Politics and trade rules: is there room for morality?

Here’s a question for trade negotiators who are getting ready for another marathon world trade bargaining session in Geneva.

Is there any time political, social, moral, environmental or ethical considerations should be able to over-ride trade rules based on precise definitions, scientific standards and lawyerly logic?

Perhaps I should be more precise.

The thousands of pages of rules and tariff schedules that will emerge from three or more years of World Trade Organization talks will be based on a simple proposition: a commodity for trade is simply a commodity. It carries no moral value.

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There are rules that govern trade. Products are approved for sale based on objective standards for health and safety.

If they meet the criteria set by trade rules, it should be illegal to throw up political barriers to their exchange in world markets.

But what if a majority of Canadians said they do not want products produced in Chinese labor camps or rugs from Indian subcontinent child factories to come into this country, even if they meet all the safety and health standards?

Or what if a vegetarian is offended at the thought that the genetically engineered apple he is eating may contain an animal gene to make it more frost resistant and a majority of Canadians agreed that should not be allowed?

Would Canada have the right to follow the wishes of its citizens to block such products even if they are deemed safe by the regulators?

In other words, can domestic politics still hold sway over trade rules negotiated with commerce in mind?

A Canadian trade specialist who was recently asked the question spent little time before saying politics should never over-ride trade rules. If consumers feel offended by the produce of slave labor, label it as such and let them choose.

The border must not be closed.

That essentially is the view of the free-trading Cairns Group, as articulated both by Canadian trade officials fighting European Union consumer fears about genetically modified products and by a New Zealand meat industry official recently in Ottawa.

There is no room to accommodate the European view that assessments should be broadened to include the popular views on whether citizens want genetically altered crops or imports that will destroy local industries, said Gerry Thompson, general manager, trade policy for Meat New Zealand.

“The SPS (sanitary and phyto-sanitary) agreement was a great advance and we cannot allow politics to begin to undermine it,” he said.

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the most vexing questions facing governments, negotiators and citizens as the next round of trade talks begin.

Can citizens, through their accountable governments, rise up against trade rules and decide they still have a say over how their country develops, no matter what dry trade legalities say? Or did the 1994 trade deal really change the power of politics, as the critics say?

Has national sovereignty been taken over by the logic of international commercial deals that consider domestic protectionist instincts an exercise in nostalgia that should be legislated out of existence?