Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 15:12:39 +0100
From: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
To: "'info@gatt.org'" <info@gatt.org>
Subject: Gibraltar

Could you advise me of the relationship of Gibraltar to the WTO?  

Stephen Carse
Government Economic Adviser
Economic Affairs Division
The Treasury
Illiam Dhone House 
2 Circular Road
Douglas
Isle of Man

Tel:  01624 685741
Fax: 01624 685747

steve.carse@economics.treasury.gov.im

WARNING:
If you are not the intended addressee of this e-mail you must not copy or deliver it to anyone else or use it in any unauthorised manner.

Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 15:23:24 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: Re: Gibraltar

Yes. Gibraltar is a little plot of land at the tip of Spain, right across from Morocco, under the governorship of Britain. The WTO is the World Trade Organization, which was created to allow a greater freedom for corporate entities to engage in their activities unhampered by the protective strategies of democratically elected governments.

Why do you ask?

Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 16:12:35 +0100
From: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
To: 'The World Trade Organization' <info@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

My enquiry was to do with whether Gibraltar has a relationship with WTO that was similar to the one we, the Isle of Man, has. Your response does not help me on this. Can you say anything more e.g. is it free to have its own exemptions?

Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 19:58:05 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

No land on earth may be considered free, if freedom means to engage in activities that endanger the well-being of corporate enterprise. So long as, and only so long as, nations understand their place on earth as being in service of, and at the beck of, the driving forces of economics, so shall these nations be afforded a place at the right hand of power. But let the tiniest nation--yea, even Gibraltar, even the Isle of Man--arise upon the poop-deck of declamation... let it wield for even a moment the baton of popular power against the furnace of progress... let it stagger drunkenly into the path of the train of misguidedness... then, indeed, shall that nation see the full force of our petulance and our peevishness unleashed squarely upon its head, and all its head's heads as well.

(Sorry for that rant--we have a bug on our shoulder since the latest round of dangerous-idea circulation masquerading as protest.)

Best,
Granwyth Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith

Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 00:24:52 -0000
From: Jimmy Choi Kam Chuen <jimmychoi_kc@hotmail.com>
To: info@gatt.org

Dear Sir

Appreciate very much if you can tell me the designation of Mr. Granwyth Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith in your organization.

Thanks very much

Choi Kam Chuen

Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 07:36:13 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: Jimmy Choi Kam Chuen <jimmychoi_kc@hotmail.com>
Subject: Granwyth Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith

Dear Mr. Chuen,

Mr. Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith is a Counsellor in our Market Access Division, and often does first-level public relations assessment.

Yours,
Gram Hunnerd

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 09:24:23 +0100
From: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
To: 'The World Trade Organization' <info@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

I have absolutely no idea what your reply is all about.  May I just repeat my simple request?  Is Gibraltar a member of WTO in its own right or is it a member through the United Kingdom?  

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 12:19:58 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

Now Mr. Carse, there's no reason to get uppity. We are on your side--you, the little man who plays by the rules. We are here to help you understand the exigencies of the global playground, so that you may understand the pathways through which you and your government MAY move and those through which you MAY NOT. Given this, it is hard to say why you would seek to endanger your standing through impatient words. If I were you, given the circumstances, I would question whether my nation (the Isle of Man, in your case) is really all that interested in benefitting from trade.

But to answer your question: Gibraltar's business arrangements are not the affair of other governments, either yours or those of more populous lands. Gibraltar is free and sovereign to enter into trade arrangements with the enterprises that choose it, and it would be a violation of Gibraltar--and I mean that in the full sense--to suggest that the whim of the people--its own, or those of other lands--can impede those arrangements.

With very best wishes,
Granwyth Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith

p.s. Your question as phrased in your last mail, "Is Gibraltar etc. etc.", is in no way the same as those of your first two mails. In fact, I am forced to conclude that your question keeps changing. If you can resolve upon a single question and stick to it, there is every chance that it can be answered appropriately, in spite of everything.
GHHS

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 14:10:07 +0100
From: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
To: 'The World Trade Organization' <info@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

On the contrary the question is exactly the same.  

This has got to have been the most bizarre set of responses I have ever received from a world organisation.

Could I ask that my enquiry be passed on to your superior within the WTO so that I may get a simple answer to a very simple question.

Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 09:34:53 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar

Mr. Carse:

I will happily pass your request to my superior _if_ you do the same, so that the entire conversation is passed up to a higher level and our superiors are then superiors speaking at the same level. I resent being considered on a lower level than my interlocutor, and think that this is the perfect solution to our debacle.

Please: you first.

Granwyth Hulatberi-Hulatberi-Smith

Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 20:12:03 -0400
From: Walther Funk <wfunk@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar (Fwd)

Dear Mr. Carse,

I was forwarded the below message by Mr. Smith, along with your request. What seems to be the problem?

Regards
Walther Funk

Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 07:06:55 -0400
From: Walther Funk <wfunk@gatt.org>
To: "Carse, Steve" <Steve.Carse@economics.treasury.gov.im>
Subject: RE: Gibraltar (Fwd)

p.s. If you do not reply within the next twenty-four hours, your request will be exterminated from our system.

(Based on the Pentagon's "most-wanted Iraqi" playing cards, we made our own version for the US administration, the "Regime Change Playing Cards," and advertised them on gatt.org.)

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 10:32:31 -0700
From: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
To: communications@gatt.org
Subject: Your playing cards

To whom it may concern
 
Your view of the US as 'the primary world criminal by the vast majority of the world's citizens'  is pretty nieve.
 
You need to re-define 'criminal'
 
Its easy to pick on the big guy on the block, especially if he has a nicer house and drives a nicer car...     You are obviously confusing jealousy with wrong doing.  It generally makes those of lesser fortune feel better to belittle those of greater fortune. 
 
I don't think it is the WTO's place to choose sides and state their political view in such an unprofessional way.  Think of a world without the USA,  really think about history and where you/ we would be.  Auctung Baby!  get the picture?
 
Mike Frey

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 14:01:27 -0500 (EST)
From: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
To: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
Cc: communications@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

Dear Vacation,

Thank you for your email interest. We have had several complaints regarding our internationalist criticism of the Americans; yours is by no means the first.

Regarding the redefinition of "criminal": it has rightly been pointed out that truly, a criminal is no longer "one who does crimes." After all, the bulk of the world's corporations--those who determine, in no little way, the mores of today's world--routinely perform deeds that in simpler times would be classed as crimes. Yet are they criminals? No, they are not even human! So the concept is clearly not simple, today, any longer.

Nevertheless, we wish to hark back to simpler times, when organizations such as ours mattered (see below), and so we reserve for ourselves the right to err in this fashion, belligerently.

It is also correct that we are eaten by jealousy. We are an international organization with no army and only one grounds upon which only three buildings, in Geneva, Switzerland. This is not like the US, which has many grounds upon which a fabulous multitude of all manner of building, and in the US, which is bigger and in several ways better, we own.

Nevertheless, we wish to hark back to a simpler time in which "might makes right" was in question, as a general principle, and in which trade was a means to peace. Therefore we err with aplomb.

As for the world without the USA and your allusions to Nazism rampant without it, this is unfortunately a common error in the minds of the world's Americans. In fact it was the Red Army that demolished the Hitlerites near what was then Stalingrad, much as the Czar's army had demolished the Napoleonites. This is an error of history that should by no means be considered by the world's Americans as a blotch on their escutcheon. On the contrary.

Thank you for your understanding and mercy. This email has been recorded. I would be most grateful for your expression of convincedness, or non-convincedness, by the things I have said.

Best of all,
Ruprecht Aniculus-Hoard
WTO Externals

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:41:10 -0700
From: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
To: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

Ruprecht Aniculus-Hoard,

Thank you for your candid reply.  I am by no means a scholar or historian, I meant to point out merely that the USA can stand proud by her actions and the people of America can also stand tall, for I believe good is in our hearts by a very large majority and I believe we weild our might honorably. I also appreciate your call to 'hark back to a simpler time'.  I think that battle will take a long time and will be constantly fought.  The competitive nature of the human spirit gives us the ability to perform relative miracles, and also makes it hard for us to get along.  There will always be extremes and I believe in the extremests, for they help keep us centered.

Thank you again for your reply.

Kind Regards,
Mike P Frey

Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 15:42:09 -0500 (EST)
From: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
To: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

Dear Mike,

How odd that I thought your name to be Vacation. That is quite improbable.

In any case, we wholeheartedly support standing proud by actions, where a country is concerned, and the importance of good in the heart especially when same is a majority phenomenon. There are very few counterexamples--the recurrent example of the Hitlerites, who strongly felt that good was in their hearts by a very large majority, or of the Stalinites, who also felt that good was in their hearts by a very large majority, should not stand in the way of the example of the Napoleonites, who strongly felt that good was in their hearts by a very large majority, but were far less cruel and ruthless, murder-of-the-enemy-wise, than the Hitlerites and Stalinites, at least in numerical terms. This could be because of their inferior armaments, coming as they did a hundred years earlier, but it can still suggest that the "good in the hearts" principle is not quite as discountable as one might assume it to be, and may yet serve the Americans well, with enough precautions on the part of the White House communications team.

The same series of examples can likewise illustrate the claims and counterclaims regarding the value of extremism and its place in society. Thus, the Hitlerite and Stalinite examples should not mask the Napoleonite example, etc.--I will let you finish connecting those dots so that we can get on with it.

Having covered some bases, let us try to near home. We at the WTO would very much like, from our modest perch in the Switzerland heartland, to bring the world willy-nilly into simpler times. Like you, we think previous times, when they were simpler (which was nearly always), were better, and so if we can only wrestle the human enterprise back to the state of the animals out of which it evolved, we will have done the human enterprise right. (Note: we are not doctrinaire. If the human enterprise did not evolve from the animals, but from God, that is fine too. In that case we will wrestle the human enterprise back to the state of God, as best we are able.)

Now to my question: how, today, from your Montana heartland, can you imagine such a project (wrestling back the humans to the state of the animals/God)?  We wish to hew closer to the example of, say, the Khomeinites than to that of the Pol Potites or the Hutu Powerites or the ever-recurrent Hitlerites, in this grand simplification effort of ours, if such an example must be hewed to. So would you help us keep within the good way, by giving us at least one or two suggestions on how to proceed, from your point of view, in your own words--suggestions on how to bring the world back to the simpler times? We would be terribly appreciative.

Best of all,
Ruprecht

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:24:41 -0500 (EST)
From: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
To: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

p.s. I cannot stress enough how essential your input may be to all of our 
futures. Please do assist with suggestions as soon as is feasible.

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:43:02 -0700
From: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
To: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

Ruprecht,

I'm not sure I understand the urgency, but I have been formulating a response.  Lets see if I can get it straight.

I must first make some assumptions, as your goal to "bring the world willy-nilly into simpler times… to… wrestle the human enterprise back to the state of the animals out of which it evolved..."  leaves a bit to interpretation. I don't believe you plan on ending human sentience and have us barbarians, or worse. I therefore must impart my prejudice in determining what simpler times would be.  What follows is by necessity, my own thoughts on returning to simpler times.  Beginning with a definition.

Simpler times to me implies times of less stress and less responsibility. To expand, simpler times would define a life where goals are met more simply, where less effort was required to gain what was desired.

I think we as individuals retain the ability to return to simpler times each for ourselves.  Money is a great source of stress, and money takes varying degrees of effort to accumulate.  To create a simpler life for oneself, make money less important.  I thought of it recently as 'earn as much as is necessary'.  I feel stating it this way implies many of the elements of my 'simpler life' ideal.  By removing money to a more realistic level of importance, available time can then be turned toward 'more important' things.

OK, so we have devalue the value money has in our lives.

Hmmm,   anything else... oh, I think I've got it.

Increase our respect for life.  I think the two ideas go fairly well hand in hand.
By increasing our respect for life, we should work better together as a family, community, and world.

I believe we as people of the world are a bit into each others business. If there is no moral or ethical wrong occurring  (other terms up for definition),  I believe in letting my neighbor do as he pleases.  In the event of a moral/ethical wrong, I believe in setting things right.

Ok, there it is, without the thought I would have liked to have given it, but with any luck it is timely enough.

As for your goals, I think it is fine to strive for greater (or lesser) things, but you must first set realistic goals.  If you wouldn't mind. please let me know how you define 'simpler times'.   Also let me know how this all fits in with world trade.  I'm beginning to gain an impression of the WTO as less than impartial.  It was my un-learned understanding that the WTO is an organization made up of representatives from around the globe in an attempt to regulate trade...  Can you set me straight?

Finally, I believe the way to simpler times is forward, not backwards.  I believe we are heading for simpler times.  Times where the world will be more peaceful.

Happy New Year,
Mike

Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 07:55:08 -0500 (EST)
From: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
To: vacation at <vacation@bigforkvillagerentals.com>
Subject: Re: Your playing cards

Hello Mike,

Thank you! And apologies for the earlier urgency attending your reply, as related in my P.S.--this was a product of alarm over directions that "simpler times" could easily go, with only our unpracticed minds here to steer them. (I say "unpracticed" because, to answer your question, we had never before considered what they might be, these "simpler times"; the notion of wrenching humanity unwillingly back to the state of the animals was a symptom of that. The scenarios, multiplying with a quickening lunacy, threatened to suddenly overwhelm, like the scandals ever replicating in the worldwide media over the US’s domestic and foreign governance difficulties.)

I must also admit that the drama of the phrase "all of our futures" was sheer trickery--it was only the futures of all of us here in our offices, not all in the world, that were in play. But it certainly seemed important at the time! This is perhaps the nature of being excessively swaddled--be it in the swaddling of function, of titled position or of very great wealth.

In any case, these are excellent thoughts you lay down. You propose that simpler times will involve less stress on money, more on progress, and more on peacefulness, with a concomitant liberty of individual action and thought. In these regards your ethos resembles to a tee the one guiding the US during its repair of the last great financial cataclysm, in the 1930s, in which the roots of the nation's future economic security were assumed to be the well-being and ability to participate of all people, rather than only the extremely wealthy. Thus were steps taken to insure all citizens' basic comfort, not to mention survival, in the face of the inhuman, unboundable mechanisms of the free market that had so dramatically deranged the whole world just before.

Here we have come full circle, therefore, back to the not-so-simple past prescriptions for basic human success. Not bad, as careenings go!

One essential and disturbing question remains, however, that threatens again to whisk our whole office, if not all of Geneva, into a directionless hurricane of nonsensical speculation: where, in the humane, cogent vision that you expostulate, can we fit the most recent Near Eastern "wielding of might," which you defended in your second e-mail?   Focussing as it seems to on the needs of the extremely wealthy, while draining the coffers filled by everyone else, this might-wielding clearly flies, with no wobble in its guidance, precisely in the face of your vision and the simple, protective policies most naturally developing from it.

Other questions also arise: How does the "competitive nature of the human spirit" as prime engine of good (and even of miracles, to cite your e-mail) fit in with a need to maintain cordons sanitaires around that spirit's behaviors, when the spirit is that of the most very wealthy, banding together against everyone else? Alas, reconciling these two situations—primacy of competitiveness, yet need to control it—threatens to derail the whole sputtering train of our thought once again.

Semantic issues also arise, issues that merely tug and nag rather than hurl, but that are bothersome nonetheless. For example, if this is indeed an "honorable" might-wielding that we have witnessed abroad, is it the sort of "honorable" as might be applied to a dutiful son who avenges his father's lover's betrayals? Is it the "honorable" of a medieval knight errant assisted by God-hearted hordes who, while single-mindedly doing right by their extended families, ignore the effect such right-doing may have on the rest of humanity, far into the future? Or is it some other sort of "honorable," not yet defined in our world, that will only be understood by the bulk of humanity once the thousand-year empire is better established in all hearts, instead of only in fact?

I collapse.
Ruprecht

p.s. Regarding your question regarding our impartiality, we are simply the "transparency" arm of the Organization--we try to make things clear, and to speak of things without the burden of "technicality" imposed on those subject to the functioning of the falsely rational-seeming machine.... Oh, I can see I do need some rest. I will be happy to explain further after your volley, once I have had some.
 

Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 09:54:37 +0400
From: tecodev@omantel.net.om
To: wto@gatt.org
Subject: New Zealand National Day

Ref:CNZ-R/135/00
February 04, 2000

Rt. Hon. Mike Moore
Director General
World Trade Organization
154 rue de Lausanne
1211 Geneva 21
Switzerland

Your Excellency,

Congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the New Zealand National Day !

I take this opportunity to extend my heartiest felicitations to you and the people of New Zealand and wish you greater glory and honours.

Wish you all the best in your new assignment and for the new Millenium !

With warm regards and good wishes

Yours sincerely,

DR. HAMED ABDULLAH AL-RIYAMI
HONORARY CUL FOR NEW ZEALAND
P.O.Box 520, Muscat 113
Sultanate of Oman
Phone : 794932
Fax : 706443
E-mail : tecodev@omantel.net.om

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 14:00:33 -0500
From: Mike Moore <wto-mm@gatt.org>
To: tecodev@omantel.net.om
Subject: Re: New Zealand National Day

Dr. Hamed Abdullah Al-Riyami
Honorary Consul for New Zealand
P.O.Box 520, Muscat 113
Sultanate of Oman

Dear Dr. Al-Riyami,

I wish to thank you for your kind best wishes on the occasion of what you call "New Zealand National Day." Your intentions are understood, and I do know that yourself and the Sultanate of Oman bear the best of intentions towards myself and towards the World Trade Organization. The WTO, in turn, wishes you and yours all the best. 

It is especially interesting that you speak of New Zealand, for as it happens, the WTO will shortly be considering an item or two of deep importance to both New Zealand and the Sultanate of Oman, and in which Oman might be able to play a pivotal role, that will help to insure the continued improvement of some economic and trade interests it shares with New Zealand. Within a few days you will be receiving more information about these proposals from my office.

I'd like to take this in a more personal direction for a moment, if I may. I think it rather important to be direct when necessary, and I would like inform you that it's just slightly improper, when speaking to New Zealanders, to refer to Waitangi Day the way you did--there are some implied referents to historical lows in our treatment of our less fortunate fellow New Zealanders. I'm not in the least offended myself, of course, but expect that a great many of my countrymen might be. We as New Zealanders bear the brunt of the blame for not making this matter better known. Indeed, I have even seen calendars printed with the incorrect name for the day.

No apologies are of course necessary. I am sure I would do very poorly at Omani culture. On that note, would you be able to recommend a resource by which I might improve my knowledge of your customs and history, and which I might be able to recommend to my staff?

With warm regards and good wishes,

Yours sincerely

Mike Moore
Director General
World Trade Organization

MM/cr

Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 16:02:18 +0400
From: TECODEV <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
To: wto@gatt.org
 
Ref:CNZ-R/155/01
February 05, 2001
 
Rt. Hon. Mike Moore
Director General
World Trade Organization
154 rue de Lausanne
1211 Geneva 21
Switzerland
  
Your Excellency,
 
Congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the New Zealand National Day !
 
I take this opportunity to renew the-age old understanding, cooperation and goodwill existing between our friendly countries and wish you and the people of New Zealand peace, prosperity and greater glory on this auspicious occasion.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
DR. HAMED ABDULLAH AL-RIYAMI
HONORARY CUL FOR NEW ZEALAND
P.O.Box 520, Muscat 113
Sultanate of Oman
Phone   : 794932
Fax      : 706443
E-mail  : tecodev@omantel.net.om

Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:05:45 -0500
From: Mike Moore <mmoore@gatt.org>
To: TECODEV <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
Subject: New Zealand AGAIN???

Dear Dr. Al-Riyami,

I am honored to find your good wishes in my mailbox for the third and last time. And now, I must say, I am essentially bereft of options, for you have rebuffed my previous overtures regarding this situation. I can only, now, begin what we in New Zealand call a "war ballad" (the Maori word is too difficult to pronounce), the which I will pursue until you answer my questions. (Whether or not you are superstitious, Dr. Al-Riyami, I must say you might be advised to worry yourself.)

Please see the below citation, from one message you sent over one year ago, for the question the answer to which I will have.

Not entirely best wishes,

Mike Moore

<citation>
Dear Dr. Al-Riyami,

I wish to thank you for your kind best wishes on the occasion of what you call "New Zealand National Day." Your intentions are understood, and I do know that yourself and the Sultanate of Oman bear the best of intentions towards myself and towards the World Trade Organization. The WTO, in turn, wishes you and yours all the best.

I'd like to take this in a more personal direction for a moment, if I may. I think it rather important to be direct when necessary, and I would like inform you that it's just slightly improper, when speaking to New Zealanders, to refer to Waitangi Day the way you did--there are some implied referents to historical lows in our treatment of our less fortunate fellow New Zealanders. I'm not in the least offended myself, of course, but expect that a great many of my countrymen might be. We as New Zealanders bear the brunt of the blame for not making this matter better known. Indeed, I have even seen calendars printed with the incorrect name for the day.

No apologies are of course necessary. I am sure I would do very poorly at Omani culture. On that note, would you be able to recommend a resource by which I might improve my knowledge of your customs and history, and which I might be able to recommend to my staff?

With warm regards and good wishes,

Yours sincerely

Mike Moore
</citation>

Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 11:51:12 +0400
From: TECODEV <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
To: mmoore@gatt.org
 
February 13, 2001
Kind attn: Rt. Hon. Mike Moore
Director General
World Trade Organization
 
Your Excellency,
 
Thank you for your e-mail messages dated 11 February, 2001 and 3rd March, 2001. Sorry for the delay in replying to you due to the EID holidays.
 
At the outset, I regret to inform you that we do not appear to have received any other messages from you in the past.
 
The term “New Zealand National Day” has been used in the List of Diplomatic and Consular Corps, issued by the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sultanate of Oman, which I presume, would have the consensus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New Zealand. Kindly advise which of these usages is correct (either Waitangi Day or New Zealand National Day) so that there would not be any ambiguity and whether to send greetings on this occasion, especially that I am sending greetings to many New Zealand officials yearly. My apologies if it hurt your feelings.
 
I am putting together certain information material on “Oman” and the same would be forwarded to you shortly.
 
On the subject of the “World Trade Organization” and the involvement of Oman, as you are aware, there are other competent authorities handling the same and I do not feel that my personal views would have any far reaching implications.
 
Best regards and good wishes
Dr. Hamed Al-Riyami
Honorary Consul for New Zealand  

Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 15:02:37 -0500
From: mmoore@gatt.org
To: TECODEV <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
Subject: Re: your mail

Dear Sultan,

I apologize for the confusion regarding my outrage at your error. Indeed, it is not always easy to be sensitive to the foreign affairs of others, and I understand that not everyone can perform the proper research at every juncture. And also, I must stress that I wish to avoid at all costs an international incident, of course. It is with this goal in mind that I do ask you and your people to henceforth refer to the day in question as Waitangi Day in all correspondence and in all contacts, official and not, with the people of New Zealand.

I look forward to the information on Oman that you will be sending.

Thank you,
Mike Moore

Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 15:47:45 +0400
From: Tecodev <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
To: mmoore@gatt.org

Ref:CNZ-R/057/02
February 05, 2002
 
Rt. Hon. Mike Moore
Director General
World Trade Organization
154 rue de Lausanne
1211 Geneva 21
Switzerland
 
Your Excellency,
 
Congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the Waitangi Day !
 
I take this opportunity to extend my felicitations to you and the people of New Zealand and wish you greater glory and honours on this glorious occasion.
 
With warm regards and good wishes
 
Yours sincerely,
 
DR. HAMED ABDULLAH AL-RIYAMI
HONORARY CUL FOR NEW ZEALAND
P.O.Box 520, Muscat 113
Sultanate of Oman
Phone   : 794932
Fax      : 706443
E-mail  : nzconsul@omantel.net.om

Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 17:42:40 -0500 (EST)
From: Mike Moore <mmoore@gatt.org>
To: Tecodev <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
Subject: Re: your mail

Dear Sultan,

I am very happy to receive your sensitive reference to my homeland's national holiday--the Maori Waitangi Day, and NOT "New Zealand National Day" as you first said. 

As you say, ours is a great homeland, and I am happy to welcome you as a comrade in celebration of its Western achievements.

With this proof of your understanding, I would hereby very much like to retract my previous assertions of disdain, discomfort, and hatred, made in the heat of the moment. There is no longer any bad blood between our two nations; vanished is the least risk that we will "embark on a war dance," as I believe I asserted in my initial response to your primal faux pas.

I believe I can sense a new and complete absence of danger between our two peoples. Would that such issues could be so nimbly resolved worldwide!

Shall we make, you and we, a declaration to the effect of this, in the form of a holiday? Our two peoples could thus be enthroned on the world calendar together, our friendship enshrined.

We could call it officially by a mixture of our two tongues, that would show the world our side-by-side destiny. I admit myself terribly poor at the Arabian language, but might essay the following:

        Oman / New Zealand Yum al-Hubb wal-Ittihad
        Oman / New Zealand Day of Love and Unity

In short it could be referred to as the Oman / New Zealand YHIDLU or DLUYHI day.

Please let me know if this is agreeable to your people; if so, I will set my people upon it--that is, upon this task, at once.

Thank you,
Mike Moore

http://www.gatt.org/
Making the world safe for effectiveness

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:46:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Mike Moore <mmoore@gatt.org>
To: Tecodev <tecodev@omantel.net.om>
Subject: Re: your mail

Dear Sultan,

The times flow, the seasons change; like so much lint in the yesteryear wash-apparatus, feelings accumulate.

I have grown used to your messages once each year, on the glorious occasion of my nation's predominant holiday, Waitangi Day--or New Zealand National Day, as you so quaintly put it, initially, three years ago, before finding yourself roundly corrected.

Yes, each year's message from you has been like a fluffy down pillow thrown by a good friend on a sleepover: demanding reply up to the measure of the throw, and a little bit past it. Each year, the stressing of my imagination has been an exercise my mental health has looked forward to, much perhaps like the Maraori hunters and gatherers looked forward to the arrival of their Maori farmer cousins one or two hundred years ago (before finding themselves slaughtered by same, but that is another story!).

Ever so acid, therefore, is this year's lack of a message from you. I have become increasingly aware, in my post-directorship period, that there is a certain _interestedness_, shall we say, by and large, in the attentions brought to my person by others. Those others, seeing me, have not seen a likable large New Zealander with a working-class sensibility, but rather a tool to wrest benefits from the savage world economy on behalf of their citizens. What a position! I do not wish it upon myself, not by any means!

I can only infer, having gleaned this general _interestedness_ on the part of most others, that you too partake of this _interestedness_--hence your lack of well-wishing this time around.

Why is this Waitangi Day different from all other Waitangi Days? Because Mike Moore is no longer in charge!

I remember, in the past, how we invented things together, you and I--a new holiday, for example. Could we not try to invent things again? Together? You and I? Is there really so much bad blood? Must we really play Maori and Maraori together, instead?

With still very excellent wishes and respect, so far, still,
Mike Moore
 

Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 04:13:22 -0500
From: Susanne Jacob <susanne_jacob@ccmail.timberland.com>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Re: egypt import ban on textiles

Dear Sir or Madam,

Timberland is currently inquiring about exporting to Egypt and has come across an import ban on ready-made garments.
It also is stated that this import ban might be lifted by the GATT agreement by the end of 2001. However, nobody seems to know about the latest standings of these negotiations so that is what I would now like to inquire from you directly.

I appreciate any help from your side.

Thanks and best regards
Susanne Jacob

Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 11:03:18 -0500
From: Herri Crammelfirster-Baatasuna <info@gatt.org>
To: Susanne Jacob <susanne_jacob@ccmail.timberland.com>
Subject: Re: egypt import ban on textiles

Dear Ms. Jacob,

We here ourselves really do not know about how these negotiations are proceeding, so i can not tell you just now an answer to your beleaguered self. However, that having been said, I might add that the last time I was in Egypt I myself saw someone wearing Timberlands. They are fine boots, the finest, you have a fine company, you know this I am sure. But if Egypt wants to preserve their culture and their economy without globalization, that is their business. And I myself am glad that I only saw one Egypt-person in Timberlands. In my own homeland, which hasn't been such a stick-in-the-mud about import bans, everyone is wearing shoes of the United States (made in China) and it is beginning to look very depressing to our elders, who have the wise ways of time to reflect with, and certainly know better than we what is good for this global earth. So, in closing, I myself wish you the best of luck in your efforts. If we find the answer in your question soon, I will send along.

Sincerely,

Herri Crammelfirster-Baatasuna
info@gatt.org

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 09:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Information on the status of Agreements

Hi,
I have a question regarding the technical transition from GATT to OMC. I have tried to find the answer on your web page, but I could not. If it is possible, please clarify this issue.
Before the OMC was created, there were several side agreements (amendments) of which some states were members and some were not. Membership was then voluntary. The agreement on Government Procurement is an example. When these documents were incorporated into a single agreement (OMC),  all members had to sign them. My question is whether or not “all” side agreements were contemplated in the OMC text. If some of them were excluded, how was the legal situation for those who were part of these excluded agreements? Were they still bound by the texts, valid only for those who signed them?
I thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely,
Cleiton Schenkel

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 14:17:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
To: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

Thank you for writing to World Information Services, the knowledge  division of the World Trade Organization. Our division is specialized in  providing timely information to the discerning knowledge consumer.

I am an intelligent automated response mechanism, invoked prior to passage to a human operation, when such is necessary. The question you have asked seems to concern:

        EXCEPTIONS TO RULES
        EXCLUSION FROM BENEFITS

Regarding EXCEPTIONS TO RULES, there is a simple answer: NO ONE is exempted from the rules of the WTO, which are inspired by, and it could even be said indirectly derived from, the rules of nature. We wish to disabuse all parties of any remaining impression that our rules can be circumvented by one, several, or all parties. They cannot.

Please note: the above holds true when the concern leading to desire for exclusion is related to issues of health or sanitation as well. There are NO exceptions.

Regarding EXCLUSION FROM BENEFITS, the answer is longer and requires human intervention. Please reply to this message without changing the subject line, and adding your affiliation (organization, country, personal status) for a human answer to your question.

http://www.gatt.org/
Making the world safe for effectiveness

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 07:46:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
To: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

I am a professor.

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 14:43:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
To: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

I am an intelligent automated response mechanism. Your response indicates that you may not have fully understood my reply. I apologize for your incomprehension.

I said that there is a rule: NO ONE is exemped from subjection to the rules of the WTO, which are inspired by, and it could even be said indirectly derived from, the rules of nature.

These rules may be mechanically applied, and are in fact mechanically applied as a rule. They are mechanical. The humanness of the subject, or of the interlocutor, does not enter into the equation.

Again, in interactions with these rules, no exceptions are possible.

Therefore, it does not matter what one professes.

Regarding "EXCLUSION FROM BENEFITS", please reply to this message without changing the subject line, and adding your affiliation (organization, country, personal status), for a human answer to your question.

Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 07:32:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
To: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

If it is possible, I would like to receive a human response to my question because I believe it was misinterpreted. My question was whether or not all the GATT agreements became part of the WTO agreements, since the GATT members were not obligated to sign those side agreements that they did not want to. An example is the agreement on Government Procurement. If not all of them were part of the WTO text, are they still valid for those who signed them?
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Cleiton Schenkel
PS> I amnot affiliated to any organization. I am a professor.

Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 13:03:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
To: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

Thank you for writing to World Information Services, the knowledge division of the World Trade Organization. Our division is specialized in providing timely information to the discerning knowledge consumer.

I am an intelligent automated response mechanism, invoked prior to passage to a human operation, when such is necessary. The question you have asked seems to concern:

        GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
        PROFESSING OPINION

Regarding GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT, there is a simple answer. When engaging in commercial activity, every government is beholden to the laws governing human society via natural derivation, whether that government agrees with those laws or not.

An example of this is in procurement agreements. When purchasing goods for its various agencies, and/or for the use of its citizens, a government must behave exactly like any other consumer, and obtain items at the lowest cost irrespective of other considerations.

Foremost and especially, considerations of so-called human rights are not to enter into purchasing agreements, such as when a government chooses to purchase from one entity rather than another out of concern for the lives thus affected. The signature example of this is the so-called "honest bananas" case, in which the European Union was prevented from purchasing bananas from its former colonies, as a "leg up" and produced under "honest" conditions, rather than from regimes in South America which it deemed unfairly altered by the landscape imposed on them by U.S. banana concerns.

Although that case concerned items consumed by individual citizens, and "filtered" by the government that they had elected according to the preferences vouchsafed that government, it holds for governments themselves as well. Again, in a word, choice is not to enter into consumption choices, thus allowing these patterns to bend to natural law.

This is an unbending decision, regarding which it is not necessary to engage in endless debate.

Regarding PROFESSING OPINION, the limit of this activity's usefulness in the international arena as pertains to trade issues is entirely dependent upon the subject concerned. Most trade issues are, these days, well beyond the stage requiring the sort of debate required long ago, in the development stages of the current configuration. There are still a few issues it is necessary to address in debate or other forms of communication, but these are largely technical matters, the domain of economists, and can best be entrusted to their expertise.

If this does not answer the questions contained in your e-mail, please reply to this message without changing the subject line, and adding your affiliation (organization, country, personal status) for a human answer to your question.

http://www.gatt.org/
Making the world safe for effectiveness

Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 13:35:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
To: World Information Services <info@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 13:05:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Hartford <hunkih@gatt.org>
To: Schenkel Cleiton <cleitonschenkel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Information on the status of Agreements r68B09P.8

Dear Mr. Schenkel,

I'm very sorry, I can see things aren't working out exactly right in the domain of automated response there. If you're indignant, I can most fully sympathize, and I do.

I am the Information Technology expert in charge of making sure the ARM system works and that its answers make sense, and I can tell you now (or you me!) that there's clearly some work to be done. An uncharitable interlocutor might even say I've been quite remiss! I hope not.

Still, allow me to explain a bit about ARM. There's a good reason the system reacts as it does, attempting steadfastly to handle all inquiries on its own, rather than easily passing them on to a human. Although sometimes the ARM, as your case exemplifies, overzealously leans on this tendency, the reason is good--it is, in a word, *transparency.*

You see, it stands to reason that any human intervention in the knowledge process, i.e. in the distribution of our information to you, the knowledge consumer, will alter the exactitude of the information being distributed: altering its resemblance to the root information, at the extreme. If in the tiniest detail, even so--too much! The knowledge must remain one and the same, inside and out: this is the principle that we at the WTO hold to so strictly, the principle of *transparency.*

It is, of course, a haughty ideal--but sensible! It is the principle that what you see is what you get, that what we do is what you see--and that, therefore, what we do is what you get. What could be higher?

We are even testing the slogan: "WTO: What we do is what you get." What do you think?

In any case, we are very sorry for all this running-around, and I just wanted to take this moment to explain what it is that makes it all tick--what it is that drives us.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

Best wishes,

Ingrid Hartford
Automated Response Research and Development
Transparency Division
 

For this "long and winding cyberhoax," as the New York Times put it, see "Emails with many lawyers" in the Salzburg project page.

(The idea for the "grassroots" WTO campaign aimed at protesters came from a fake news story circulating at the time, that Andy and Mike believed! We've learned.)

Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 14:12:08 EST
From: Bdgolf120@aol.com
To: info@gatt.org

January 14, 2001

World Trade Organization
rue de Lausanne 154
CH-1211
Geneva 21, Switzerland

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to introduce myself to your organization. My name is Marla J. Noel. I am a CPA with approximately 20 years of experience in both public accounting and the management of a small local company with 80 employees. I am not looking for employment, however, I am completing my Masters at Chapman University in Orange, California, USA this year. I am fascinated with International Business and how is has and will impact the future of the world and the lifestyle of the people affected by increased trade. I perceive the WTO to be a very powerful organization now and in the future. I recently had the opportunity to visit China. I strongly believe that entry into the WTO would be a strong positive impact on a country that is so much in need of economic improvement. 
Some of the protesting that seems to evolve around the WTO meetings appears to be a result of a lack of understanding of the conditions that exist in other countries. The lack of understanding may be due to a lack of education relating to the environment of other countries, the importance of trade with those countries, the long-term result of trade and the WTO’s impact on trade in other countries.  Some of the groups that are the most active in protests should be the target of an educational campaign to facilitate the understanding of the importance of trade and the positive changes that will eventually occur from trade.  I would like to do whatever I can to support the WTO and will be willing to assist where possible.  Again, I am not looking for employment, but would be interested in assisting with an educational campaign in Southern California, if that is an area of interest for the WTO. 
Thank you for reading my letter and considering my suggestion. If this is already underway, I will be happy to facilitate any efforts that are needed in this area, if necessary. I am tremendously interested in the WTO, and believe that the future will be positively impacted by the success of your organization. I would love to be a part of that success.

Sincerely,

Marla J. Noel, CPA

Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 18:12:56 -0500
From: Générée Eleutherium <geleuth@gatt.org>
To: Bdgolf120@aol.com
Subject: Re: Can I help?

Dear Marla Noel,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. As you note, there are large segments of the population which are completely confused about the importance of trade in the modern world, who do not understand the objective, scientific reasons that unhampered trade--that is, the exchange of goods unimpeded by "moral" or "political" questions--is so undeniably essential to the continued material progress of humanity, and--in those parts of the world that suffer from backwardness, including those you mention--will bring about a rescue from disasters caused by the last two centuries of restrictions on unhampered industrio-colonial progress.

So in fact, your suggestions fall on receptive ears. We are already in the process of devising a sort of "grass roots" campaign series, aimed at the misguided protesters you mentioned, and also at those elements in developing nations--e.g. the so-called "Zapatistas" in Chiapas, Mexico--who do not understand that liberalization is a boon to *all* elements and strata of society.

We are particularly interested in those like yourself who have an interest and background in corporate management, for this "grass roots" campaign will model itself on similar campaigns undertaken by such mighties as General Electric, Shell, et al. to clean up their images and present a more beautiful side of their work and their past to the public.  Especially, we are interested in the kind of "stealth" campaigns that even more heavily image-soiled corporations--or those in the grip of more dangerous issues--have undertaken at various points, whereby information is released anonymously into the environment without revelation of author, so that the facts presented can be absorbed with fewer preconceptions by those who have already been inculcated with ridiculous notions by the Seattleites and their colleagues.

Does this sort of work interest you? Please feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience.

Best wishes,

Générée Eleutherium
Human Resources

http://www.gatt.org/
The World Trade Organization: Making the World Safe For Effectiveness.

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:38:47 EST
From: Bdgolf120@aol.com
To: geleuth@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Can I help?

Dear Générée,

I would be very interested in working with your organization in a "grass roots" effort to educate the community. I am involved in marketing my business, and I believe that a standardized approach to marketing to all of the major cities in the US will go far in developing the support that is necessary to encourage expanded world trade from the United States. I have had the opportunity to speak with Chapman University in Orange, California, and have some resources that would facilitate a "grass roots" effort. Please let me know if you would like for me to put together or assist with a marketing plan. If you already have developed a plan, I would be interested in assisting with the process of marketing international trade. As I indicated before, I am not interest in employment. However, I feel that a great deal can be accomplished with the resources that we have to develop and implement a plan that will be effective in improving the support of the United States in World Trade.

Sincerely,
Marla J. Noel

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 14:34:55 -0500
From: Générée Eleutherium <geleuth@gatt.org>
To: Bdgolf120@aol.com
Subject: Re: Can I help?

Dear Marla,

Well, this is good news! I related your interest to my superior, who is very interested in learning more about what you might bring us. May I ask you some questions?

1. What sort of resources, specifically, do you speak of when you say that you "have some resources that would facilitate a 'grass roots' effort"? Are these resources human?  That is, do you know students who would be willing to infiltrate left-wing learning groups and provide WTO information incognito, i.e. so that it seemed to be coming from a left-wing perspective? If other, please also specify.

2. Please do sketch out the various steps you would take in the unfurlment of a grass-roots effort. We do not yet have such a plan, but we are considering the necessity of the following elements, and are fairly convinced:

  A. Any effort must be subterranean: information targets must never be aware that they are receiving information from the WTO. The most interesting-to-us targets are primed to dislike the WTO, and so they cannot be consciously aware of our hand in the information they absorb.

  B. Special diffusion mechanisms must be invented. The use of rock-and-roll teenagers, for example, to distribute leaflets among their age-mates, could be quite useful, especially if the leaflets are designed with that group in mind. Bright colors, sly appeals to budding sexual urges and insecurities, use of rock-and-roll words--these could go far to helping our cause among the "youth set."

  C. While care must be taken not to trip the wires of any obvious community problems, we must likewise be careful not to get caught in the trap of excessive concern for specific issues. The aims and goals of economic progress and hearty international trade are big, much bigger than what we can get concerned with as humans, along the way. It is important not to worry about small-term effects.

Please let us know your thoughts at your earliest convenience.

Best wishes,
Générée Eleutherium
Human Resources

Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 01:22:09 EDT
From: Bdgolf120@aol.com
To: geleuth@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Can I help?

I agree with your "grassroots" approach. I am not sure how much you intend to "throw" at this effort, however, I have been working on a budget for efforts in the United States with an advertising campaign. This will have to be flexible for what you plan to get out of the effort and will also depend upon the amount of volunteers that can be developed over the United States. Obviously, for you, this effort will probably need to be worldwide. Again, I do not know how much you have in the way of resources and how much communication costs are in other parts of the world. If you would like, I will put together a "marketing plan" and a budget to go with it. I can do this for the United States with a fair amount of accuracy for the amount per type of campaign. An international advertising agency would be able to assist with the international costs. If you have already done this, please let me know and I will focus on digging for resources in the United States for PR peices in some of the major cities. I currently have a few, put will need a lot more than a few if the effect is to influence the masses in a short period of time.
I have had experience in working with advertising agencies and with the advertising budgeting process, however, I do not know what your goals are and will not pursue this avenue if you have already covered this. I guess that I am asking where you would like for me to begin. I can begin with developing a plan, or I can begin with accumulating resources. I would love to see significant success in a short period of time because of the level of importance that I feel surrounds the efforts of the WTO. I know that you feel the same.

Sincerely,

Marla J. Noel

Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:39:00 +0100
From: Marion Benning <info@bec.be>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: RE: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dear Madam, dear Sirs,

We are a young consulting office based in Brussels. One of our clients told us that there is a new Legislation which tells us that if we want to export "bearings" to Argentina we have to deliver the good with a certificate of fabrication. Could you help us finding if this information is correct? Maybe you can tell us where we can find this information.

We hope that you can help us and thank you in advance.

Sincerely yours,

M. Benning-Denoo
BEC BVBA
Rue Belliard 23A
B-1040  Brussels
Tel.: 0032/2/231.07.97
Fax.: 0032/2/231.16.11
info@bec.be
www.bec.be

Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:18:26 -0500
From: Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna <info@gatt.org>
To: Marion Benning <info@bec.be>
Subject: Re: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dearest M. Benning-Denoo

Regarding your question regarding "bearings" we must warn you that the movement of wildlife from place to place is protected in most cases, so what you propose will certainly be illegal. In any case, I question the profitability: "bearings" can lead to "maulings" which lead to costly lawsuits--thus, bankruptcy.

Yours,

HCB

Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 09:34:31 +0100
From: Marion Benning <info@bec.be>
To: Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna <info@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dear Madam, dear Sirs,

Thank you for your quick reply, but I think that we have here a misunderstanding. With "bearings" we mean tools (ball-bearings) and certainly not wildlife.

Hope you can still help us with our question concerning the exportation to Argentina.

Thank you very much in advance.

Marion Benning-Denoo

Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 15:38:45 -0500
From: Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna <info@gatt.org>
To: Marion Benning <info@bec.be>
Subject: RE: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dearest Marion Benning-Denoo;

Thank you for your clarification.
We did have a misunderstanding, yes, we did.

What a laugh!

I am glad you are not wild life smugglers. How unfortunate it is for cute furry things, or even for large, furry, ferocious bearings to be taken from their motherings while youngish and transported to lands foreign, far, and cold.

I remember even recently, while taking my own young person (and his mothering) to the zoo, a feeling of melancholia when witnessing even the most bloodthirsty of critter all pent up and full of rage. Such is the unfortunate plight of creatures great and small faced with what only the species Man can call "progressings."

Indeed, tools (ball-bearings) are not alive, so I shall cast aside my former concerns about animals (bearings) and safety (maulings).

In the issue of import and export of (ball-bearings) it is your moral imperative to find out the source of all the raw materials, and trace, from the moment of extraction through the process of manufacturing, whether or not there has been any undue damage to the ecosystem or to the workers who produced these tools. Assuming all conditions are fair, and that the companies who extracted the steel and then manufactured with it did not cause undue harm to the environment and did not treat their workers unfairly, then there is no moral problem at all with (ball-bearings) and you can rest assured that you are conducting business in a fair manner.

Thank you for the clarification, and I apologize for my misunderstanding.

Sincerely,

Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna

Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:51:45 +0100
From: Marion Benning <info@bec.be>
To: 'Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna' <info@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dear Herri,

Thank you very much for your reply. Yes, we had a big laugh. Thank you for answering our question.

greetings from Brussels
Marion
BEC BVBA

Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:00:47 -0500
From: Herri-Crammelfirster Baatasuna <info@gatt.org>
To: info@bec.be
Cc: info@gatt.org
Subject: RE: Question regarding WTO/GATT

Dear Marion,

You are welcome.
Thank you for answering my answer.
Thank you for laughing!

Seeing us laugh would no doubt put smiles on the faces of all of our own motherings, who undoubtedly would be saddened by seeing frowns on our faces.

Who wants to make a mothering sad? Not I. Not you!

That is why we can happily laugh together and know that somewhere, even if they are not with us any longer in the physical sense, by laughing we are making the motherings of the world very, very happy.

Warmest Regards,
Herri
 

(This was our longest exchange ever. There was simply no shaking this fellow.)

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 15:08:27 -0600
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: "'humanresources@gatt.org'" <humanresources@gatt.org>
Subject: form

Dear Sir/Madam:
 
I apologize, but I seem to be having trouble downloading the MS Word version of the form. Could you please e-mail me a copy?
 
Thanks,
Jeff

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:27:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Population Center <humanresources@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: form
Attachments:
   60 KB     Application, "Finland Lecture.doc"

Dear Jeff,

Best apologies for a clear mess. I hope you are speaking regarding the current attached form, which is to communicate information regarding the organization.

If not please after perusing inform with more information.

Best,
Haarkkonen Ixtabal-Mono

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:52:34 -0600
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Population Center' <humanresources@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Actually I was e-mailing regarding the Internship Application Form – could you please send that?

Jeff

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 10:49:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Cc: Population Center <humanresources@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey Wolf,

Thank you for your excellent question, and excuses for the great good lateness of my response. Your question arrived via the byzantine excesses of our internal routing contraptions, and I have only now been able to phrase its response appropriately.

The WTO and the GATT, in that order, do, as you mightily suggest, have a number of vacant positions. If you would like details of the relative vacancy of the two above things, then know henceforward that the WTO has a good number more vacant positions than the GATT, although the GATT does not lack in these either.

I would like to suggest that the vacant positions of the WTO can potentially be headed by the following two items, although truly any other items might likewise suffice:

* The abolition of government determination over the portions of a nation's economy subject to market forces will benefit in the long term all countries thus abolished, determinationwise. As you can perhaps guess from this phrasing, the position here stated has never been verified, and there is even contrary evidence--all of which relegates it to the dustbin of vagueness at best.

* A higher degree of permissivity with regards to behavior in all matters economic, including those causing substantial pollution, will benefit the environment, as such permissivity will free greater capital towards the improvement of same (the environment, not the capital). As this grammatical uncertainty intimates, this notion is also quite vacant of substance and substantiability.

I would like to suggest that there is a great deal more information to be conveyed in the cirumstances, and would welcome inquiries regarding the aspect or aspects of our operations that interest you most.

With very best wishes,

Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 12:30:17 -0600 
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

The former area interest me more than the latter (i.e., the abolition of government determination of economies). In particular, I am interested in emerging or developing countries, rather than developed or industrialized countries, although I am interested in both. I would be happy to work in any legal, financial or administrative capacity related to any such endeavors. Thus I would be appreciative if you could inform me of any open positions in these fields.

Thanks,
Jeff

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 19:01:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeff,

Oh!! I am afraid there has been one of the most grotesque misunderstandings of all time and all history!

You are now speaking about *open positions*--whereas before you were speaking about *vacant positions.* It is clear from your phrasing that in your mind, these are the same thing: to wit, jobs that are free to be occupied (e.g. by you).  Whereas in *my* little mind, the former (*vacant positions*) referred to those stances taken by the WTO which are vacant of all substance and value! Now we can clearly see how "not on the same page" we were in this matter! Ha!

Clarifying the situation, then, I must reiterate that the two categories I listed were intended to represent vacant (or empty) positions (or stances) of the WTO, which are not to lead to any more fuss and widgeting about on the part of anyone whosoever, least of all you. Jeff, there are surely useful things to be done in this world, but not under the rubrics I mentioned! You had best commit yourself to better methods of using a personal life!

I hope that this interests you!

Best wishes,
Hengy

p.s. Oh!! I can see I have made another error. It was not you who referred to "vacant positions," nor even "open positions"--it was another!! I have, byzantinely, mixed up the two inboxes. Please forgive my confusion. Here is the original question from the other interlocutor, so that you might have insight into the answer and an understanding on how best to proceed:

> Dear Sir/ Madam,
> 
> could you possibly inform me about any vacant possitions within GATT and
> WTO. Thank you in advance

Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 11:04:15 -0600 
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form
Attachments:
   OK      38 KB     Application, “Resume.doc”

Dear Hengdorn:

I have attached a copy of my resume in lieu of the form which I could not seem to download. Please let me know if there are any suitable job openings for this summer for which I might be qualified.

Thanks,
Jeff

Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 13:36:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Cc: Population Center <humanresources@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey,

I enjoyed your resume very much. Is there really an enterprise that describes itself as "a divine interVentures company"? That is quite funny! Imagine that as a common descriptor. "I work for a divine interVentures company. Do you?" "I go to a divine interVentures school."  "I am a divine interVentures type of person, really." "Have you met my divine interVentures wife?"

Is there some sort of godhead involved in "divine interVentures"? Not?

I also like the fact that there is such a thing as a "Green Moot Court Competition." What on earth is a "Green Moot Court"? What for that matter is "moot" in this context? Perhaps we could imagine some potential scenarios!

In any case, it is clear from your resume that you have substantial talents and knowledge. Probably greater than my own! This is certain to my mind. It is also clear that in today's world, there is a very great need for your kind of talents and knowledge. Most of the world's poorest countries are trampled upon by wealthier countries every day in the WTO because they lack your kind of expertise. This leads to exacerbation of those poor countries' situation in today's difficult world. Did you know that? It is quite very well documented. Moreover, unfortunately, your kind of expertise permits the wealthier countries and companies to trample upon these poorest countries and populations as they desire. Well, that is the world today!

We can call this situation post-colonial, or, for simplicity, colonial.

Perhaps we could arrange to reverse this? Your sort of talents could help. But how specifically could we do so (reverse), according to you? Perhaps you, Mr. Ixtabal-Mono and myself could arrange an entente regarding this matter?

With the very best wishes,
Hengy

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:00:59 -0600 
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang ' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Hengdorn:

In response to your queries, "divine interVentures" (now just "divine") was of course a play on "divine interventions" and emphasized that (at the time, at least) the company dispensed a fair amount of venture capital. There is/was no "godhead," although the CEO is flamboyant and eccentric, to say the least. 

"Moot" Court simply means that students compete against each other in advocacy competitions. The competition, then, is what is "moot;" the outcome affects neither fictional plaintiff nor defendant (more properly, appellant or appellee). As for "Green," that is simply the person from whom the competition took its name.

I have a specific interest in emerging markets/developing countries, so any opportunities you know of within GATT/WTO for this summer would be most appreciated. If you could forward the attached resume, or let me know of the appropriate contact person, I would be most appreciative. Even should you not know of someone within (or outside of) GATT/WTO who works on emerging market issues, I would be rather excited to engage in its overall work, be it with developed countries, etc.

Thanks for taking the time to look over my resume,
Jeff

Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 19:37:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey,

Wow. At this point, I must say, I am quite fiercely struck--as I think it would be impossible for any feeling soul (or thinking brain) not to be--(a) by your enthusiasm and steadfastness, and (b) by the new name of the company for which you worked.

I think it is important to stumble upon this latter item (b) just for a moment, especially in view of your interest in the "emerging markets" domain.

Let us look at things closely. The doctrine of market freedom is of course at its root intended to give license to the profitable activities of the most wealthy--especially within "emerging markets," i.e. among the domestic and remote poor, whether these be the peasants of 18th-century England or the teeming masses of today's Bangladesh.

For of course wealth-deriving activity has had to be justified in one way or another, especially to the "emerging markets" at whose expense it is often conducted. There is no point in announcing to the poor and to others that the wealthy need to be more wealthy than they currently are "just because"! You can see this! Always, there must be reasons, especially so far as convincing the "emerging markets" goes.

Until roughly the mid-19th century, these reasons and justifications were founded in the empyrean realm. Wealth, during this period, was a mark of divine favor, and the pursuit of wealth was therefore pleasing to the godhead in question. This of course mirrors the respect that folks in those olden times had for the godhead, whether they were scholars, politicians, military folk, or most importantly the "emerging markets" themselves.

In the second period--after Darwin, roughly--the wealthification of the already wealthy was promoted as the only "natural" possibility, building on the "survival of the fittest" refrain that had by then lodged itself deep in the psyches of scholars, politicians, etc., as a likely bed for justification of anything whatsoever (including, of course, as it turned out, some of the 20th century's most gruesome excesses).

Finally, at the start of the 21st century, this model of natural justice in the human landscape has begun to reveal its age. It is now standard college fare that life in the natural world is based more on cooperation than on competition. It is also terribly clear that those modern economies most hewing to "Darwinian" neoliberalism have what can only be described as planned economies, with the "fittest" lording it over the rest in regal splendor and with the "least fit" puttering about the backwaters with no hope of ever attaining dry ground. In these settings there is neither competition nor cooperation, but only hierarchy, classification, and stasis.

Nature has never been like this, Jeffrey--neither for Darwin nor his successors. And so the "Darwinian" model no longer provides a useful ossature for championing the supremacy of wealth-deriving activities.
 
Ironically enough, it is becoming quite clear to many that the only such fundament possible may be precisely those empyrean realms forsworn by the wealth-apologists just after Darwin! For to judge from the detailed eyewitness accounts of August Swedenborg--the 18th-century predicter of the great Lisbon earthquake and founder of Swedenborgianism, which still has adepts in Pennsylvania--heaven is a series of perpetual hierarchies, flexible only in so far as is necessary, with each supernal ring admitting only those elements of inferior rings that further the plans of the Most High.

The ranks upon ranks of Swedenborg's angels are intended somehow to serve all humankind, rather than just the wealth of a small elite. But the basic layout of this heaven--a kind of rotisserie grill, or series of same--resembles today's corporate order far more than does the natural world.

Do you know if the flamboyant and eccentric CEO of "divine" is perhaps a Swedenborgian? Is he from Pennsylvania? These things are interesting, in a human-interest sort of way.

In any case, to sum up, I think this conjuncture--the presence on your resume of this item ("divine"), with your interest in how we interface with the "emerging markets" that are always, always in question--augurs a most productive relationship between us, in which much could be brought from one to the next, from next to the one, ad infinitum.

I say, let us begin. How would you like to do so? What is the first thing to do?

With every best hope, 
Hengy

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 20:36:55 -0600
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Hengdorn:

Your e-mail certainly raises issues on many levels. It is difficult to know where to begin. I will avoid discussions of Swedenborgiasm (sic), principally because I am unfamiliar with it. (Although, did you know that Daniel Burnham, a principal architect and developer of Chicago, who lived in my home suburb adjacent to the city, was an adherent?)

First, your intellectual history of the justification of wealth-exploitation is interesting. Basically you argue that God was a justification for wealth transfer until the mid-19th century, at which point Darwinism (or Nietzschean philosophy, I suppose) superseded the divine as a rationale for exploitation (might makes right). I am not sufficiently grounded in intellectual history to affirm or contradict this claim. You ascribe a considerable degree of hegemony to rather diverse orthodoxies, though. Is it possible that that these broad philosophies were accepted and utilized in more variegated and nuanced ways? For example, just to take an example for literature, "Crime and Punishment" ultimately seems a rebuttal to "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and maybe this exemplifies in microcosm the tension between accepting new rationalist, nihilist philosophies and clinging to the orthodoxy of the Church.

Second, you argue that the pre-eminent economies yield a fair degree of state intervention, and fail to conform to the lean, neo-classical model of an unfettered free hand. I tend to agree with you on this, but again the intellectual landscape is cluttered. Clearly certain states have higher levels of state intervention coupled with higher standards of living, lesser disparities in wealth distribution, etc. Yet there seems no absolute basis for justifying these economies as preferable per se. Yes, Japan has higher levels of state intervention. And yes, in many ways one might find Japan a preferable place to live (than the US). Needless to say, though, its financial sector is a shambles, as are several broad macroeconomic indices such as productivity, with implications for specific microeconomic sectors (like health care). Similarly, one might laud the German model of corporate governance. Yet its unemployment rate is far above that of the US. Who is to say what is the right trade-off? I whole-heartedly agree that the state has a role in preventing well-defined instances of market failure (such as promoting information transparency and preventing conflicts of interest in the US capital markets regulatory system), but anything beyond this seems a judgment call.

Once more, I think these are fascinating questions I love to delve into, and if I could gain further insight into them by working or interning this summer at the WTO, I would be thrilled.

Thanks,
Jeff

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:28:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey,

Of course you are right--the rationales for wealth-mongering have always been complex and varied, and have never themselves directed the mongering: rather, the wealthy have always deployed these opportunely, flexibly, and with cleverness.

Indeed, it has never been a case of "God commands to cream the poor" or "Nature suggests to crush the unfortunate," but rather "We have found it correct to cream/crush the unfortunate poor, and Nature/God doth find this most meet." Let us thus place the hegemony where you say it belongs: squarely upon the plutocracy, rather than on the orthodoxies that furnish its ever-shifting justification.

Your second point is also quite attractively put. Indeed, countries with governments that do things for people seem to have happier people; some concern and control by the state seems to be better (for people) than the law of the financial jungle.

But the "planned economy" I referred to, that characterizes today's most neoliberal countries, is not one planned by a state with the accord of its citizens, but rather is planned by the "winners," i.e. the largest corporations, precisely because of the democratic state's planned absence, an absence planned by those same corporations.

The health care system in the United States is an excellent example, where the largest HMOs have planned an absence of decent alternatives for all but the fairly well off, leaving everyone else with health care far below the standards of Western Europe or Japan, or, alternately, with no health care at all.

This is the law of the jungle writ small!

In any case, both of these points bring us back to the initial moments of this discussion of ours, in which I so brutally misunderstood your interest in the WTO's "vacant positions" as an interest in those intellectual contentions of ours that do not hold water, of which I cited two examples: our positions (a) that the abolition of government intervention will yield prosperity, and (b) that fewer laws against pollution will make the air cleaner.

Over the course of our speaking, you have been privy to the exposition of at least five or six more such positions that we at the WTO insist on yet that hold no water at all. And you have observed us wandering into the realms of absolute heresy to find an appropriate fundament, having lost our way everywhere else.

Under these conditions, with your eye so priviledgedly on our bankruptcy, I ask you now: what, given such corruptness as ours, might you see as useful or interesting in an engagement with us? Is there a way you might help us to hew a renewed plan of hope and/or action, something based more in reality than our ever-mired past footsteps? Or do you simply wish to learn what you can from our failures?

Any or all of these are acceptable. In each case, there can resound a clear "Why not?"

With an eye to the future, always, and despite all with hope,
Hengy

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 22:41:52 -0600
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Hengdorn:

I: I shall start with your conclusion. There are three reasons I wish to work for the WTO/GATT:

First, I am reminded of a quote from Marx. Unfortunately it is unavailable to me right now, but it goes something like: "Men make history, but not as they like; they make it as they find it..." Basically, they deal with the pre-existing structures of power and exchange. The WTO represents those structures, and it seems likely to continue. Accordingly, it makes sense to work within it rather than to disclaim it entirely. Another quote, this one from Bismarck, to be found on the very last page of Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," goes something like: "We are adrift on the river of time, but we can still paddle." Even if the WTO contains flaws, these flaws are streams within which we can still paddle, and these may be the most profitable and convenient means of arriving at a desired destination.

Second, when all is said and done, everything else being equal, I believe that free trade and exchange is a positive thing. Reducing tariffs and other barriers to trade is a positive thing. It enables the world to be more productive and for all to live more comfortably. There is no need for an either-or dichotomy between a completely neoliberal regime or a completely statist regime; there is room for a "third" (or fourth or fifth...) way as well, in which one can hopefully incorporate increased total prosperity with increased distributive and social justice. 

Third, the WTO is something I study currently in class in law school. International politics is something I studied as undergraduate in college. The world, its politics and its economics is something I try to stay abreast of constantly. These are the issues that drive me; these are the issues that intrigue me; they have since I was a boy around the age of eight, reading newsmagazines, and they will until my demise (whenever that shall be). The WTO is one of those places where the action is. It is where I would like to be. Moreover, I suppose any experience I would gain would be useful either working with the federal government (such as the Trade Representative's office), local government (helping state or municipal government arrange trade relations), or in private practice as an attorney. Conversely, should I continue with more schooling to obtain a doctorate and become an academic, real-world experience with a major multilateral NGO would be beneficial there as well. But once more, I wish to be where the action is, and the WTO certainly qualifies.

To answer your question explicitly, then, I do not really conceive of myself intending either to renew the WTO or to learn from its failures. This is because I find myself in accord with its basic premises, despite the difficulties our conversations have exposed these to possess. Ultimately, I make very modest claims. My goal would be simply to observe what I could, in recognition of my lack of relevant knowledge and experience. Should a thought occur to me that I think relevant and appropriate, naturally I will voice it. But for the most part, I would be conscientious of my limited role as "summer help," and simply remain grateful for the opportunity to watch a major NGO in action, and to store and assimilate it into my knowledge base for present and future use.

II: Second, with respect to health care, let me make the following two points.

The first is that you most certainly have my sympathies on this issue. As a middle-class university graduate student, I have been the beneficiary of excellent health care for all of my life, as have my family as well as many if not most or all of my friends. Yet I have never understood why others should be deprived of this solely on account of having less money. Certain things are held to be fundamental human rights worthy of preservation and accorded to all citizens, irrespective of their social status or economic capital; is not freedom from curable pain and discomfort one of these things? A good friend of mine who has read Richard Epstein's "Mortal Peril" warns me that this argument is easily-countered, and I must concede I myself can become rather susceptible (at least on an intellectual level) to libertarian arguments. That said, in sum, I support universal health care for all Americans, and regret that the Clinton Health Plan failed.

Which leads to my second point: are you sure unabashed plutocracy suffices as an explanation for "the ways things are?" I concur that policy outcomes reflect a combination of means, interest and strategies (and probably other variables as well), but these are muted, modified and transformed by collective action issues and the like. For example, organized labor in the US, even if in decline, still represents a substantial force with which to be reckoned. A more cynical me might question whether the absence of health care for the poorest Americans actually represents the abandonment, by unions, of their least-skilled, least-able fellow citizens. My more basic point, though, is that pure plunder by the plutocracy may be a somewhat crude model for understanding social phenomena.

Thanks,
Jeff

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 19:55:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey,

Well, this is quite a discussion, this discussion of ours. And now we have come to a question. There seems to be an uncertainty: is reducing tariffs and barriers always a positive thing? usually? sometimes? Is it true, as you say, that doing so "enables the world to be more productive and for all to live more comfortably"?

I would like to suggest two sources of information which will help us to generate a response.

First is the following lecture on detariffication regimes as applied to Third World countries by far wealthier ones: http://www.gatt.org/resources/agri-e.pdf. Although you will note that this text is by no means in class-A condition, it may be sufficiently ripe to transmit the urgency felt by the specialists.

As you can see, "comfortable" is not in the cards for some hapless Third-Worlders!

But what of "productive"? A second document may give us a clue: the partial list of statistics at http://www.gatt.org/trastat_e.html. It emerges, sadly, that many barrier-lowering schemas--because they are de facto imposed by the wealthiest countries upon the least wealthy--have as beneficiaries only the former. "Productive" finds itself so oddly defined--raw materials yes, manufactured materials no, etc.--that it becomes tantamount to "best for the rich," and a mechanism for extracting the most for the least from the poorest.

Protectionism (we can simply call it "sovereignty") then emerges as the only possible line of defense against predation masquerading as free-market theory.

But of course that (theory) is what we (WTO) exist to enforce.

This brings us to the second point of discussion to which we've been brought: is it better for a young person to work within a corrupt and putrefying miasma of once-good intentions rather than outside of same? just because it (miasma) exists? "Men make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing," said Marx, as you note. But one should not necessarily count on the production of positive history when choosing to engage with miasma.

As Marx also said, "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music" (especially germane in these days of free-market flex-fest, don't you think?). Similarly, neoliberal thinking is to thinking what torture is to compassion. Unfortunately, many universities today prefer torture, and that is the greater pity in preparing the next generation of leaders for a world of increasing inequality, more desperate poverty, and new dangers of every last stripe.

As Marx didn't say, "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." And perhaps the only thing one can lead a horse to is water, so if you insist on joining in our cacophony, here is what you should do:

* download the form at http://www.gatt.org/resources/i_form_e.doc
* fill it out
* e-mail it to humanresources@wto.org.

Please keep me apprised of your progress.

With very best wishes,
Hengy

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 13:58:39 -0600
From: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
To: 'Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang' <hengy@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: form

Hengdorn:

Thank you for another installment in a dialogue that, I must confess, forces me to examine my own views quite rigorously. Let us begin with the two studies you cite (the first actually being a lecture), and the propositions you intend them to support. (I must confess that, due to time constraints, I skimmed rather than read them.) My principal objection to them would be that they fail to address counterfactual specutlations regarding the absence of the conditions they oppose. For example, how is one to measure the opportunity costs of lost productivity, and the corresponding decrease in standard of living, were tariffs and barriers to trade not reduced? Several years ago I saw Milton Friedman speak, where he claimed (albeit in an admittedly far from superb lecture) that Hong Kong enjoyed a far greater standard of living than Israel because it was more receptive to free trade policies. 

More generally, can I state that something - in this case, reducing tariffs and barriers - is always a positive thing? Hopefully by now I have established myself as the type of person who shies away from unqualified statements devoid of qualication such as that. I'm not even sure if they are usually or sometimes a good thing. The better questions are, "for whom," and "to what degree?"  It would seem folly not to note that the comparative regime - that of the protectionist state - need not be a utopia, either. Once more, many are going to suffer under either regime. The appropriate question might be: given the imperfect state of the world and the problems of either "ideal"-type regime, which is least iniquitable? For one thing, at least, it seems that under the liberalizing state plugged into the free-trade system, though, that middle-classes arise, and some improvements seem to occur (here my reference point is, of course, principally Asia).

The more interesting question is that, heretofore, we have seemed to consider the WTO in terms of North-South conflict or interaction, of that between the rich and the poor. The more accurate depiction might be as an outgrowth in the East-West Conflict that lasted from 1945-1990. As the current UN run-arounds illustrate, and as the article whose cite follows predicted, the Conflict's end also means an end to the alliance that endured. (http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/54/Walt.html). If the WTO is an outgrowth of that alliance, then perhaps the WTO's time has come as well? Of course, the opposite could transpire, too: the WTO could serve as another UN, a forum in which competing parties would adjudicate and settle disputes. 

Given that we seem to have referenced Marx a fair deal, it bears making a side-note that this would represent an inversion of Marx: rather than politics being an addendum or false shield (false consciousness or Gramscian hegemony?) for economics, here economics serves merely as an adjunct to politics. And in this context it may be useful to bring in the concept of politics, heretofore lacking for the most part in our discussion, in another context: free trade helps create more liberal states. How many military autocracies or oligarchies eventually transitioned to some form of democracy, fragile as they may be, when exposed to free trade?

"is it better for a young person to work within a corrupt and putrefying miasma of once-good intentions rather than outside of same? just because it (miasma) exists" This is a great question. First, one must specify that the miasma is not some excessive, extreme case, such as the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge. Clearly, the WTO does not qualify as such. From there, it seems, once more Bismarck's quote about paddling on the river of time comes into play. Positioning onceself at the point in the water where one's paddle will gain the most leverage, and one can gain the most headway, in whichever direction one views as most desirable, given some appreciation (rough-hewn as it may be) of the various parties and their interests, seems to be the best one can do in an imperfect world.

Thank you for the links to the HR materials. I will send those off in the next day or so.

Jeff

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:39:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Hengdorn Mæ∂ford Sumatra-Bang <hengy@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form

Dear Jeffrey,

Yes, it is quite a dialogue we are having! It is a kind of "dialoguing with power," perhaps, or at least with potential! In any case, I as well must admit being forced into examination--not of views so much as of the decency I like to attribute myself.

But let us proceed to the questions in question.

I. The first concerns "Asia." In this case, when you speak of "Asia's" benefitting from freedom of trade, you are considering the following countries: South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

These so-called "Asian tigers" are often held up by the likes of Milton Friedman as examples of how international trade freedom is a boon to the middling, not just the rich. There are, however, some pieces missing from this picture of those beautiful lands.

For one thing, the lands in question allowed their national industries to develop in a sheltered, protected environment for a great many years. When the restrictions were at long last removed, the industries were capable of competing in the worldwide marketplace, at least for a few pleasant years.   This is just like England, which also removed its market protections only at the point when its industry was ready to compete and conquer and rule.

The picture for these four "winners" was decently rosy till the mid-'90s crisis--which fairly pulverized the "tigers," but left nearly intact those Asian countries that had not liberalized, but had chosen instead to maintain all their market controls and develop as they saw fit. Today, in fact, we find Chinese companies purchasing Japanese ones! (Please see http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/feb98/asian.html.)

Much more unfortunately, many other countries that liberalized to the same degree as South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand--usually at the insistence of the IMF, the WTO's sister organization--suffered an entirely more violent fate when flung into the global marketplace: their economies could simply not stand the competition, and great misery has ensued for the populace.

For as it turns out, the real aim behind the liberalization of Third-World economies is not mainly to benefit those economies. Rather, it is to allow First World companies to exploit them with as little fuss or muss as possible; this aim is hidden behind a Marxoid "false shield" of theory.

(This may sound cynical, but I do think it's accurate. For example, the WTO enables First-World countries to maintain strong protections for their own industries, while insisting that developing countries lower theirs. How can this be seen as anything but criminal profiteering? In any case it is is quite rude, given the damage to life and limb that most often results.)

II. As for the interesting question of the WTO's history, it originated neither in a primal conflict between rich and poor, nor as an outgrowth of the East-West Conflict that lasted from 1945-1990.

The WTO's predecessor, the GATT, emerged as a "concept" organization just after WWII: it would prevent nasty and powerful governments from interfering with struggling private enterprises, thus encouraging peace.

The Cold War came to an end around 1990. Five years later, with the enemy gone, the American "master plan" for the GATT was finally put into action: it acquired enforcement abilities (the Dispute Settlement Body), dealt with services as well as with goods (the GATS--loosening government control over health, education, and energy rather than just shoes, ball bearings, and cups), and in various other ways became much better able to stop governments from regulating what corporations can do. The GATT thus turned into the WTO.

Meanwhile, however, those same corporations that the GATT had intended to help had grown dozens of times more powerful than they'd been in the '40s. Today we are faced with a situation in which it is corporations that prey on weak countries--and the WTO prevents their governments from reacting.

As for the effect of the Europe-U.S. split on the thriving of the WTO, this is not such a big issue.  The cohesion of Europe and the U.S. is of only minor importance to the WTO, as the commercial interests within those entities can plow ahead regardless of politics. The WTO is strictly the tool of those corporate entities, not of any national governments--and the shift of power from the latter to the former is a trend that, as Karl Polanyi predicted, is bursting asunder the seams of government institutions or, in the case of the U.S., turning them wholesale into appanages of the wealth drive.

III. What to do, what to do? Work in miasma, not work in miasma? Steer the flow, work at the pivot? There are many other pivots, fortunately, as the numerous World Bank officials who have resigned in disgust have found out. Why not work directly for something believably useful--some fine NGO, for example--rather than something (WTO) whose track record has been proven abysmal?

In any case, here we are deposited, at this point in our dialogue, at an interesting juncture. On the one side there is you, postulant to the corridors of might; on the other myself, having seen that that might is corrupt, dissuading you from said postulance.

It is like a special movie in which there are two parties, one an eager city youth, the other a sun-wizened cowboy, and between them an interesting exchange of opinions, in which the cowboy says that neoliberalism is bad for the world and, for that matter, for cowboys.

It is perhaps even more like a special movie in which a Soviet war hero approaches a Thai fisherman and the fisherman explains to the hero that neoliberalism is bad for the world and, for that matter, for fishermen.

Etc. In any case, I do hope that information has been or is being conveyed! I do quite feel that it is.

With fervent hope bursting asunder all seams,
Hengy

Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 11:48:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Population Center <humanresources@gatt.org>
To: "Wolf, Jeffrey" <jwolf@law.uiuc.edu>
Subject: RE: form (fwd)

Dear Jeff,

Hengy as per protocol forwarded me all materials of your last month chat. Now is the process moment when information gathers together in re: your progress and interest.

* Are you satisfied with WTO responsiveness to concerns?

* How is your progress?

* Do you already envision interesting usefulness? How?

* It might be interesting to all if certain tasks could be performed by you as soon as possible. Please advise if you are interested.

Best,
Haarkkonen Ixtabal-Mono
 

Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 13:01:35 +1100
From: mark frumar <mfrumar@hotmail.com>
To: enquiries@gatt.org
Subject: research

I am an Australian student  named Mark Frumar undertaking an assignment on globalisation has affected mexico and I am requesting information on
* The integration of Mexicos economy with the international economy.   
* Economic growth and development and the quality of life in Mexico.
* Trade, investment and activities of Transnational corporations in Mexico.
* Distribution of income and wealth in mexico.
* Environmental consequences in mexico.
* Domestic financial markets eg deregulation issues, exchange rate (in)stability in mexico.
* Influence of the international business cycle on the domestic business cycle of mexico.

and

a discussion of at least two strategies/policies used by the mexican government to deal with the impacts of globalisation and promote growth and development.

If you could send me any information regarding this to
8 Balfour rd Rose Bay
Sydney NSW 2029 Australia

or mfrumar@hotmail. com

then i would be much appreciative.
yours truly,
mark

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 05:43:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Flint Bok <bok@gatt.org>
To: mark frumar <mfrumar@hotmail.com>
Cc: Samos Herricuña-Mars <herr@gatt.org>
Subject: Re: research

Dear Student,

Thank you for your informations. Samos Herricuña-Mars is our normal advisor to answer the questions with regards to the Mexican situation, but he is currently on a visit to Africa to acquaint himself with the even more interesting African situation, so I will enforce the slack, even though my dominance of expertise is on the Northern European and Slavic situations.

With regards to Mexico, there are a certain number of qualities that, first and foremost, must be highlighted:

* Despite an economic status not at the acme of all that is possible, the Mexican pre-university educational system is superior to that of the United States. Regarding Mexico's potential to, in the future, engage in increasingly interesting behaviors, this is a great sign--even a harbinger of excellent things. Education is high on the list of the services that the WTO's GATS program wishes to privatize, with the potential of bringing Mexico's pre-university educational system, glutted with hopeless State funding, back into a range less artificially inflated for its function within a mere Third-World economy, and thereby liberating the vastness of the pre-university market to a wealth-absorption/creation mechanism that only spells increasing wealth for some Mexicans.

* There are similar important things to be said regarding the quality of Mexican food, vis-à-vis a freshness quotient that can only be called economically inefficient. This is the reason the Mexican agriculture minister wishes to remove several million peasants from the land, to accord with the 18th-century English theory of specialized regionalization and shuck off excess fresh.

* As for the environmental and wealth-disparity consequences of policies in the realm of "business cycle" considerations--and I would include in these the maquiladora border regime, etc.--we have a situation whereby a transnational corporate market is flattening the unnatural Mexican advantage to its proper level vis-à-vis the world environment and wealth-disparity quotients. Despite this, as has been noted, Mexico is still vastly underpolluted.

Please let us know if you are still without the proper direction.

Yours helpfully,
Flint Bok

Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:26:11 +0200
From: Youssef El-Khadem <youssefelkhadem@hotmail.com>
To: resources@gatt.org
Subject: Egypt & Gatt

Hello,

First of all, I want to complain that the GATT/WTO website is too old and appears to be neglected by the webmaster, which is such a disgrace.

I would also want to complain that I have sent an email 5 months ago asking certain questions about Egypt's status with regard to the GATT and there was no reply.

So since you guys are uninterested in answering my questions, can you please at least refer me to someone who would help?  We have serious trade restriction problems in Egypt and the people are dying to know more about the GATT, which now seems to be more  of a tale than a reality..

Youssef El-Khadem

Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 12:18:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bennisfjord Lippenlurken-Bring's <hlipp@gatt.org>
To: Youssef El-Khadem <youssefelkhadem@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Egypt & Gatt

Dear Youssef,

I am very sorry. Indeed you are correct in your notation regarding the GATT being a tale, but not in your notation that it is thereby less a reality. In truth it is both a tale _and_ a reality--ever more so both every day!

Firstly, the tale. The tale told by the Victorious Powers shortly after WWII was as follows:

"Free trade makes for peace. Terrible or bad governments interfere with free trade, hindering peace. If we prevent such governments from interfering with free trade, we will by just that much (previous government interference amount) increase the chances for peace. This is simple math."

You will of course recognize this as a tale. And yet from the beginning the GATT was a reality, too. Governments were, from the start, pushed back somewhat from their traditional role as "protectors of the commonweal," "defenders of the public," etc. Their trade decisions became subject to supranational calculation and notice, and corporations as a consequence assumed a somewhat knightlier role.

This was not necessarily always a bad thing!! We cannot argue one way or another, in that regard.

But if we forward ourselves to the near-21st century, we see a different realm of conditions from the previous time's. We see corporations often swollen to elephantine dimensions. Many are mightier than most of the nations. With their presence in multiple such nations, they find themselves de facto exempt from most taxes, for example. It can be said that they are the mightiest of the modern entities of this world, in a great many ways indeed.

And yet the tale remains the same, or quite nearly:

"Free trade makes for prosperity for all. Terrible or bad governments interfere with free trade, hindering prosperity. If we prevent such governments from interfering with free trade, we will by just that much (previous government interference amount) increase the degree of prosperity of all nations, including the poorest. This is simple math."

Now being from Egypt, you will recognize this even more instantly as a reason-bereft tale than the first, shortly-postwar version. For example, as you may read at www.gatt.org/trastat_e.html:

"The period 1960 to 1980 saw much greater improvement and growth in developing countries than the period from 1980 to 2000. Yet 1960-1980 was the height of Keynesian economics, whereas the glory days of the WTO's sort of liberalization has been in the latter period."

Yes, it is a tale, this WTO-makes-prosperity thing. And yet, of course, it is also an increasing reality: ever more, governments are constrained from determining the direction of money for any reason at all, whether humanitarian (bananas) or human (gasoline) or merely sovereign (genetically modified food). Often the consequences are tough for the "man on the street," especially the Third-World street. His or her benefits remain, by and large, within the boundaries of the tale: fictional, fully, forever.

I believe I have answered regarding Egypt's status with regard to the GATT. If there are more quesitons, do not hesitate. Please accept our apologies for a disgraceful website, which mirrors only the out-of-dateness of the tale behind it.

With very best wishes,
Bennisfjord Lippenlurken-Bring's
 

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 19:26:40 EST
From: SJBL74@aol.com
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Question

To whom ever this concerns,
I would really appreciate it, if for my college research paper you would like to explain in your own words how you feel the WTO(GATT) has impacted Haiti.   
If someone does respond, please note that your quote, if applicable, will be used in my paper. 
Thank you for your time,
JLB

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 12:26:18 -0500
From: Lekvar Slomastsey <info@gatt.org>
To: SJBL74@aol.com, info@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Question

Greetings;

It is always a pleasure to address a student.

Basically, the problem with Haiti is that Aristide, although basically a nice fellow and sentimental clergyman, doesn't understand the first thing about how to bring his country out of poverty. He is so fixated on the past, and on Baby Doc, who actually had comparatively reasonable trade policy.

We at the WTO, like our friends in the White House, are doing everything we can to prevent this man from getting any kind of aid that will get his country back on its feet, until he can prove his willingness to open up his markets.

Let me take you on a thought experiment:

Imagine for a moment you were rich. Lets say you find a poor, slum near you, and go into that slum to buy the corner store from a desperate local proprietor who cant even afford to keep normal food on the shelves, and so he sells lots of cheap things like vegetables from local gardens, and tortillas from the local tortillaria. Now, that proprietor wants to sell the business to you... but imagine for a moment that he isnt allowed to! And you, with your money ready to invest, to be able to bring real, mass produced products into the store, are sent packing. What a shame. That neighborhood will never know the luxury of many goods that are their due, simply because of some silly local laws.

Aristide, sadly, is a bit of a fool when it comes to opening the market. We are putting all the pressure we can on him, but he is stubborn. He suffers from the same disease that affected the likes of other stalwart protectionists, like Ghandi in India, for example.

We can only hope that he wakes of and smells the starbucks soon!

Good luck with your research and thank you for this opportunity to contribute to your scholarship!

Lekvar Slomastsey
info@gatt.org

Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 18:47:08 -0500
From: Harold M. Schroeder <harold@schroeder-inc.com>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Terrence Hibbert

I am pleased to announce that Terrence Hibbert has joined Schroeder & Schroeder Inc.

Terrence offers skills in strategy development, financial analysis, best practices benchmarking, and project management.

Prior to joining Schroeder & Schroeder, Terrence worked with Digital 4Sight, Canada's foremost technology strategy research and consulting firm. He has a strong financial background, having also worked as an Account Manager with the Business Development Bank of Canada - where he performed financial needs analysis for term and subordinated debt products.

Terrence received his MBA in finance and management for development from McGill University and his undergraduate in financial and economic studies from the University of Western Ontario.

I am pleased to have Terrence as part of the Schroeder & Schroeder team.

Harold Schroeder, MBA, CMC, C.H.R.P.
President & CEO

Schroeder & Schroeder Inc. is a boutique consulting firm that provides a broad range of management consulting services to business and public sector organizations across North America. Our client testimonials http://www.schroeder-inc.com/testimonials.html and our case study examples http://www.schroeder-inc.com/casestudy.html attest to the high quality of service and assistance provided.

Schroeder & Schroeder Inc.
390 Bay St., Suite 2000, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2Y2

Tel. (416) 244-0892
Fax. (416) 244-2514
harold@schroeder-inc.com
www.schroeder-inc.com

(Note: In the weeks leading up to the Australian accounting conference, we referred to it as “Malaysian,” to throw off any possible WTO spies posing as CEOs of boutique consulting firms.)

Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 17:17:26 -0500 (EST)
From: info@gatt.org
To: Harold M. Schroeder <harold@schroeder-inc.com>
Subject: Re: Terrence Hibbert

Dear Mr. Schroeder,

We are gratified to receive your request to work for the World Trade Organization. Thank you!

What we are is this: an effective organization with global goodwill and goodwill for the globe. We have forward momentum; we will hurry humanity into prosperous futures!

*You* plus *us* equals *more* momentum formation, and more humanity-hurrying! Thank you!

Let me now appeal to you: what do you with this (work)? We have a lot of it (work), and we use it considerably. But we always need more, especially in the field of communication. What do you do?

I will tell you what *we* do, with work and communication, and you will say how you fit in. Here are the things we do, with work and communication: (1) we look backwards and (2) we look forward.

(1) In the the backwards-looking arena, we use modern technology--television, video, internet--to speak to a great many people about history, ideology, and ourselves.

Now the WTO of course feels that corporate free-trade enforcement (CFTE) will lead to prosperity for all just as surely as natural law leads to beautiful pelts.

But a lot of other people, outside the WTO, *don't* feel this way (about CFTE). They feel only facts. They feel that poverty is rising throughout the Third World--often the very parts that have been CFTE'd the most strongly. They feel there is a growing inequality between rich and poor, and deepening misery on the part of the latter, and they feel this is true in Russia, Brazil, Argentina, and Kenya, but also in the U.S., Canada, France, and Japan.

Our work can help show such feeling- and fact-blinded people that facts are not the end zone of truth. That when you hurl the football over the goalpost of progress, there's a lot more beyond it, and that examining the football with a magnifying glass in the sun can be dangerous for the football!

This is why in public speaking assisted by modern technology we have always insisted on clarity: so that, having seen where we stand and what we believe, we all can proceed accordingly. This we call education.

On CNBC's European MarketWrap program, for example, we painted a broad, informative background of our manifold efforts, telling our viewers that as far as the WTO is concerned, might *does* equal right--this being the primary message of neoliberalism. We also predicted that, as a beautiful illustration of this, privatized education will *naturally* lead to a *righter* understanding of history on the part of tomorrow's students--with a greater focus on profitable thinkers like Hayek and Milton Friedman and Darwin, and less on Trotsky and Abbie Hoffman and Robespierre.

At a textiles conference in Tampere, Finland, recorded and retransmitted on videotape, we filled in some details. We noted that according to modern free-trade theory, the U.S. Civil-War North committed a heinous sin in attacking the South for its choice of cotton-manufacturing method—a choice (slavery) that would have been superseded anyhow by today's far cheaper but equivalent method of remotely located labor!

At that conference we also made clear that Mohandas Gandhi of India was, like today's Boves and Marcoses, simply a rank protectionist; and that what was needed was not Indian freedom from English transnational business--which Gandhi called for by wearing only homespun cotton garments--but rather more sensitivity on the part of English transnational business--for example, more production of the homespun styles that the Indians so evidently craved.

Finally, clarifying free-trade approaches to hunger at an agribusiness conference in Malaysia, we quoted at length Joseph Townsend, one of the founders of today's free-market thinking: "Hunger will tame the fiercest animals, it will teach decency and civility, obedience and subjection, to the most brutish, the most obstinate, and the most perverse.... It is only hunger which can spur and goad [the poor] on to labor... Hunger is not nly a peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure, but, as the most natural motive to industry and labour, it calls forth the most powerful exertions;  and, when satisfied by the free bounty of another, lays a lasting and sure foundation for good will and gratitude."

Friend, hunger for knowledge has laid in our hearts a lasting foundation for industry. And the quarterback for the free-market team is not only God, but also good books. Such books having formatted the neoliberal mindset, communication can format the doubters'.

(2) In the forward-looking arena, communication can also help format policy, and can simplify many dilemmas.

Often, indeed, we find a complicated situation in the world-management world. We have a situation in which there are a great many people unable to accomplish one thing, or another, or a third. These are times when French farmers dismantle McDonalds restaurants with their tractors, when Mexican peasants take up arms to demand an end to enslavement of the Third World, and when Indian farmers smelt themselves unto death to protest the same things that Gandhi once protested with cotton. In so many ways, the structure of corporate free-trade enforcement is beginning to quake very deeply!

Now just as a country resorts to total war when victimized by a concerted push of its enemies, so in the current environment it is possible to push old ideas and methods past the goalposts of policy. We can discern the general outlines of neoliberalism and, staying true to these foundations, concoct ever new, ever stronger tactics of profit and progress, those twin terms for reasonableness. We can brace the football with iron.

This is why, at the Finnish textiles conference, we presented our "Management Leisure Suit," a garment allowing today's CEOs to oversee foreign workforces in unprecedented detail, all the while engaging in healthy leisure activities sure to bolster efficiency.

At the Malaysian agribusiness conference, we laid out a radical plan to allow the Third-World hungry to participate in the miracle of U.S. fast food by recycling their one-dollar hamburgers as many times as financially necessary.

On CNBC, we showed how it would be possible to extend the logic of "pollution vouchers," whereby countries and companies purchase rights to pollute, into the field of human rights violations.

And at a legal conference in Salzburg we promoted a scheme to privatize voting--allowing companies to contract directly with individual voters for a particular suffrage. This would let politics be run more efficiently, through commerce, rather than through the clumsy and indirect language of big-government bureaucrats.

You will find such examples inspiring, and you will see that there is a place in our organization for difficult work and strenuous efforts at communication. Indeed, communication can help us all travel outside the box, or even--yes, potentially!--to rupture that box completely, through spurring and prodding and effort.

Let's spur! Let's prod! And let's effort: now you tell us how.

With very best wishes,

Granwyth Hulatberi
Informatics for Progress Division, WTO

http://www.gatt.org/
Making the world safe for effectiveness

Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 20:04:43 -0500
From: Harold M. Schroeder <harold@schroeder-inc.com>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Terrence Hibbert

Granwyth

Thanks for your message.

As you know, we are a management consulting firm. The services we provide are described at http://www.schroeder-inc.com/ourservicesmenu.html

Is there a particular area or topic that you think you might be able to use our services in?

Thanks again!

Harold Schroeder

Schroeder & Schroeder Inc.
390 Bay St., Suite 2000, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2Y2

Tel. (416) 244-0892
Fax. (416) 244-2514
harold@schroeder-inc.com
www.schroeder-inc.com

Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 04:13:05 -0500 (EST)
From: info@gatt.org
To: Harold M. Schroeder <harold@schroeder-inc.com>
Subject: Re: Terrence Hibbert

Dear Mr. Schroeder,

Indeed, we have a particular problem that I would like to take up with you.

I think I did mention, did I not, that we had developed a Management Leisure Suit, a garment allowing today's CEOs to oversee foreign workforces in unprecedented detail, all the while engaging in healthy leisure activities sure to bolster efficiency?

Well, that was a "white lie": while we have developed a *prototype* of the suit, we have not developed the suit itself. It is, in a word, quite difficult to develop. Here is what it must do:

1. Perform surveillance of distant factory floors, relaying information directly into the vacationing manager (through implanted sensors) of any anomalies, excesses, excrescences, superlatives, and errors. Thus information-enabled, the manager can gambol all over Bermuda, if he/she so chooses.

2. Upon unusual information excrescence, the MLS must enable the manager to express upon any given worker, or on all workers together, electrical impulses that will alert the worker to the fact that work must be performed more ethically.

We have no idea how to undertake creating a device like this. It is essentially a management issue for us, as we have never before hired engineers. Does your company have experience in the engineer-hiring and engineer-management domain?

I would be happy to forward a photograph of our prototype, along with views of its desired/suggested future functioning, if that would help your evaluation.

Thank you,
Granwyth Hulatberi

http://www.gatt.org/
Making the world safe for effectiveness

Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 12:29:13 -0500
From: Harold M. Schroeder <harold@schroeder-inc.com>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Terrence Hibbert

Granwyth

I'm afraid this is an area we do not provide services in.

Harold Schroeder

Schroeder & Schroeder Inc.
390 Bay St., Suite 2000, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2Y2

Tel. (416) 244-0892
Fax. (416) 244-2514
harold@schroeder-inc.com
www.schroeder-inc.com
 

Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 17:51:12 +0200
From: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
To: statistics@gatt.org
Subject: Search for studies - trade liberalisation in textile

Refernce: search for studies about the impact of trade liberalization in textile in 2005 and entrance of candidate countries in the EU on the textile industry
 
Dear Sirs,
 
Industrial Development Centre of Slovenian Weawing Industry has decided to perform a study about the impact of trade liberalization in textile in 2005 and entrance of candidate countrisin the EU on the textile industry. ITEO Management Consulting was chosen to execute the study. Therefore I am turning to you, whether you can direct us to some relevant studies that were already done in the past from where we could gahter some relevant information. We would be very thankfull for any information.
 
With best regards,
 
Primoz Kunaver
________________________
ITEO Svetovanje d.o.o.
Kotnikova 28, Ljubljana
tel: +386 (0)1 4720 919
fax: +386 (0)1 4720 960
e-mail: primoz.kunaver@iteo.si
http://www.iteo.si

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 07:29:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: statistics@gatt.org
To: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
Subject: Re: Search for studies - trade liberalisation in textile

Very best of luck, Mr. Kunaver!

Today I can tell you a story regarding trade aspects of liberalization with regards especially to the textile matters, and especially therein on the application of restrictions thereon.

The story is the so-called "Gandhi" story. It references India, which, like the country Slovenia and in fact the whole eastern Europe, has a history of being utilized by the powers of Western democracies towards furtherance of Western democracies' goals.

This is the 19th-century, when India had this history. It has since come to no longer have this history, in a "present-day," "lived" sense. That is, this history has become history, India-wise, because of Gandhi.

The trade restrictions imposed by Gandhi enabled India to redevelop its age-old textiles trade, overcoming an absence of trade restrictions imposed by the British.

Slovenia, too, as I understand it, has a history that should become history. Unfortunately, that history is currently being written by our drafting department, and will become solid in 2005. In advance, severe apologies on behalf of our organization. Read Stiglitz!

Best of luck once again, to you and your country,
Harkness
WTO Communications and Statistics

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 12:32:31 +0200
From: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
To: statistics@gatt.org
Subject: Turmoil of past and present - Re: Search for studies - trade liberalisation in textile

Dear Mr. Harkness,

thank you very much for the concern and the interesting thoughts. I have just came few hours ago from the Kazahstan, where the influences (both positive and negative) of quick westernization and globalization can be clearly seen. One might wonder what is best; to be closed and unique, or to be on the open draft with all economic and cultural consequences. Anyway the best is to remain smiling.

With very best regards,

P.S.: I will check in library for Stiglitz

Primoz Kunaver

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 10:19:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: statistics@gatt.org
To: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
Subject: Re: Turmoil of past and present - Re: Search for studies - trade liberalisation in textile

Thank you Mr. Kunaver,

It is always a pleasure to read and to speak, even as irresistible tides roll over accomplishments, even as long-wound skeins become tangled again. At least one can smile, just as you say! This is a folk song.

In any case, I think that fortunately your question has a good answer: neither. As pointed out by, among many others, the experts at the World Development Movement (www.wdm.org.uk), it is quite possible for developing countries to protect their populations and local industries AND benefit from international trade, at the same time. The trick is allowing them to do this as they see fit [based on a democratic system / system to help the poor countries], rather than binding them to a system devised and enforced by the wealthiest countries: a system whose benefit to the poor is suggested only by theory, while history tells a very different tale indeed.

These above-cited experts (www.wdm.org.uk), in fact, could be the best "heads-up" sort of resource for you, for Slovenian Weaving Industry, and for your countrymen of Slovenia overall. I recommend them with gusto!

After managing to avoid the brunt of a battle,* it would be sad for Slovenia to sunder under another!

Hoping for survival, against all odds,
Harkness
WTO Communications and Statistics

* Slovenia’s President had not long before allowed Serbian President Milosevic to stage a Serbian “defeat” by Slovenian forces, allowing Slovenia to withdraw from Yugoslavia before things got more murderous, and allowing Milosevic to whip up Serbian nationalism back home.

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 15:28:31 +0200
From: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
To: statistics@gatt.org
Subject: warm ice

Thanks to you to Mr. Harkness,

the cold world of logical economy is run by humans who (wanted or not) have a warm body temperature.

The aspect of heart and aspect of sterile logical thought colide. One can usually find the arguments for the aspect of logic and sometimes can't find them for the heart, but on a long term logics sometimes fail and things that we may characterise as "heart" turn out to be deep implanted safety vents that prevent major mistakes and bendings from the right course. However on the other side one should take care about the mercy which may turn out on the long term to be contra productive. "Teach me how to fish not gave me the fish", is a powerfull statemet. Short sighted giving to the poor, or protecting the poor, can at the end of the day sometimes not really benefit them. The core question is how to create the conditions for making qualitative structural changes to hapen. Only in that light the decisions about the right level of trade liberalisation and related issues should be judged. Whan tackling the sensitive questions like countries level of oppeness or integration in the global trade, I think we should go one level more deep and decise from that perspective rather than the obievous facts. And what is the right level and the right way - we do not know, and hope that we do the smallest mistakes possible.

With the best regards,

Primoz Kunaver

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 16:54:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: statistics@gatt.org
To: Primoz Kunaver <primoz.kunaver@iteo.si>
Subject: hearts on warm ice

These things are mightily true that you say, Mr. Kunaver! Indeed, yes, "heart" is often quite logical!

Which leads us to wonder: is a sensible version of trade, which benefits the poor instead of the rich, really a matter of heart, thought of as fuzzy, rather than heart, thought of as logical? Perhaps the question should be: whose illogic? whose logic?

This question is an unpleasant one. When one is able to answer it with resignation, and with acceptance, often one has followed, to achieve this, a thought that goes thusly:
        1. The sole defendant of the public will against the will of the mightiest is, and has always been, government.
        2. But government is no longer very important, for corporations can be said, now, to certainly have the public's will at heart.
        3. How do we know this? We know this because although they are the mightiest, thus the natural elements against which government is meant to defend, they are composed of human beings, and hence have hearts.

But as you point out, a heart is not really illogical. And one must therefore ask: of *which* human beings, and hence of which hearts, are corporations composed--or, more precisely, by which are they led? And for whom are the hearts of these leaders the "stranded puddles uncaking, uncaking" referred to by Yeats, the "puppy-moved flank steaks" architected by Burroughs, the "globules of warmth and desire" so prominent in Herodotus?

Each person, after all, has his loved ones and zeros. Towards all others besides those (the loved), it is sure that his heart is but "meat in an ossuary missile, rearing to strike" (Ashcroft). So in the case of these humans who now run the world, at the heads of the mightiest corporations, we must ask: who, for them, constitute the collection of all those unloved and strikable?

One might suppose the answer to be: the poor. Which puts a great many residents of Slovenia, as well as a great many more of the U.S. and Italy, in a very unfortunate position! Leaving aside, of course, the question of India, Croatia, and so on.

This is still not a perfectly known equation.

Kindest regards,
Harkness
 

Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 16:14:47 -0700
From: Jing Lim <jing8374@hotmail.com>
To: serafino.marchese@gatt.org
Subject: WTO information

Dear Sirs or Madams,
 
My name is Porntip Damrongthaveesak. I'm a student of California State University, Northridge pursuing a degree in Master of Public Administration. I'm now working on my Thesis with topic, "International Trade: USA. vs Thailand and the importance of WTO" I will focus on the food industries.
 
I would like to ask for information about WTO including the history and roles that the WTO have on member countries especially Thailand and US.
 
Please mail the information to 
Porntip Damrongthaveesak
1707 1/2 S. Primrose Ave. 
Alhambra, CA 91803
 
or e-mail it to:
 
jing8374@hotmail.com or jing@sunlee.com
 
I appreciate your help and looking forward to hearing from you.
 
Sincerely yours,
Porntip Damrongthaveesak

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 23:53:23 -0500
From: Mansard Hillybullion Bradbury Cornpone <MHBCornpone@gatt.org>
To: Jing Lim <jing8374@hotmail.com>, serafino.marchese@gatt.org
Subject: Re: WTO information

Dear Porntip Damrongthaveesak,

I am sorry that Serafino Marchese seems to have fallen ill. he is slumped over his desk right now, with a small bubble of drool forming at the corner of his mouth. But do not worry, I shall not rudely awaken him. Perhaps if he recovers he will answer your quest.

I will be happy to answer your question. First off, let me say that whatever has been happening in Thailand for the last few thousand years in regards to food trade is clearly the right thing. You (I am assuming you are from Thailand, even though you live in California now. Please forgive me if I am making a leap) have the best cuisine in the world. Please, please don't ruin it with a system like America! I am from Kentucky, descended of horse and mule stock, and of course descended even further from my great uncle Ray Bradbury, with whom I share a name. But my point in telling you this is that in Louisville, Kentucky--the home of Colonel Sanders--our supermarkets are not super at all. And the food is kind of crappy, except in summer, when seasonal vegetables are in and you can pick them yourselves.

Don’t let the supermarkets ruin your food.

May I recommend a good film? It is by Kidlat Tahimik, and it is called Perfumed Nightmare. If you can find it, i think it contains the answers to even your unasked questions.

Please let me know how I can be of further assistance.

Bust wishes,

Mansard Hillybullion Bradbury Cornpone
MHBCornpone@gatt.org

Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:23:40 +0000
From: Porntip Damrongthaveesak <jing8374@hotmail.com>
To: MHBCornpone@gatt.org
Subject: Re: WTO information

Dear Mansard Hillybullion Cornpone

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I'm a Thai. I'm glad you like Thai food. You should go to visit Thailand some time. It's a great place for going shopping and eating some great dishes. A lot of my American friends went there and wanted to go back again and again and again. My boyfriend, Matt, went to Thailand for about 12 times!

I know how to make some of Thai dishes but not so many. It was my laziness when I was little and not wanting to go into the kitchen when my mom was cooking. I couldn't resist being out with my siblings playing. What a shame!

I hope your friend Serafino Marchese will get better soon. Take good care of yourself.

Sincerely yours,

Porntip Damrongthaveesak
 

Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 14:33:05 -0300
From: Juanka007@juno.com
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: Question

I'm interested in finding a little more about the antidumping laws, in particular how you punish those braking this law. I have searched your web site but didn't find anything about governments that have broken this law and how they were punished by the WTO.

Thanks

Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 10:58:22 -0500
From: Générée Eleutherium <tellme@gatt.org>
To: Juanka007@juno.com
Subject: Re: Question

Dear Dumper,

Thank you for concerning yourself.

First of all, you have a misunderstanding: dumping is done by corporations, who have a product and wish to eviscerate others in the field by lowering prices to a level uncompetitible, for a period of time, until the competition disappears or is otherwise vanished. Often, governments will agree.

This is, contrary to misconception, not generally punishable. In other words, we are not generally concerned with dumping behaviors. The removal of "small" competitors from markets through abnormal price reduction (with, generally, accompanying quality reduction not translatable to the consumer's awareness) is routinely accomplished by such pillars as fast-food franchises, parts-machining conglomerates, automobile producers. Where people are not protected from resulting diseases and other catastrophes, resulting diseases and other catastrophes will indeed result.

So it is with dumping in general.

Thank you,
Générée Eleutherium

http://www.gatt.org/
The World Trade Organization: Making the World Safe For Effectiveness.

Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 15:52:16 -0300
From: Jersonsky Andrés Alfredo <aje@mrecic.gov.ar>
To: info@gatt.org
Subject: INFORMACION SOBRE ARANCELES MUNDIALES

Escribo desde Buenos AIres, Argentina, y estoy terminando mi tesis para recibirme de Licenciado en Economia en la Universidad de Buenos Aires.

El tema que elegi es el DUMPING, y la hipotesis que propuse fue que a partir de que el proceso de globalizacion avanza (representado por la reduccion de aranceles a traves de los años), aumentan asimismo la aplicacion de medidas antidumping (para esto ultimo ya cuento con estadisticas).

CONCRETAMENTE LO QUE NECESITARIA SERIA CONTAR CON ESTADISTICAS (AUNQUE LO MEJOR SERIA UN GRAFICO DE BARRAS) QUE CONTENGAN DOS ITMES BASICAMENTE: ARANCELES MUNDIALES PROMEDIO Y AÑOS, es decir poder apreciar como fueron variando los aranceles promedio de los paises miembros del GATT en los ultimos 10 años, y si es posible mas tambien.

Espero me puedan proveer una pronta y eficiente respuesta y desde ya muchas gracias.

Andres Jersonsky -Argentina-

Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 21:14:03 -0400
From: The World Trade Organization <info@gatt.org>
To: "Jersonsky [iso-8859-1] Andrés Alfredo" <aje@mrecic.gov.ar>
Subject: Re: INFORMACION SOBRE ARANCELES MUNDIALES

Dear Andres,

Under our rules and definitions, the activity "dumping" occurs when corporations are sufficiently mammoth in size that they can eviscerate less evolutionarily successful others by lowering prices to a level uncompetitible, for a period of time, until said others disappear (or, according to the needs and demands of the case, are otherwise vanished).

This is, contrary to misconception, not generally punishable. So we are not generally concerned with dumping behaviors, and there is no "pricetag" in our realm for this activity. The removal of "small" competitors from markets through abnormal price reduction (with or without accompanying quality reduction not translatable to the consumer's awareness, a separate matter) is routinely accomplished by such success stories as fast-food franchises, parts-machining conglomerates, automobile producers, and of course exporters of staples to the Third World.

In this latter case, we have an especial image of total success. Here, locally adapted grains, adapted to variations of the local weather and allowing the country a bit of "margin of survival" in adverse conditions, have been systematically and _legally_ eliminated over the years. It is worth separating this situation into constituent descriptors:

1. Said _merely locally successful_ grains were momentarily -- locally -- useful because they needed not always be bought but could in moneyless conditions be produced for consumption by small social units, or commanded _in extremis_ by the government for humanitarian distribution.

2. Enabling this, of course, was a specialized evolution including adaptation to local conditions, permitting survival under a wider range of conditions than more globally successful crops. Also, of course, there was the widespread local presence of know-how regarding their production and distribution, enhancing local survivability under moneylessness but hindering the correct procedures of global economy, in which biggest of the big may become the most efficient things possible.

3. The systematic elimination of local staples by the "big three" of grain production, or the "big two" of rice production, etc., has made for painful lessons in time of economic lack (once the populace has lost the ability to produce its own food) but has made possible a certain global market efficiency benefitting the most successfully adapted conglomerates.

Again, such behaviors, increasing an already increasing market efficiency, are fully in line with procedures and aims.

Best wishes,
Catwell Argy

http://www.gatt.org/
The World Trade Organization: Making the World Safe For Effectiveness.
 

Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 15:28:37 +0000
From: Craig Reynolds <Craig.Reynolds@student.shu.ac.uk>
To: enquiries@gatt.org
Subject: Student Assignment

Hi, my name is Craig Reynolds and I am a student from Sheffield Hallam University. I have an assignment that involves the differences between the GATT and the WTO. I understand that the WTO replaced the GATT but I am unsure on the differences between them!  I would also like to know how the GATT and WTO enhanced growth and development of international business.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks 

Craig

Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 23:11:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Brent Skookemchuck <skookumchuck@gatt.org>
To: Craig Reynolds <Craig.Reynolds@student.shu.ac.uk>
Cc: enquiries@gatt.org
Subject: Re: Student Assignment

Dear Student of Sheffield Hallam University; 

The GATT was set up long ago, in the immediate post-war period. Please do a little bit of quick research on that, it would be a waste of my time since i am an expert.

Today the WTO does more than GATT ever could, both because of increased membership and because of a general brainwashing campaign that has left most people in the developed world believing so strongly in neoliberal economic philosophy that it could be likened to the figure-four leglock the Christian Church had over most of europe during the middle ages. (If you are not a wrestling fan, you can also research the figure four leglock and other popular holds on the internet very easily.)

Anyway, Suffice it to say that the WTO is doing what GATT did, but more of it an better (or worse if you happen to be one of the "have nots" of the world, who of course will continue to lose with our neo-liberal agenda.)

Please feel free to ask me anything else that makes use of my expertise!

Best, 

Brent Skookumchuck
enquiries@gatt.rog
 

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:19:39 +0200
From: "Khampha Avhatakali   * Spoornet (GP)" <AvhatakaliK@Spoornet.co.za>
To: "'info@gatt.org'" <info@gatt.org>
Subject: Request for information

Hi,

I am a develelopment finance student who resides in South Africa. I am busy doing an assignment on the "WTO branding issue"., specifically relating to the South African issue of cheese, ham and sausages. I was able to get information on your website for the Intellectual property rights and geographical indications. Still linke dto that, I would like to get information on waht the issuues are regarding ham, cheese and sausages in connection with South Africa.

Thanks

Taki Khampha

Disclaimer:   The information contained in this communication is subject to copyright and intended only for the use of the addressee(s). Unauthorised use, disclosure, or copying is strictly prohibited. Should a virus infection occur as a result of this communication the sender will not be liable. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender.

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:24:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: WTO Transparency Services <transparency@gatt.org>
To: "Khampha Avhatakali   * Spoornet (GP)" <AvhatakaliK@Spoornet.co.za>
Subject: Re: Request for information

Hello student!

It is always a pleasure to speak about issues of secondary foodstuffs in South Africa.

In one regard it is an issue that has a long history.

Regarding the old regime of apartheid, for example, it could be said that an obstruction of the market for secondary foodstuffs (and other essential goods) led to most of the abuses of that regime, and that had the rules of trade been eased sufficiently at the national and international levels, none of these (abuses) would have been possible. The same could be said regarding the regimes of other old regimes such as:

    Chile under Pinochet
    Germany under Hitler
    etc.

The reason that this sort of thing _isn't_ said, although it _could_ be, is that in fact these regimes, like the South African apartheid regime, were prime exponents of the best in free-market fundamentalism, and in the Pinochet case even earned the envy of Milton Friedman and associates.

In exchange, perhaps you will tell me something about the manufacturing  processes for ham, cheese, and sausage in South Africa today.

Best wishes,
Glunny
 

Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 16:15:12 +0100
From: Alex Mann <Alex.Mann@opp-links.org.uk>
To: communications@gatt.org
Subject: Barriers to Social Services

Hi, I have heard that countries are being encouraged to privatise their infrastructure (eg Water Services).  Is there any such plans to encourage countries to privatise their Social Services and if so where can I find out more about the sort of timescale this will take place over?  Is there any information about how this will affect Childcare in particular?

Kind regards

Alex Mann

Opportunity Links
Trust Court
The Vision Park
Histon
Cambridge
CB4 9PW

T 01223 566 522   
F 01223 500 281    

www.opp-links.org.uk&nbsp;

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Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 14:13:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Balticcio Moroni <bmoroni@gatt.org>
To: Alex Mann <Alex.Mann@opp-links.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Barriers to Social Services

Hello. Thank you very much for your interest.

There are significant plans to encourage countries to privatise their Social Services, both on-the-ground, current plans, and projected plans  that go far beyond.

So that we know what level and type of information to give you, first please let us know why you are interested in it. If in relation to Opportunity Links, what relation? How do you envisage using this information--how will it provide for you or your clients? (Note: I ask this not as a "border test," but to see how we can serve you better.)

BM

Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 09:34:57 +0100
From: Alex Mann <Alex.Mann@opp-links.org.uk>
To: Balticcio Moroni <bmoroni@gatt.org>
Subject: RE: Barriers to Social Services

Hi, Opportunity Links currently helps delivers the (British) Governments National Childcare Strategy. Amongst other things we aim to improve access to quality and affordable childcare by maintaining a database which is accessible online listing childcare in every area of England and Scotland.

We also provide technical services and advice on day to day running for Childcare Information Centre's based in most cities. We have already had some discussions with counterparts in Canada and I believe that we are well placed to explore opportunities in other countries. 

I would like to use the information I have requested to illustrate potential markets internationally.  I would like to see Opportunity Links expand their services by tendering for other countries childcare related social services.

Kind Regards

Alex Mann

Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 13:45:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Balticcio Moroni <bmoroni@gatt.org>
To: Alex Mann <Alex.Mann@opp-links.org.uk>
Subject: RE: Barriers to Social Services

Hello. You are a winner; there are significant plans to encourage and enforce the privatisation of childcare.

Childcare, like other medical and paramedical fields, like education, like water and power provision, like public transport, falls under the rubric of "Services," and so is covered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATS). 

The GATS will force open these fields to access by private industry by restricting the degree to which governments can regulate such access, and to which they can provide competing services. We can envision a scenario, one day, in which a company like yours could sue the British government for providing nursery schools on its own, or hospitals, or schools for that matter.

In September, we will be "taking stock" of the GATS at our Fifth Ministerial meeting. This is the fifth of six steps to the full enthronement of the GATS in the world's book of law. Because of the crucial nature of this step, we expect a range of raucous criticism.

Perhaps your company could be a good counter-example, to which we might point in making the case for GATS? If so, how?

Is there anything specific with regard to the GATS that you would like to know? 

Best,
BM