What is called “free trade” is neither free nor really about trade as such. Free trade is certainly not fair trade. It benefits strong nations at the expense of weaker ones, and rich interests at the expense of the rest of us, circumventing what little democratic sovereignty we have been able to achieve. Free trade elevates property rights above every other right among the nations of the world.
There is the example of the neem tree, whose extracts contain natural pesticidal and medicinal properties. Cultivated for centuries in India, the tree attracted the attention of various pharmaceutical companies that filed monopoly patents, causing mass protests by Indian farmers. As dictated by the WTO, the big pharmaceuticals now had exclusive control over the marketing of neem tree products, a ruling that would force thousands of erstwhile independent farmers to work for the powerful pharmaceuticals on low-wage terms set by the companies.
Occasional victories are won against this kind of corporate aggrandizement, including one involving the neem tree. In 1994 the European Patent Office (EPO) granted patent rights to the US Department of Agriculture and the transnational agribusiness firm WR Grace of New York for a fungicide derived from the neem tree, which it described as “an Indian medicinal plant.” Following a long struggle and after being presented with subsequent evidence of traditional use of the fungicide, the EPO revoked the patent in 2005, ruling that the patent application was an act of biopiracy. (This was the first time a patent was rejected on such grounds.) The ruling established that the traditional knowledge of farmers is a right that takes precedence over the false assertions of agribusiness firms. These corporate claimants put forth a newly invented use for the neem plant to justify their monopoly grab of a natural agrarian resource that has been in common use for generations.4
The war to monopolize nature continues. A trade agreement between India and the United States, the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA), backed by Monsanto and other transnational corporate giants, allows for the takeover of India’s seed sector by Monsanto and India’s trade sector by Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. This amounted to a war against millions of India’s independent farmers and small businesses, and a threat to that country’s food security. Farmers began organizing against this economic invasion by maintaining traditional seed banks and setting up systems of communal agrarian support. As one farmer said, “We do not buy seeds from the market because we suspect they may be contaminated with genetically engineered or terminator seeds.”5
Another corporate invasion in India was the one launched by Walmart, whose intent was to take over India’s retail sector. Walmart announced plans to open 500 stores in India, starting in 2007. But several years later the government, to its credit, still was not allowing Walmart stores and other foreign companies to sell directly to consumers.6
The WTO ruled that the US corporation RiceTec had the patent rights to the many varieties of basmati rice grown for centuries by India’s farmers. It also ruled that a Japanese corporation had exclusive rights in the entire world to grow and produce curry powder. As these instances demonstrate, what is called “free trade” amounts to international corporate monopoly control over nature itself. Such developments caused Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to observe:
We now have a situation where theft of genetic resources by western biotech TNCs [transnational corporations] enables them to make huge profits by producing patented genetic mutations of these same materials. What depths have we sunk to in the global marketplace when nature’s gifts to the poor may not be protected but their modifications by the rich become exclusive property?
If the current behavior of the rich countries is anything to go by, globalization simply means the breaking down of the borders of countries so that those with the capital and the goods will be free to dominate the markets.7
Globalization has even targeted “water markets.” Recognized everywhere as a community resource and a human right, water sources are now being privatized, sold to corporations like Monsanto that then lay exclusive claim to marketing the water as a profitable commodity, in some cases even prohibiting local residents from using barrels to collect their own rainwater. The companies claim to own the water that comes from deep within the earth and from the rivers and streams, and now from the heavens too.8
Free trade agreements give transnational corporations control not only of production but of consumption as well. A WTO meeting was called in May 2010 in Quebec for the purpose of changing international standards on food labeling. The goal was to abolish the labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods. The US delegation sent by the Obama administration led the fight to abolish labeling. Deprived of a warning label, the public would have no way of avoiding the consumption of GM foodstuffs. In effect, Americans and the peoples of other nations would be deprived of their democratic sovereignty, their right to take protective measures against such products. It would become illegal under international law for government agencies to inform consumers that the food being sold to them was genetically modified. As it happened, the US delegation was unable to get the pro-Monsanto proposal adopted at the 2010 meeting.9 But future attempts to wipe out protective consumer labeling lurk on the horizon.