Action Briefing Aug 2003 - Sept 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

The WTO and the new planning system

A few weeks ago I went down to London for a Friends of the Earth training day entitled Rights, World Trade and the Planning System.

If you think this sounds like a peculiar combination of issues, you’re right. It should be a peculiar mixture but the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the international agency that sets and polices the rules of international free trade, extends it's influence even to our humble local planning system, with important implications for our right to have a say in the planning process.

The fifth WTO ministerial takes place from 10-14th September 2003 in Cancun, Mexico - a country well known for the resistance of its people to the ravages of globalisation. Talks focus on 4 main areas: patents on life forms and medicines; agriculture; services (that’s the general agreement on trade in services or GATS, as featured in previous Action Briefings); and investment.

Turning Point
We could be at a turning point in the history of globalisation, as every one of these negotiations is in serious trouble, often owing to severe disagreements between developed and developing countries. World trade rules being heavily weighted against the latter.

But the developed countries can’t agree among themselves either - the current spat between the EU and USA over GM crops, for example. Countries ostensibly all in favour of free trade principles cannot in practice resist having their own pet areas of economic activity protected.

Negotiations collapsed in Seattle in 1999 and this year looks set for a similar conclusion, with a chorus of grassroots activism to shout it along its way to failure.

Anti-competitive
Meanwhile, in the UK the current planning system is seen by the Treasury as “anti-competitive”. Under forthcoming legislation, far fewer planning decisions (such as the Birmingham Unitary Development Plan on which we spent so many campaigning hours last year) will be made at a local level, with more decisions made at a regional level. Whether the change-over will happen before each regional tier becomes democratic is one problem, but even if it does, the regional tier is much further removed from an understanding of a locality and an awareness of the impact of developments
on local people's lives.

The legislation for this planning reform is going through Parliament in the next few months and is likely to become law next June.

Back on the global stage, there will be an international day of action against the WTO on 9th September 2003, and Friends of the Earth is planning an event for the preceding weekend to highlight the issues.

Even if you think being an environmentalist is just about protecting your local wildlife area, you should still get involved because economic growth can’t happen without using up more space and more natural resources. The WTO, and the trade system it protects and promotes, is intrinsically flawed because it abuses the democratic process, threatens human rights and disregards the environment. If the first time we realise this is when we see the application come in for the new power station on our local wildlife area, then we will have already lost.

Karen Leach