theseattleimpasseanditsimplications.docVIP

The Seattle Impasse and its Implications for the World Trade Organization By John S. Odell* January 2001 odell@ /~odell Forthcoming in a volume in honor of Robert E. Hudec, tentatively titled The Political Economy of International Trade Law Cabinet ministers of the World Trade Organization’s 135 member states gathered in Seattle on 30 November 1999. Earlier, members accounting for a large majority of world trade had said that their purpose in Seattle was to launch a new multilateral round, another that would extend the sequence of eight large-scale negotiations that had liberalized trade and elaborated international rules since World War II. As everyone knows, American critics used the occasion to organize a large campaign to protest globalization and the WTO and to attack its core norm of trade liberalization. They and allies from other countries circulated pamphlets painting the WTO as an unaccountable tool of greedy corporations and blaming it for world social and environmental problems. On the first day union members, environmentalists, consumer advocates, and students marching in three columns converged on downtown Seattle chanting “No new round, turnaround.” Police allowed protestors to penetrate the space between the convention center and the hotels and block the ministers from entering the hall for a day. In the chaos the Colombian minister was knocked to the ground. Privately one of his officials groused that if the same had happened to an American cabinet secretary in Bogotá, the State Department would have declared a travel advisory on Colombia for six months. The minister from Estonia sputtered as he walked away, “I’m a socialist! … You people are nuts.” The president of the United Steelworkers thundered, “Either they fix the goddam thing [the WTO] or we’re going to get out.” Dockworkers up and down the Pacific coast briefly shut down ports in sympathy. A few protestors shattered shop windows and burned trash cans. Police threw te