The Battle in Seattle: Then and Now

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the world into different sectors, thereby making corporate globalization easier to control.

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was created to defend corporations’ inventions and methodology from global use without proper payment. This agreement, like the AoA, sounds like it would provide support to the corporations responsible for technological improvement, but instead it helps to stifle innovation and undeveloped countries’ advancement into global equality. During the industrial revolution, nations would develop their industrial centers by looking at the example set by already developed countries. Under TRIPS, if an undeveloped country begins building versions of the equipment already in use and patented by corporations they would face lawsuits or sanctions as a penalty for violating international property rights. Under TRIPS if a farmer creates a seed but cannot afford or does not have the understanding of how to patent said seed, then a corporation can steal and patent the product, therefore making it illegal for the farmer to use the seed he invented without paying for it. TRIPS also has control over medicine by controlling the price of patented medicine and making it illegal to create and sell generic medicines. Other countries do produce medicine cheaper than the global corporations produce, and provide said medicine to their people, but TRIPS prevents that medicine from international export to countries that do not have the means of creation because it would cut into the profit margins of the quad’s pharmaceutical corporate interests. 

The control over medicine and agriculture are methods of power and structural violence over lesser-developed and undeveloped countries such as those found in Africa. Said countries must first find the funds to pay for medication in order to get healthy people before they can begin constructing their own methods of economic success. Meanwhile those same undeveloped countries have to concentrate on finding ways to pay for increased food and water, which under a WTO-constructed global economy are commodities instead of human rights. Food, water, and medicine require economic resources, but to get said economic resources the country must have healthy and well-fed citizens to create new markets; this is when the World Bank comes in. The World Bank provides predatory loans to the country in need, which in turn holds them to yet another debt they cannot afford to repay.

Through corporate globalization, companies like Monsanto can use international politics and WTO regulation so starve out nations that refuse to use their products. If the structural violence against developing countries continues, nations will find themselves indebted to the stronger few. We cannot count on elected representation that finds all means of funding through corporations. By working with a corporately funded representation process, we cannot expect to see any policy that does not directly benefit the hands that feed those in power. We cannot expect the media to give an unbiased revelation of the nature of those in power. It is up to individuals to educate themselves on current events and resist the policies that do not benefit people on global scale. The real battle in Seattle shows those that research it that without persistence, resistance is futile.

Works Cited

Kate from SF, “Surviving the Siege”, UltraViolet issued December 1999

Accessed April 14, 2012 < http://realbattleinseattle.org/node/121>

“What is the WTO”

April 14, 2012 < http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm>

“Agriculture: Fairer Markets For farmers”

April 14, 2012 < http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm3_e.htm>

“Intellectual Property: Protection and Enforcement”

April 14, 2012 < http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm7_e.htm>

Jim Edwards, “These Time Magazine Covers Explain Why Americans Know Nothing About The World”, Business Insider issued Nov. 28, 2011, 10:58 AM

April 14, 2012 <http://www.businessinsider.com/these-time-magazine-covers-explain-why-americans-know-nothing-about-the-world-2011-11>

Leon and Si in association with Guerillavision, “WTO Protests: Seattle (1/3)” Uploaded to YouTube by bijitaq on November 1, 2007

April 14, 2012 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JUZOGkw6tQ&feature=relmfu>

Leon and Si in association with Guerillavision, “WTO Protests: Seattle (2/3)” Uploaded to YouTube by bijitaq on November 1, 2007

April 14, 2012 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHfKDgf7lp8&feature=relmfu>

Leon and Si in association with Guerillavision, “WTO Protests: Seattle (3/3)”, uploaded to YouTube by bijitaq on November 1, 2007

April 14, 2012 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBxYUSoPMvg&feature=relmfu>

Susan George, “How do the WTO, World Bank and IMF work?” Uploaded to YouTube by bigpictv on May 5, 2011

April 14, 2012 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ952ba75Yk>