Mission Statements
The goal of this page is to see different organizations their purposes, and see the slight differences in the goals they want to accomplish.
The WTO- Director General is Mike Moore.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.
The World Trade Organization came into being in 1995. One of the
youngest of the international organizations, the WTO is the successor to
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in the
wake of the Second World War. The result is also a more prosperous, peaceful and accountable economic world. Decisions in the WTO are typically taken by consensus among all member countries and they are ratified by members’ parliaments. The WTO is based on the notion that the economic market is a perfect system while no other factors interfere with the model. The WTO is an organization of governments, not businesses, that is why they fail as opposed to the ILO that includes all three governments, workers and employers, I feel that this is a more comprehensive system, that I wish the WTO could adopt. WTO considers its 10 best benefits to be peace, disputes, rules, cost of living, choice, incomes, growth and jobs, efficiency, lobbying, and good government. Currently labor standards are not subject to WTO rules and disciplines, but we have already seen the consensus that the former General Renato Ruggiero has suggested. WTO considers protectionism as an inefficient way to improve the global economy. At the heart of the system —is the multilateral trading system — are the WTO’s agreements, negotiated and signed by a large majority of the world’s trading nations, (136) and ratified in their parliaments. These states are members of the ILO and not of the WTO: Islamic State of Afghanistan\The Bahamas, Yemen, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kiribati, Liberia, Libya, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia and Samoa.
Member governments in the WTO who endorse labor standards ask for:
the freedom to bargain collectively,
freedom of association,
elimination of discrimination in the workplace and
the elimination workplace abuse(including forced labor and certain types of child labor).
THE ILO- International Labor Organization was created in 1919 primarily for the purpose of adopting international standards to cope with the problem of labor conditions involving "injustice, hardship and privation". With the incorporation of the Declaration of Philadelphia into its Constitution in 1944, the Organization's standard setting mandate was broadened to include more general, but related, social policy, human and civil rights matters. there are 175 member countries in the ILO. The following members are part of the WTO and not of the ILO: Brunei, Maldives, Darussalam, European Communities, Liechtenstein, Macau, Taipei, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Samoa. China is included in the ILO yet I am unsure if that includes Hong Kong, China and Chinese Taipei.
International labor standards are essentially expressions of international tripartite agreement on these matters. One of ILO's most important functions is the adoption by the tripartite International Labor Conference-- made up of Government, employer and worker representatives. By including the government, employers, and workers, the ILO examines everyone's needs. The critics of the WTO state that the WTO only examines the needs of employers, and does not fully integrate the needs of workers in their proposals. There are eight fundamental principles) of the ILO. which are: the freedom of association, right to organize and collective bargaining, the abolition of forced labor, abolition of forced labor convention, equality -,discrimination (employment and occupation)convention, equal remuneration convention, the elimination of child labor- minimum age convention and the worst forms of child labor convention. At the Singapore Ministerial conference, the ILO member governments endorsed the fundamental workplace rights including:
freedom of association and
recognition of the right to collective bargaining,
elimination of all forms of forced labor,
collective bargaining,
the effective abolition of child labor, and
the elimination of discrimination in hiring and employment practices.
ILO does understand that child labor is part of some countries' economies.
take the form of international labor Conventions and Recommendations. The ILO's Conventions are international treaties, subject to ratification by ILO member States. Its Recommendations are non-binding instruments -- typically dealing with the same subjects as Conventions -- which set out guidelines which can orient national policy and action. Both forms are intended to have a concrete impact on working conditions and practices in every country of the world. International labor standards have been used for the past 75 years as the benchmark -- the only universally accepted benchmark -- by which the rights and conditions of human beings at work have been measured.
International Monetary Fund is an international organization of 182 member countries, established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange, stability, and orderly, exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries under adequate safeguards to help ease balance of payments adjustment. Since the IMF was established in 1946, its purposes have remained unchanged but its operations -- which involves surveillance, financial assistance, and technical assistance -- have evolved to meet the needs of a changing world economy. The purposes of the International Monetary Fund are:
To promote international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems.
To facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income and to the development of the productive resources of all members as primary objectives of economic policy.
To promote exchange stability, to maintain orderly exchange arrangements among members, and to avoid competitive exchange depreciation.
To assist in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments in respect of current transactions between members and in the elimination of
foreign exchange restrictions which hamper the growth of world trade.
To give confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus
providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity.
In accordance with the above, to shorten the duration and lessen the degree of disequilibrium in the international balances of payments of members.
Unfortunately the IMF is a loan system, and does not give away grants. There is much criticism as to the why IMF demands its money back, with very high interests, and by forcing the countries to cut their social programs.
The World Bank- Founded in 1944, the World Bank Group consists of five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD); International Development Association (IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC) Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). James D. Wolfensohn is the President of the five institutions.
The World Bank is the world's largest source of development assistance, providing nearly $30 billion in loans annually to its client countries. The Bank uses its financial resources, its highly trained staff, and its extensive knowledge base to individually help each developing country onto a path of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth. The main focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries, but for all its clients the Bank emphasizes the need for:
1.Investing in people, particularly through basic health and education
2.Protecting the environment
3.Supporting and encouraging private business development
4. Strengthening the ability of the governments to deliver quality services, efficiently and transparently
5. Promoting reforms to create a stable macroeconomic environment, conducive to investment and long-term planning
6. Focusing on social development, inclusion, governance, and institution building as key elements of poverty reduction
United Nations- -The United Nations was established on 24 October 1945 by 51 countries committed to preserving peace through international cooperation and collective security. Today, nearly every nation in the world belongs to the UN–188 countries in all. When States become Members of the United Nations, they agree to accept the obligations of the UN Charter, an international treaty that sets out basic principles of international relations. According to the Charter, the UN has four purposes:
1.to maintain international peace and security,
2.to develop friendly relations among nations,
3. to cooperate in solving international problems and in
4. promoting respect for human rights, and to be a Centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.
UN Members are sovereign countries. The United Nations is not a world government, and it does not make laws. It does, however, provide the means to help resolve international conflict and formulate policies on matters affecting all of us. At the UN, all the Member States–large and small, rich and poor, with differing political views and social systems–have a voice and vote in this process. The United Nations has six main organizations. Five of them
the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council and the Secretariat -– are based at UN Headquarters in New York. The sixth, the International Court of Justice, is located at The Hague, Netherlands.
The Trade and Development Centre
is run jointly by the World Trade Organization and the World Bank's Economic Development Institute, under a program called Information Technologies for Development (ITD), which is why the address is http://www.itd.org. This site is for anyone interested in social and economic development and how these are related to trade. It offers information, analysis and comment on these issues and an opportunity to exchange views. WTO 2000 Capacity Building Project- This 3-year research and capacity-building project was launched in January 1999 to help developing countries participate more effectively in the next round of WTO negotiations, which are scheduled to begin in the year 2000. The project is carried out in close collaboration with the WTO and various regional institutions.
ICFTU-International Confederation of Free Trade Unions was set up in 1949 and has 215 affiliated organizations in 145 countries and territories on all five continents, with a membership of 125 million of whom 43 million are women.
It has three major regional organizations, APRO for Asia and the Pacific, AFRO for Africa, and ORIT for the Americas. It also maintains close links with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) (which includes all ICFTU European affiliates) and International Trade Secretariats, which link together national unions from a particular trade or industry at international level. It is a Confederation of national trade union centers, each of which links together the trade unions of that particular country. Membership is open to bone fide trade union organizations that are independent of outside influence, and have a democratic structure. It its 16th World Congress in Brussels in June 1996,
the ICFTU laid down five priorities for action for the next four years:
1.employment and international labor standards,
2. tackling the multinationals,
3. trade union rights,
4. equality, women, race and migrants,
5. trade union organization and recruitment.
We se ether all the different mission statements of various organizations. Especially when dealing with the ILO, the WTO member's statements, the ICFTU and then the four WTO consensus points, we see differences especially in the elimination or the total elimination of forced labor, and the failure of the WTO to include discrimination against women in their four points. although the WTO supports the UN and ILO, what effect and obligations they might impose on countries is still unknown. WTO definitely does not want trade sanctions to be based on other factors, then we are left unclear as to what role the WTO will play in enforcing labor standards. The question lies is there a way for the WTO to enforce labor standards, without using protectionist methods, this seems highly unlikely. Jerry Kramer, Director of the Economic and Social Development Division in Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, states in the article Levelling the Playing Field for International Trade, critics must decide what the problem is when they accuse companies like Nike shoes of using unethical methods in developing countries. "Is the problem child labor, refusal to allow workers to unionize, or low wages? If we are going to take measures against abuses, we have to know what the rules are." This statement definitely captures the need for a clear definition of what the main problems are, and what causes them, and then how they can be solved. For now I examine the four points of consensus that the WTO has made, and since it seems that the WTO is now the most powerful of the rest of these organizations. I believe we must all accept this consensus, understand it, and hopefully be able to work within this framework, towards better employment, equality, sanitary conditions and a more prosperous and peaceful economy, where all sides are heard, and a consensus on all these issues are made.