Mike Moore's code

31.08.2002

By BRIAN FALLOW

Mike Moore steps down today as head of the World Trade Organization, leaving the cause of freer and fairer trade in better shape than he found it.

Moore took the reins as director-general three years ago. Two months earlier, while still embroiled in a brutal and acrimonious contest for the post with Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand, who now succeeds him, Moore used a speech in Wellington to spell out his creed, his conviction that free trade is the best hope of the worst off.

"In many countries an increasing number of citizens feel locked out, forgotten, angry and hurt, believing falsely that globalization is the cause of all their problems. They sit waiting for a train that may never come, their faces pressed against the window, easy victims to old and dangerous songs that yesterday was better."

While incomes had risen in most countries, the gap between haves and have-nots had also risen.

"People are appalled and dismayed when they see the few living in splendour and the many in squalor, with half the world dieting and the other half starving," Moore said.

But this was not the fault of the world trading system. It was an argument for making it fairer and stronger.

"Those countries that have liberalized have done the best, and we ought to say so.

"The point is not that the global economy is somehow perfect or that the widening range of public concerns are without substance or validity. The point, rather, is that the challenges we face can realistically be addressed only inside this global system.

"If people, especially young people, say unemployment is too high, they are right. If environmentalists say that growth must be sustainable and not destroy the planet's essential equilibrium, they are right. When developing countries say they are not getting fair access and justice, they are right."

But none of those problems would be resolved any more easily by restricting trade, closing borders or undermining the rule of law as embodied by the WTO. Just the opposite.

Three months into Moore's term, the strength of anti-globalization sentiment was evident in the "battle of Seattle", which formed a background to the failure to start a new round of global trade negotiations, although the protests were not the deciding factor.

Seattle was a train wreck, and most of Moore's term has been devoted to getting the multilateral trade liberalization agenda back on track.

"Ministerial conferences had failed before," he said in his valedictory speech to the WTO's general council, "but never in such spectacular fashion."

Two years after Seattle, at Doha, a new round was started with issues vital to developing countries at its core.

"Mike's political skills were a key factor in getting a launch," says Trade Minister Jim Sutton. "It was a closer-run thing than a lot of people appreciate.

"It was the crowning achievement of his political life so far and one few people could have pulled off."

One observer believes Moore's experience of political disappointment, his ability to roll with the punches and carry on, was crucial in getting the WTO back on its feet after the disaster at Seattle.

A thick skin has probably also been helpful in coping with the challenge posed by those who demonize the WTO.

It is a view typified by protesters chanting "Michael Moore kills the poor!" whom he reportedly encountered once in Canberra.

"He's an ebullient character," says Sutton. "He meets that kind of mindless chanting head on. He gives no quarter.

"He doesn't get mealy-mouthed and do what Clinton did at Seattle and decide he can't beat them so he'll join them. Mike is uncompromising, as befits a true believer."

In some crevices of the anti-globalization movement, Moore is seen as a turncoat who has betrayed his proletarian roots.

Such a judgment is utterly wrong, says Philip Burdon, a former National Party Trade Minister.

"I think it exceptionally unfair to suggest he has lost any of the compassion for the downtrodden that was part of his social conscience."

Running through Moore's speeches as WTO director-general is a theme of repugnance at a world trading system which resembles affluent gated communities surrounded by shanty towns.

He is a passionate advocate of a "grand bargain" between rich and poor, north and south, for the benefit of both.

He cites World Bank research which concluded that abolishing all trade barriers could boost global income by US$2.8 trillion ($5.9 trillion) and lift 320 million people out of poverty by 2015.

Though tariffs on industrial goods are low on average, certainly compared with agricultural tariffs, that average masks the fact that products in which developing and least developed countries are competitive, such as textiles, continue to attract relatively high tariffs in major markets.

No less pernicious is tariff escalation, the practice of having low tariffs on raw materials (such as logs) and much higher ones on value-added ones (such as plywood).

Another key issue for the Doha round is agriculture. OECD countries spend more than US$300 billion a year on agricultural subsidies - roughly equal to Africa's total GDP.

"The No 1 element of a true development agenda would be to reduce substantially the support OECD countries give their farmers, which undercuts developing countries and forces even the most efficient producers out of markets where they would otherwise be earning their living," Moore says.

Just when the round is moving from procedural to substantive issues, Moore's time as the WTO's sheepdog is up.

He hands over to Supachai a World Trade Organisation that looks a lot more like the world itself than it once did.

It is more representative and more inclusive. China joined during his term and money has been found to make it easier for poorer countries to take part in its negotiating processes, take advantage of its adjudication functions, and deliver on their own undertakings.

Though Mike Moore's Lexus will no longer be the first car in the WTO car park of a morning, he plans to stay on in Geneva. He is writing a book and will join the international celebrity speaker circuit.

"He will do a bit of casual advocacy on behalf of New Zealand," Sutton says. "We would expect to use him on special projects from time to time."

Saying farewell to WTO delegates, Moore said they might even see him marching with the protesters at the WTO's gates.

"You will know me immediately. My banner will say 'Justice now! Finish the round!' "