EFFORTS to include environmental concerns and a social clause in a new world trade agreement are "hitting a brick wall" according to the Minister for Tourism and Trade.
Mr Kenny told a seminar in Dublin on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) he was disappointed at the limited progress made in incorporating environmental concerns in talks on an agreement. Opposition was coming from the developing world, which feared that such a clause would allow the richer countries to restrict trade on environmental grounds.
The WTO was set up last year to succeed the earlier international trade agreement, GATT. Its main task is to open markets for agricultural and industrial products and services as agreed in negotiations under the Uruguay Round.
Under the WTO agreement, Mr Kenny said, Ireland would not be able to ban fridges from India which contained excessive CFCs. The US would not have been allowed to ban Mexican tinned tuna because dolphins were caught along with the tuna.
There was also "no chance" of a social clause being introduced at the first ministerial conference of the 125 WTO members in Singapore next month, he added. "Many developing countries also object to any external examination of their human rights records".
The only labour standards of possible relevance in the WTO context were so called "core" standards, such as freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and the non use of forced labour and exploitative child labour.
Ms Mary Van Lieshout, policy adviser with Oxfam, predicted the north/south divide would resurface at the Singapore talks. "The industrialised countries continue to want faster and easier access to developing country markets. At the same time, the developing countries accuse Europe and North America of double standards and maintain that agricultural subsidies undermine their economic recovery.
Ms Miriam van der Stfchele of the Transnational Institute in The Netherlands, said that while the EU countries were pushing for greater democracy in the south, there was little enough democracy at international level, where the views of the developing countries were often not listened to.
The seminar, "Trading with the Future: Sustainable Development or Merely Developing Trade?", was jointly organised by Trocaire and Oxfam.
