World Summit on Sustainable Development Department of Public Information - News and Media Services Division - New York
	Johannesburg, South Africa 26 August-4 September 2002	30 August 2002

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION PRESS CONFERENCE ON STATE OF SUMMIT   Non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives expressed alarm at an afternoon press conference today over what they described as the "hijacking" of the sustainable development process by the World Trade Organization (WTO) agenda. At an NGO press conference to assess the first week of the Summit, Meena Raman, Legal Adviser to Friends of the Earth International and Third World Network, Malaysia, said that language in the latest text of the draft implementation plan suggested that environmental and development concerns should be consistent with the rights and obligations of the WTO. That was very dangerous, because the achievement of sustainable development was the premise underlying the Summit. If the WTO rules were not consistent with sustainable development, they should be changed. It should not be the other way around, she stressed. She said that another issue of immense concern related to common but differentiated responsibilities and to the Precautionary Principle. Amid fears that ministerial discussion of those principles would not be open and transparent, it was hoped that the ministers would not adopt WTO-style negotiations, in which the rich countries bullied the developing world into accepting agreement. Victor Menotti of the International Forum on Globalization said that whereas governments had previously advocated an inclusive, hands-on form of development, they were now supporting a hands-off approach that favoured privatization and protected foreign investors. Such a takeover of the sustainable development process would lead to the privatization of water and other basic rights. Tomorrow the people of Johannesburg's townships, whose water had been cut off, would be marching on the Summit in Sandton, he said. People around southern Africa had been forced into a position where they were poaching fish and illegally occupying land that had traditionally belonged to them, as a result of the hijacking of the global commons. Bjarne Pedersen, Senior Policy Adviser to Consumers International, said that the vision of how the world wanted to live had become a casualty of the negotiations. The 10-year target for the issue of sustainable production and consumption, which had been accepted relatively firmly, was now uncertain. The North must change its consumption patterns in the next decade, or they would block development in the South. Remi Parmentier of Greenpeace said the Summit had entered into arm-twisting mode today, with the Japanese delegation apparently telling ministers from developing countries that Japan and the United States were willing to accept targets on water and sanitation, on condition that the targets on renewable energy were removed. The press conference was sponsored by the World Summit secretariat. Press Conferences Summit News