OVER 120 nations have agreed to have legally binding measures to control the pollution by mercury, a neurotoxin. Formal negotiations for the treaty will begin in 2010.

The agreement, reached at the 25th session of the Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme (unep) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is a change from previous years, when major powers, including the US, China and India, sought voluntary reductions. On February 18, they agreed to consider the binding treaty.

Some countries, including India, had earlier said a legally binding agreement is not necessary for unintentional mercury emissions. It was supported by China and Indonesia.

“Switzerland agreed that different mechanisms were necessary for unintentional and intentional emissions, but stressed that all mercury emissions must be addressed under the legally binding measures,”

said Prashant Pastore of Toxic Link, Delhi-based non-profit, who attended the meeting.

A consensus was reached after the US supported the call to ban mercy use worldwide. Changing its stand, the new US administration under President Barack Obama wanted a legally binding international treaty to reduce the toxic pollutant’s content in the environment. Till now, the US had supported only voluntary and partnership measures.

“This came as a surprise,” said Pastore. “Several non-profits said they were floored during the US announcement,” said a press release of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (enb), a news service for environment and development negotiations. “The US said the measures should address all significant sources of mercury, especially sectors with the greatest global impact including coal combustion,” said the press release.

The treaty would mandate signatory countries to follow measures to phase out the toxic pollutant.

An Inter-governmental Negotiating Committee will begin formal negotiations on the treaty in 2010, which will be wrapped up by 2013. The committe will devise modalities for phasing out mercury in terms of addressing the anthropogenic sources of the chemical, capacity building and technical and financial assistance to countries.

On behalf of developing countries, India called for a committed financial assistance to introduce mercury-free technologies. The EU rejected the proposal initially, but after consultations delegates agreed that developing countries and transition economies should be provided with technical and adequate financial assistance to help them implement the legally binding obligations effectively.

Widely used in chemical production and small-scale mining, mercury is also known to affect the cardio-vascular system. It persists in the environment once released and can travel long distances. Thus even countries which release little or no mercury and areas far away from industrial activities are at the risk of being contaminated. The Arctic, for instance, has high mercury levels, although it is far from major release sites. Its toxic forms such as methylmercury can cross the placental and blood-brain barrier affecting foetuses and children.

The trade talks at the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva collapsed in the last week of July. The Union minister for Commerce, Kamal Nath, said India would not accede to the demands of developed countries at the cost of Indian farmers. Nath seems to have become a hero in many quarters in the country and in other developing countries—and a villain amongst developed countries for allegedly scuttling free trade negotiations. But in reality, he has virtually complied with all conditions of the wto agriculture text, including almost zero farm subsidy reduction by developed countries. And the talks actually collapsed because the us did not want to make any commitment to cut massive subsidies to cotton growers.

India had three main demands before the commencement of the meet. It wanted reduction in subsidies to farmers in developed countries and increase in the number of special products—items on which developing countries have flexibility to raise import tariff because these items are important for food, livelihood security and rural development. India also wanted a simplified Special Safeguard Mechanism (ssm) that would allow developing countries to raise tariffs to protect farmers from surging imports. But at Geneva, India did not raise the first two issues at all. The issue of ssm was stonewalled by the us.

The real spoilsport

On the eighth day of the ministerial, the European Union brokered a proposal on ssms. The proposal said that developing countries could hike import duties/ tariffs to any level, if they could prove, in 60 days, that glut in imports or fall in prices of imported goods is inimical to domestic livelihoods, food security and rural development. The draft circulated before the meet talked of limits on hikes in import duties.

Six of the G-7 countries including China and India agreed to the proposal but the us blocked it. US trade representative Susan Schwab said ssms in the present form “were very protective for developing countries and could not be accepted”.

“This was an excuse because if all countries had agreed to the us proposal, the next issue on the agenda would have been cotton subsidies which the us wanted to evade”

said Bhaskar Goswami of the Delhi-based think tank Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security.

“In 2007, the us doles out three billion dollars as cotton subsidy. This came down to one billion in 2008 because 38 per cent of land under cotton had been diverted to corn and other bio-fuel crops. At Geneva, the us would have been asked to cut down the subsidy by 70 per cent and that would have created trouble in an election year,” Goswami explained.

The us has already lost a wto dispute on cotton subsidies. “In 2003, it was criticized for protecting its 20,000 cotton growers impoverishing millions of cotton growers in the four African countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. The impact has been also borne by Indian cotton farmers who were priced out and committed suicide under pressure of heavy loans,” said Devinder Sharma who is also affiliated with the same think tank.

Withdraw

Meanwhile, farm movements in India are demanding complete exclusion of agriculture from WTO talks.

“Developed countries want to protect their agriculture though heavy subsidies and high tariff barriers and at the same time want access for their products in the developing countries. There can be no agreement unless the developed world drastically changes its attitude. So we believe that wto has become ineffective and needs to be wind up,”

said Krishan Bir Chaudhary, the president of the nationwide farmers’ organization Bharat Krishak Samaj.

“Free market will only lead to more suicides. We have to be completely self-reliant in agriculture and food and not accede to the will of multi-national companies,” said Chukki Nanjunda swamy of another farmers’ organization Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, a farm organization.

The fact that wto director general Pascal Lamy has cut short his autumn break and is visiting India on August 10-12 and the us soon after shows how desperate he is to conclude the Doha Development Round which began in 2001. The talks might restart in September.

Farmers’ associations all over India were holding protests demanding exclusion of agriculture as an agenda in the World Trade Organization (wto) talks, even as the organization’s mini-ministerial debated ways to secure “meaningful market access in agriculture, manufacturing and services”. At the time this magazine went to press, farmers’ groups were apprehensive that the Union minister for commerce might sign a deal at this meet in Geneva allowing the entry of cheap agricultural products from the developed world. “That would be the last nail in the coffin of small farming in India,” said Sheelu Francis of the Tamil Nadu Women’s Collective, an organization representing over a lakh agriculture workers in the state.

The draft for negotiations for the Geneva ministerial—the third draft on the matter—did not accede to most demands of developing countries, the principal one being substantial cuts in subsidies offered to farmers in the us and European Union. These subsidies end up lowering prices of agricultural products in the developed countries below the production cost of farmers in developing countries, giving the former unfair market advantage.

At the time this magazine went to press, the us had made an offer to reduce its permissible subsidies to US $ 15 billion—it had offered 16.4 billion last year. Washington is currently allowed to distribute more than US $48 billion in subsidies under wto’s agreement on agriculture, yes, US $48 billion. But the actual subsidies given to farmers in the us are only about US $7 billion. So the subsidy proposed at Geneva actually gives us the leeway to increase its actual subsidies—not an unlikely possibility given the recent hike in food prices.

There were more strings. The developing countries have to facilitate non-agricultural product market access. Union commerce minister Kamal Nath is not totally averse to the idea. But he also added,

“I hope the proposed subsidy cut is only their opening gambit and not their bottom-line. The subsidy cut really makes no substantial impact.”

“The Prime Minister thinks we should close this issue but unless India’s interests are met, we should not move forward,” Nath said on July 17 before leaving for Geneva. This statement has made farmers’ movements apprehensive that India might end up signing the agreement on agriculture at the mini-ministerial without any major changes.

“The minister seems keen to sign the Doha agreement of the wto when he says that it should be finalized soon. This when the Indian government knows that the us Farms’ Bill, 2008, promises up to us $ 307 billion in subsidies to farmers over the next five years,”

says Yudhveer Singh of the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers’ Movement, New Delhi.

The Geneva meet is the latest in the Doha Round of wto negotiations—named after the venue of its first meet. The talks, which began in the Qatari capital in 2001, aim to slash subsidies and other barriers to trade “to help reduce poverty and spur economic growth in developing countries”.

According to wto’s categories, there are three kinds of subsidies of which only one is considered to distort production and trade, the Amber Box. With developing countries pressuring the developed countries to cut down on Amber Box subsidies, many subsidies have been move to the Green Box category—deemed as not trade distorting—and the Blue Box—trade distorting but permitted with certain conditions. Over 80 per cent subsidies are in the green and the blue box.

Singh put the reclassification in perspective.

“I asked farmers in Switzerland, if subsidies were cut down there. I was told that the same subsidy that was being given in the name of agriculture yesterday, comes in the name of environment now,”

he said. Bhaskar Goswami of the Delhi-based collective of scientists, policy makers and farmers, Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security offered further explanation.

“Countries are allowed to dole out subsidies to their farmers for food security. This is a Green Box subsidy. The us and the eu give out subsidies for cereals, oilseeds and pulses in the name of food security. But 60 per cent of all this is fed to dairy animals. So a subsidy given in the name of food security becomes trade distorting,”

he said.The latest text talks about disciplining such Green Box subsidies. “But there are no specifics as to how they will be disciplined. So this seems to be hogwash,” Goswami said.

In fact, if the draft for the Geneva ministerial is an indicator, some pro-developing country mechanisms of the wto could be on their way out. Amongst them is Special Safeguards Mechanism (ssms), which allows developing countries to protect their producers from losing out to imported products. Whenever a developing country faces a sudden surge in imports or a depression in domestic price beyond a given threshold, it can invoke ssms and slap additional import duties to protect its market. The new text, however, mentions that the tariff allowed under ssm cannot exceed the pre-Doha round level—they were very low then. Even Nath expressed disappointment at the new ssm rules in Geneva. “Are we expected to stand by, see a surge in imports and do nothing?” he asked in his speech on July 23. Negotiations were on when this magazine went to press.