Antigua faces off against rich countries for WTO support

Sir Ronald Sanders (Photo: Antigua GIS)

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

GENEVA, Switzerland: Antigua and Barbuda's Chief Foreign Affairs Representative, Sir Ronald Sanders, has urged the World Trade Organization in Geneva, not to adopt the directives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Financial Action Task Force, the organizations set up by the richest countries in the world. Over the last few years, the OECD and the FATF have set rules, standards and practices which they have required other countries to adopt under either the threat, or imposition, of sanctions.

Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Fiji, Guyana, Papua New Guinea, the Maldives, The Solomon Islands and St Kitts-Nevis are all opposed to the directives.

Sir Ronald told the Committee this week, "The world has entered a dangerous phase¸ it is one in which, despite the international problems that confront the global community and the logic that such international problems demand international solutions, a number of larger and more powerful states have abrogated to themselves the task of making rules and imposing them on others through either threat, or the impositions, of sanctions."

He declared, "The sovereign right of states to regulate and manage their crucial Financial Services Sector is being challenged continually by some countries who appear to have usurped the role of international organizations such as the WTO in global governance."

Identifying the OECD and the FATF as two of these organizations, Sir Ronald said they have "no legitimacy to do so."

He described the measures introduced by the OECD and FATF as "protectionist of the financial sectors of the larger countries and harmful to ours (the non-members of the two organizations)."

"The coercive methods they have adopted challenge a basic tenet of the WTO - namely multi-lateralism, which includes Most Favoured Nation treatment as well as open consultation between WTO members," Mr. Sanders said.

He added that the G7's "…seeks to promote the greater inclusiveness of small states in the process of formulating these standards by placing them under the umbrella of the WTO instead of in the bosom of plurilateral organizations with limited membership. We propose that the inclusiveness and international legitimacy of financial standards, universally negotiated and universally applied, can be accomplished best through the provisions related to Domestic Regulation under Article VI of the GATS."

Norway and the United States were the other two countries whose representatives spoke, both of them saying that the WTO "is not a standard setting body." Sir Ronald replied that he was "astonished that representatives could reject a role for the WTO, a genuinely international body, to set standards while accepting that the OECD and FATF, two non-international groupings, could do so."

The Committee decided to maintain the proposal on its agenda, and it will be discussed further at the next meeting. 

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