The Battle of Seattle: 20 Years On

The increasing urgency surrounding the climate crisis and income inequality has brought the private sector under a proverbial microscope. The connection between the global industrial development and deteriorating environmental conditions has pushed many to consider the ethical implications of globalization, and the ever-present debate about whether globalization is a net positive or negative as income inequality grows. December 2019 is not the first time that we have seen prominent scrutiny of the role of the corporation in the world community. However, the 20th anniversary of the anti-WTO protests in Seattle recently passed, a landmark series of protests at the end of the last millennium demonstrating against the potentially predatory effects of a global economy. Many of the themes of those protests are echoed at the student-led, anti-climate change “Fridays for Future” demonstrations today. Given the benefit of hindsight, and the modern pertinence of the Seattle protests, I thought that it would be appropriate to revisit the main themes of the N30 protests and consider how well the protestors predicted the state of the world 20 years on.

The World Trade Organization, a name that sounds like a stuffy bureaucratic agency in 2020, was actually quite young at the time of the protests. It had been formed just 5 years earlier in 1994 as a replacement for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, a sort of new name and new face for economic development in a post-communist world (Oldham). Many of the protestors in Seattles, and general critics around the globe, were particularly concerned with the bloated power and oversight the organization possessed since inception. The agency suddenly wielded regulatory and enforcement powers over not just manufacturing but services and agriculture around the world, despite being an organization with no directly elected officials (ibid).

With this newfound expansion in power, and also the convenient impending turn of a new millennium, the WTO was looking to expand trade regulations in what was dubbed a “New Millennium” of negotiations. The WTO was focused on guaranteeing patenting regulation and market access for farmers and engineers worldwide, while establishing standards that decreased environmental regulations, labeling such legislation as a “barrier” to free trade (Whitney).Meanwhile, the public had begun to question the precise source of power and motivation of the WTO. Amongst labor unions and advocates for economic justice, there was grave concern that the WTO had made no effort to address and consider the rights of the worker. Though the WTO stated that such issues were to be dealt with by the International Labor Organization at the UN, the WTO had shown no qualms about protecting the right of the corporation in the past, not only penning but enforcing protections on intellectual property around the globe (Oldham). Furthermore, there were legitimate and tangible claims from governments and other critics regarding disputes with the Organization, wherein the WTO Director-General himself “admitted merit” to the outcry of the “secretive” nature of the Organization (ibid), with many important decisions being made by unelected officials behind closed doors, without genuine regard for many of the consequences as it related to environmental destruction.

The WTO, in the media and on their website, were incredibly proud of their foundation of democratic principles and their mission to support a healthier worldwide economy. However, based on these testimonies and past actions, it is evident that the WTO jumped through hoops to cherry-pick when and where they intended to hold themselves accountable and stay true to these very principles. The Millennium Round of trade negotiations, which took place in Seattle in 1999, were yet another display of the choosiness of the Organization. Throughout the Ministerial Conference, environmental protection in agricultural development remained a footnote and grouped under the large umbrella of “multifunctionality” in agricultural concerns, despite the incredible implications of the agricultural industry in the climate crisis as we know it today (Ministerial Conference). Furthermore, though there was a focus on subsidies in a wide variety of industries worldwide, there was no discussion at the Conference about the rights of actual laborers. Thus, these two grave concerns of critics were still going unanswered.

With the state of the Conference, it was to be expected that there would be protestors, but the city of Seattle hardly anticipated the mass of people that ended up appearing. Not only were there upwards of 50,000 protestors, but they were amassed from an incredibly diverse array of people, like environmentalists, labor unions, a variety of solidarity organizations and even a few (albeit obscure right-wing) politicians (Engler). Famously, there was a group of protestors in the streets of Seattle dressed as turtles, one of whom wielded the famous sign reading “Turtles and Teamsters, Together at Last”, in a comedic but poignant and memorable way of reminding the public about the far-reaching implications of the Conference. The destruction and violence that stemmed from the protests, and which led to the nickname “The Battle for Seattle”, was the work of a distinct minority (around 100) of anarchist protestors and the calculated and vengeful retaliation from police officers which, in large part, obscured the peaceful demonstration that raised questions about the WTO’s actions. The action taken by protestors actually yielded a victory – some of the less-industrialized, developing nations took a stand and said that they were not in favor of some of the regulations that were being thrust upon them by the WTO (Berger). Thus, for the time being, the important themes of environmental consciousness and anti-exploitation rang true in the world economy. But, of course, this all took place in 1999, and a lot can happen in 20 years. Since then, how has the reach of globalization affected our world? And, ultimately, how much of our world today was predicted in 1999?

Sources

Berger, Knute. “In Seattle’s WTO Protests, the Seeds of Today’s Anti-Globalist Nationalism.” Crosscut, 2 Dec 2019. https://crosscut.com/2019/12/seattles-wto-protests-seeds-todays-anti-globalist-nationalism

Engler, Mark. “The Seattle Protests Showed Another World is Possible.” The Nation, 29 Nov 2019. https://www.thenation.com/article/seattle-wto-protests/

Hipolito, Matthew. “On its 20th Anniversary, what the WTO Protests Taught Us About Capitalism, Civil Disobedience, and the SPD.” The Daily, 25 Nov 2019. http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_eea1376c-0f35-11ea-b043-4f9f9862c614.html

Oldham, Kit. “WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999).” HistoryLink.com, Published 13 Nov 2009. https://www.historylink.org/File/9183

“Protesting the World Trade Organization.” The New York Times, December 4, 1999. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/1299trade-video.html

Scruggs, Greg. “What the ‘Battle of Seattle’ Means 20 Years Later.” CityLab, 29 Nov 2019. https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/11/seattle-wto-world-trade-organization-protest-riot-1999/602806/

“Seattle Ministerial Conference.” World Trade Organization, 30 Nov-3 Dec 1999. https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min99_e/english/about_e/resum01_e.htm

Whitney, Jennifer. “World Trade Organization (WTO) Protests, Seattle, 1999.” The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, Published 20 Apr 2009. https://doi-org.proxy.bc.edu/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1613