Christians Continue to Press for Justice ahead of WTO Meeting

Peter Kenny of Ecumenical News International has said the struggle many churches and advocacy groups were engaged in to bring economic justice to the table of the G8 summit, will not be left behind now, and he said they refused to give up the struggle there.

Church and faith groups, as well as numerous charities and advocacy agencies are keeping the pressure up ahead of the forthcoming general council meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Geneva-based body that regulates global commerce. The Ecumenical Centre in Geneva has scheduled a number of trade conferences and seminars to coincide with the WTO meeting.

The WTO is meeting this month to discuss the framework for this December’s Ministerial Summit to be held in Hong Kong.

The meeting was supposed to seal the conclusion of the WTO’s Doha Round of trade liberalisation negotiations. This, however, looks increasingly unlikely after the lack of progress made so far.

The Geneva People’s Alliance, an alliance of non-governmental organisations, civil society and social movements, has organised a gathering in order to keep pressure on the world trade leaders attending the summit. Around 60 groups in total will attend the event, to be held on 25–29 July, the same time as the WTO meeting.

Linda Hartke, who heads the Geneva-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, a coalition of more than 90 churches and church-related organisations worldwide, said: "Faith communities are extraordinarily diverse, but across all traditions there is a common vision and call for justice in the world, and a growing understanding that this must include justice in the policies and practices of trade – where politics and profits for the powerful few have become the aim, rather than putting people first, and among them the poorest."

She highlighted the priority of justice in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Talmud and other holy books, which "compel us to challenge the powerful, to work for justice, and always to stand with and for the poor."

Hartke criticised trade negotiations for being cloaked in "complexity and deliberate mystery" and for not putting the needs of the people of the world first, as well as simply making the poor poorer.

Hartke summed up the unfairness of trade negotiations with a quote by the Rev Robert Aboagye-Mensah of the Christian Council of Ghana: "International trade between my country and the West is like an antelope and a giraffe competing for food which is at the top of a tree. You can make the ground beneath their feet level, but the contest will still not be fair."