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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived document may not work.


Africa: Johannesburg Summit, 2 Africa: Johannesburg Summit, 2
Date distributed (ymd): 020815
Document reposted by Africa Action

Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for Africa at http://www.africaaction.org

+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++

Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+ +security/peace+ +US policy focus+

SUMMARY CONTENTS:

This posting contains excerpts from two NGO reports on the last preparatory meeting for the Johannesburg Summit, which begins on August 26. The meeting in Bali in June ended in deadlock on a wide range of issues. As these analyses indicate, substantive agreement on these issues in Johannesburg would require new willingness on the part of the U.S. in particular to respond to the concerns of developing countries. Most observers therefore rate the chances of breakthroughs at the official summit at slim to none.

Another posting today includes a press release and fact sheet released by the UN in advance of the Summit.

+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE BATTLE OF BALI:
Last stop before the World Summit on Sustainable Development

By Yin Shao Loong, Third World Network

June 2002

Yin Shao Loong is a researcher with Third World Network. Contact: twnkl@po.jaring.my

[excerpts only: full text at
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/wssd2.htm]

Negotiations on an action plan for the forthcoming UN summit on sustainable development have ended in deadlock as key developed nations hold back from commitments on finance, debt relief and combating poverty.

The Bali preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held in August 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa, saw a clear North-South divide emerge over reform of international relations.

Tense closed-door negotiations took place over the last 24 hours of the Bali PrepCom, which ended in the early hours of 8 June. Ministers and senior officials of the US, EU, Japan, Mexico, Norway and the developing-country negotiating bloc known as the Group of 77 and China, which comprises 137 countries, met on the morning of Friday 7 June to consider a draft paper detailing a proposal for the financing of a sustainable development action plan for the 21st century (Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit).

Negotiations had crawled for some days over the content and financial resources covered by the "Means of Implementation" section of the WSSD's plan of action, which PrepCom chairman and former Indonesian environment minister Emil Salim had hoped to dub the "Bali Commitment" if negotiations had been successful.

The text negotiated thus far is being transmitted to Johannesburg, 73% has been agreed and the rest - largely pertaining to trade, finance and globalisation - remains contentious and in brackets as per UN negotiations indicating unagreed text. This threatens to be a setback to the Summit's prospects for success since many developed countries have been aiming to undermine progress on both environment and development issues since Rio.

Negotiations in Bali had proceeded on four tracks: the environment and natural resources (including energy, water, biodiversity and special programmes for small-island developing states (SIDS) and Africa); the institutional framework for sustainable development (focusing on the modalities and reform of global, regional and national governance institutions); trade and finance (including in the Means of Implementation); and tentative negotiations on a political declaration for the Johannesburg Summit.

By the last day of the Bali PrepCom, apart from the Means of Implementation, negotiations had stopped unfinished on all tracks with over 200 brackets outstanding. Among them was the Rio Principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" of nations to sustainable development [that is, rich countries have greater responsibilities]. That mention of this principle within the preamble was highlighted as an outstanding issue by the US testifies to the incredible backslide on the sustainable development agenda since 1992.

After the Rio Earth Summit the UN had calculated that Agenda 21's implementation would cost over $600 billion annually in developing countries. Developed countries had agreed to commit $125 billion a year through official development assistance (ODA), a figure based upon 0.7% of their gross national product (GNP). To date, only five countries have met this target - Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. And since 1992, 14 of 21 donor countries have seen their aid budgets decline.

Developing countries were keen to move beyond the level of the March 2002 Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development which had only reaffirmed developed countries' commitment to meet the Rio target of 0.7% of GNP as ODA. The EU committed as a whole to an average of 0.33% of GNP as ODA. The US announced an increase of $5 billion over 2004-2006 above its present level. Japanese ODA, however, is expected to continue its downward slide. Efforts to put substantial debt relief for the most indebted countries on the table at Monterrey had largely failed, in part due, as some countries had complained, to premature concessions by the G77 and China, chaired this year by Venezuela.

However, developed countries have been adamant throughout the last three WSSD PrepCom meetings that the Means of Implementation should not go beyond agreements made at Monterrey or at the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Doha, Qatar. The US and Japan in particular have been reluctant to concede any progressive terms that would link unsustainable levels of debt with sustainable development despite the common linkage of poverty. The EU has been more conciliatory ...

During an evening meeting of ministers of the EU and G77/China on Thursday 6 June the EU issued a non-paper version of the Means of Implementation (which would only become an official paper following consensual adoption). This was later amalgamated with a G77 and China position in the early hours of Friday. South African minister for environment and tourism Valli Moosa presented the new draft to the select group of six ministers at 08:00. The non-paper received ministerial approval for consideration by delegations. ...

All in all, 13 points of disagreement were registered. ...

Within a day the locus of the PrepCom and the fate of the Bali Commitment had shifted from the negotiating rooms to the corridors and the small meeting rooms of the PrepCom Bureau. ...

The G77 and China took a bold step and declared that they found the paper acceptable and if other delegations were unable to accept it then the last week of negotiations on finance would be rendered void and parties would have to revert to the last officially published working text.

This was a calculated gamble on the part of the G77 and China to test the political will of the developed countries. The 08:00 non-paper contained much language favoured by the developed countries ... The key tests of political will lay within paragraphs on debt (which attempted to advance beyond the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative), diversification for commodity-dependent countries, and the elimination of agricultural subsidies. Additionally both the US and EU had advanced similar text on the WTO-TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement and public health, implying that implementation of TRIPS would be a boon for public health whereas in fact TRIPS, by enshrining strict intellectual property rights, raises the costs for public health care (witness the feud in South Africa and elsewhere over access to HIV/AIDS drugs). The 08:00 non-paper reversed the emphasis stressing the suspension clauses within TRIPS which parties may exercise as they deem fit as part of a public health approach rather than TRIPS itself.

If the developed countries rejected the paper it would be clear that they were against substantive debt forgiveness, sustainable commodity-based economies, fair terms of trade and public health in developing countries. In spite of high talk by developed nations of combating poverty, ensuring sustainable consumption and protecting human rights and the environment, it would be clear, if the compromise package was rejected, that on matters of substance the North wanted the South to stay locked into its subordinate position within the global economy. ...

The EU stated that it could accept the non-paper as the basis for further negotiation. Norway, Mexico and New Zealand also accepted the paper. The US and Japan stayed silent throughout. ...

At around midnight the plenary was convened but the news was already out in the corridors: no deal. There would be no Bali Commitment and chairman Emil Salim's exhausted face said it all. ...

In her closing address to the plenary, Venezuelan Minister for Environment Ana Elisa Osorio, speaking for the G77 and China, stated that despite efforts made and flexibility shown by the G77 and China, unity amongst major parties was not achieved. She emphasised the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and financial mechanisms necessary to implement sustainable development, including the burden of external debt and developing-country products not finding access to markets at remunerative prices.

... The US, Japan and to an extent the EU have shown that when push comes to shove they are unwilling to commit to progress in these areas. This makes Johannesburg a Summit not just about sustainable development, but about the conditions necessary for a decent life itself.


Foreign Policy In Focus

Bulletin from Bali: What Are We Going to Do About the United States?

by Eric Mann July 15, 2002

Eric Mann <ericmann@mindspring.com> is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and a member of the LA Bus Riders Union. His latest book, Dispatches from Durban: the World Conference Against Racism and Post-September 11 Movement Strategies will be published in the Fall of 2002.

[excerpts only: full text at:
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0207wssdprep_body.html]

This year, in late August 2002, the United Nations will hold the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), an international conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, ostensibly to create a new model of sustainable development that integrates economic development, social justice, and environmental imperatives. WSSD is supposed to be a ten year follow-up and implementation conference to the 1992 Rio de Janeiro UN Conference on Environment and Development--thus, its other name, "Rio plus 10." In the Preparatory Committee (PrepComm) meetings that have preceded WSSD, (the latest in Bali, Indonesia held in late May through early June) a common theme has emerged--the United States government is bound and determined to undermine, overthrow, and sabotage any international treaties, agreements, and conferences that it believes restrict its sovereignty in any way as the world's rogue superpower.

By the second day of the UN's Bali Preparatory Committee (PrepComm) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), most delegates from the Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) oscillated between disgust and depression. The "Chairman's Report"--the summary language that all the world governments were trying to agree upon--was little more than a neoliberal anti-environmental agenda. Naty Bernardino of the International South Group Network called it "Rio minus 10." As the governmental delegates were debating the language for the final declaration, an angry U official, thinking his microphone had been turned off, was overhead lamenting, "What are we going to do about the United States?"

Within hours, creative NGO organizers had printed small paper strips that we pinned to our shirts, repeating that same question. Even that tiny protest was overruled by UN security. We were advised by UN staff that any protests inside the Bali International Convention Center (BICC) criticizing a specific government by name would not be permitted--especially one particular government. At the daily NGO meeting the next morning, we were warned by a high-ranking UN official that there was a rumor that t-shirts bearing the slogan "What are we going to do about the United States?" would be appearing, and anyone wearing them on the premises would be escorted out. Indeed, one of the organizers was able to have such shirts printed overnight. Now, many delegates had flown to Bali to advance very specific agendas, representing groups that had saved for such a trip, and while wanting to wear the t-shirts in protest, were afraid of risking expulsion. Yet forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. Most NGOs, when told they weren't allowed to wear the t-shirts, decided they just had to wear one. The question then was how to advance the tactic--t-shirt civil disobedience? Our dynamic organizing committee, initiated by members of the women's caucus, came up with a new tactical wrinkle. We would wear the t-shirts into the Conference Center, but would use masking tape to cover up the "United States" so the t-shirts now read: "What are we going to do about -------?" Aesthetically and politically, the masking of the t-shirts drew greater attention to our message: the U.S. was running the show and our protest of its hegemony was being censored. The life and death fight with the policies of the United States had taken center stage at Bali.

Many groups had come to Bali to demand "water as a human right." The U.S. refused; it argued that water is a commodity to be privatized.

Groups had demanded that the U.S. sign the Kyoto treaty, and that WSSD pass a proposal for a far more radical reduction in greenhouse gases than the 5% proposed by Kyoto. The U.S. refused to sign Kyoto altogether, and opposed any language linking fossil fuel combustion to global warming--opposing any efforts to save the small island states and the entire planet from ecological catastrophe.

NGOs, and even a few governments, had demanded binding language with specific timetables and goals, such as reducing world poverty by 50% by the year 2015. The U.S. opposed specific numerical goals, specific timetables, structures of accountability, or penalties for non-compliance.

NGOs - trying to impact the document by influencing governments - asked for strong and binding international language to restrict transnational corporations' production of carcinogens, mining in indigenous communities, and expansion of oil production. The U.S. argued that any corporate behavior must be "voluntary," that the principle of national sovereignty, not international law, should shape the Johannesburg meeting. Any agreements between governments and corporations, argued Washington, should be based on non-binding public/private "partnerships"--the ideological poison pill. But even on the issue of "protecting national sovereignty,"the U.S. was two-faced and hypocritical. The U.S. did propose international and binding rules by the World Trade Organization (WTO) against indigenous and Third World nations trying to protect their own industries and sovereignty from the penetration of oil, mining, and agricultural transnationals. The U.S. supported protective tariffs for its own steel industry, and supported massive subsidies to its agricultural multinationals in order to tear down the domestic industries of other nations. For the U.S. government, and its present incarnation in the Bush administration, there are no principles: international rules to regulate transnational corporations, no; international rules to advance neoliberalism, yes. It is simply a question of which formulation best advances its imperial interests.

Worse, the U.S. would tolerate no dissent. It was known to be bullying every government in private "green room" shakedowns--even demanding the Norwegian ambassador to the U.S. censor the courageous Norwegian UN ministers at Bali who were fighting for international treaties to control transnational corporate abuses and to support indigenous peoples' rights. And every time governments put forth progressive language, the U.S. puts the statements in "brackets," the UN procedure for contesting and trying to remove policies with which you don't agree. For these and many other reasons, the question remained: "What are we going to do about the United States?"

On Wednesday afternoon, May 29, more than 50 of us went to the Greenpeace ship docked at Bali harbor. In front of some local media, we finally ripped off the masking tape from the X-rated t-shirts, exposing the "United States." Several of our spokespeople, including Canadian organizer Prabwa Khosla from the Women's Caucus and Henry Shillingford from the Caribbean, talked about how the U.S. was sabotaging any positive outcomes for environmental justice at WSSD.

The U.S.--threatening each nation with economic, political, and if necessary, military retaliation--is imposing an anti-regulatory agenda on the conference. The governmental groups--from the European Union to the G77 & China (the nations of the global south)--are unable or unwilling to offer an organized opposition. The U.S. is working to undermine the Johannesburg summit by substituting worthless voluntary agreements for enforceable ones, continuing to impose business and trade dictatorships (pushed through by the U.S. at the Doha and Monterey world trade conferences over dependent nations) and formalizing the stealing of indigenous land, property rights, and cultures. Ask any person working at WSSD on any subject--human rights, water, biodiversity, energy, global warming, debt cancellation--and they will tell you the same thing: the U.S is "bracketing" our lives, ruling all progress out of order. How ironic that in the midst of all this heavy-handed repression, the main objective of the U.S. and UN is to come out of Johannesburg with an emphasis on "partnerships." According to this argument, Rio in 1992 failed because it was too restrictive of corporate rights. Now, the U.S wants the delegates to denounce specific regulations to stop mining or oil exploration and instead propose "partnerships"--the grand illusion of our time--between NGOs and corporations like Shell Oil.

Our tiny t-shirt protest was well below the scope and scale needed to impact policy or any balance of power, but as a microcosm of what is urgently needed in Johannesburg and back in the U.S., it was an important beginning. ...


This material is being reposted for wider distribution by Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Africa Action's information services provide accessible information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that advance economic, political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.

URL for this file: http://www.africafocus.org/docs02/js0208b.php