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Free to trade or forced to trade?

By Anne Matthews-Frederick - posted Wednesday, 21 September 2011


As the final conditions of trade imposed by the WTO included many of the measures referred to by New Zealand in its complaint, the statement seems ingenuous. That so many measures sanctioned by the WTO panel were amongst the options originally offered to New Zealand in the 2006 Report begs the question. Why did New Zealand pursue its goal through the WTO rather than chatting over a beer with its best mate in the region?

Is it because the WTO permits compensation claims when trade restrictions nullify or impair benefits to the aggrieved trade partner?

During the protracted fourteen year campaign against the European Community over bananas, the US and Ecuador respectively claimed from 1999, an annual amount of US$201.6M and $191.4M. Their dispute had nothing to do with bio security. It was about choosing trade partners and now appears resolved after a lengthy and costly battle between the legal eagles and their panels of experts.

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Is it because Japan's legal team failed to win one point of law, establishing legal precedents that Australia appreciated it could not overturn even with the best mercenaries for hire?

Is it because, in every dispute over protecting borders from bio security risks versus an exporter, the WTO ruling favours the exporter by imposing minimal restrictions and minimal cost to the exporter to comply?

The introduction to the Uruguay Round Agreement Article 1-11 says, "no member should be prevented from adopting or enforcing measures necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health, subject to the requirement that these measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between Members where the same conditions prevail or a disguised restriction on international trade."

Who perceived in 1995 that a nation would have to choose international obligation over national responsibility? Who realised the words "where the same conditions prevail," does not mean that trade between disease free countries or trade between countries with disease, but trade between both disease prone and disease free?

A $600.9M apple industry in 2006/06 is at risk because of membership in the WTO. Is being a team player worth the risk?

Australia has lost two battles based on photo-sanitary measures and the queue to joust will grow longer unless our Government simply capitulates to avoid publicity.

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For instance, the Philippine requests in 2002, DS270 and 2003, DS271, to open the doors to pineapples, fresh fruit and vegetables are in the consultation stage of the process. For Australia, and Japan, the consequence of a poor decision is the loss of benefits accruing to disease free status.

It is about the viability of farms to re-start post disease attack, the loss of immediate and short term income to growers and their communities as restocked plantations grow to maturity (remember the citrus canker outbreak in Queensland), the loss of access to local food with it benefits of less exposure to chemicals, and fruit delivery that has a lower carbon footprint.

While the Final Report 2011 conveniently concurs with the conclusion of the referee that introduction of fire blight and other diseases may be a low risk, it does state that once in Australia, fire blight will spread like wild fire. The only winners in these WTO decisions are WTO employees, legal teams, experts, exporters and the chemical companies. Is membership worth being forced to trade?

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About the Author

Anne Matthews-Frederick spent seven years in the teaching profession, followed by a 1980s "sabbatical" on a Sunshine Coast hinterland acreage at Carter's Ridge. In 1988 the family returned to Brisbane where Anne embarked on a successful career as a real estate agent. During this period, Anne created her own newsletter Life@Windsor-Wilston-Grange and website.

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