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Seattle Hosts the World Trade Organization |
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Updated Sept. 24, 2001. From November 30 to December 3, 1999, the city of Seattle hosted the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization. Approximately 6,000 representatives, observers, and journalists from more than 150 countries converged at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center for several days of meetings, talks, and presentations. The WTO’s activities are well-documented on the Internet. For information on the Seattle meeting, see the Seattle Host Organization’s official website at http://www.wtoseattle.org/. The World Trade Organization’s website, http://www.wto.org/, includes extensive information on the issues addressed by the Organization and on its information resources. In addition to bananas, hormone-treated beef, and liquefied petroleum gas, the WTO deals with the broader issues of development, dispute resolution, electronic commerce, the environment, goods and services, government procurement, intellectual property, and trade policy. Online documents include annual and committee reports, formal notifications, guides, press releases, statistics, and the text of Uruguay Round Agreements. For a thorough research guide to WTO and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), see Jeanne Rehberg’s item on LLRX, http://www.llrx.com/features/wto.htm. She describes print and online sources, including a multitude of web sources. A UW economics professor has developed a WTO website with a trade wars quiz and other related information: http://faculty.washington.edu/karyiu/WTO/. The WTO’s range and power alarm some environmental, human rights, and labor groups. The Seattle Times and other news sources report that a massive protest is being planned for November 30th. Among the organizations that object to the trade organization’s policies and impact are the Rainforest Action Network (http://www.ran.org/ran/ran_campaigns/wto/index.html); the Sierra Club (http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/summit/); and the AFL-CIO (http://www.aflcio.org/wto/index.htm). The WTO History Project, http://depts.washington.edu/wtohist/, is the result of a collaboration between several units of the University of Washington. The website contains a timeline of the 1999 events, organizations, interviews with organizers and participants, and photographs of protestors' signs, leaflets, posters, and other material. Other perspectives come from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a Ralph Nader-affiliated organization (http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/tradehome.html); the Third World Network (http://www.twnside.org.sg/); and the Ruckus Society (http://www.ruckus.org/). Even if the world of international trade holds no interest for you, many Seattle residents will be affected by the meeting. Traffic around the Convention and Trade Center will be rerouted and the presence of hundreds of foreign government officials and protestors will mean heightened security and law enforcement. Add thousands of international travelers to the overflowing crowds of Thanksgiving holiday flyers and imagine the scene at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport! Postscript: The "Battle in Seattle" lead to several reports over police handling of the protests, including:
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