UNCTAD and the Trade Debate

Although the UNCTAD meeting was all but boycotted by the G-7 nations, the effort orchestrated by its Brazilian Secretary General, Rubens Recupero, continues to breathe life into the growing rebellion of developing nations. A majority of those attending agreed on the participation of NGOs and unions. The critics of globalization even appeared to gain the support of Malaysia’s embattled prime minister, who told his ASEAN colleagues at a Bangkok luncheon that “the peoples of the world should stop and discuss globalization.” Yet, although many of the positions presented at the UNCTAD meeting supported the inclusion of non-trade issues in the negotiations, Recupero’s hopes of creating a platform for solving the impasse created at Seattle did not materialize. Documents from the meeting are available on the www.unctad.org website.

Recupero’s views have an impact on Brazil and the FTAA process in general. The UNCTAD Secretary General, who served as finance minister in President Itamar Franco’s administration, reaches a wide public through his weekly columns and other reports in the press. On February 6, 2000, in his Sunday column in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Recupero cited a study by José Cassiolato, a Brazilian industrial policy and technology specialist for the UN. The report shows that national companies that pass to foreign control almost invariably abandon independent research and development. Recupero cited many examples in Brazil. This type of commentary is closely followed in South America, where national industrial prowess is part of the political heritage in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Brazil and even Venezuela.

In general, UNCTAD’s wide-ranging agenda in Thailand was an attempt to find new ways to think about economic liberalization and globalization. UN Secretary General Kofi Annon used the forum to call for a new Paradigm2000, to replace (but not greatly modify) the much-vilified Washington Consensus. Annon hopes to play on the anxieties caused by the Seattle impasse to bolster his campaign for a new global compact (see www.unglobalcompact.org for more information).