue in the face of a daunting negotiation timetable and what might be increasing hostility.
IUCN will try to use its special convening ability as well as its sound science and technical, legal and political analysis.
At IUCN, we owe it to our members, governmental as well as non-governmental, to play this role as the pace of regionalisation, globalisation and harmonisation accelerates.
We are open to receive your suggestions and active participation in shaping these forums.
My colleagues and I look forward to an informed, honest and frank exchange in the next few days and that we may leave here with not only a greater shared understanding of the challenges ahead, but of what concrete steps we may make.
IUCN Press Focal Point: press@hq.iucn.org
See also: WTO website www.wto.org
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© IUCN 1999