It was a long night

Negotiations inside the 'green rooms' of the WTO meeting continued all night, while outside our team worked to try to influence those negotiations.

Members of our team had a long night, meeting with other NGOs and journalists to put our assessment out there.

We have also been meeting with delegates from smaller delegations, to offer what support and analysis we can. These smaller delegations, often from poorer countries, are our best chance at influencing the outcome of the negotiations. While the larger delegations from the U.S. and the EU can keep negotiating around the clock with their dozens of delegates, the smaller delegations cannot effectively negotiate for days without sleep. We can work with other NGOs to support them with our team, to make sure they do not cave in to bad deals.

At this point, they can use our support. They are having their arms twisted to agree to talk about investment rules over the next year. We are opposed to these "new issues" being added to the negotiations, as it adds to the power of the WTO. In particular, the rich countries want to create binding investment rules which amount to a global bill of rights for corporations, with no corresponding set of responsibilities on environmental and social rules. A nasty set of discussions indeed.

A large number of poorer countries are opposed to adding issues to the WTO negotiations. But the EU is trying to get four new issues added to the discussions. They are putting pressure on poorer countries to agree to this by stating that there will not be an agreement on agriculture (which poorer countries desperately want) until they agree to start negotiations on these new issues. Arm twisting indeed.