Hi,

I'm going to have one response, and then not clog up inboxes any more.

One thing straight up, the WTO ruled mostly in favour of the US, so saying
that it ruled against a national health policy is a hair's breadth away
from an outright lie.(see
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/09/06/ri-seeks-options-wto-ruling-us-ban-clove-cigarettes.html
and http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds406_e.htm). In
fact it stressed the importance of the policy, merely it seems wanting
menthol cigarettes to be included, the dubious necessity for excluding
which I discuss below.

Let's look at the one fact then. The claim "the WTO rules against national
policies on health and environmental issues 90% of the time". First of
all, it's funny that a WTO ruling can be seen as "against national
policies" given that the WTO was negotiated by national governments and
thus, presumably, embodies their policies as a collective. If it rules
against one state's environmental policy, presumably that's because many
more states' national policies are in disagreement with it. Moreover,
states will undoubtedly try to get around free-trade rules if possible -
if you can protect domestic producers while other states do not then you
are laughing - and abusing environmental or health protection clauses is
probably one of the most obvious ways of doing so. This seemingly vital
fact tends to assume the validity of the policies in question, when it is
at least as fair to assume otherwise, given the incentives involved.
Indeed, this seems an obvious way for rich countries to avoid giving
developing countries fair treatment. Moreover, a quick glance at the
various rulings makes such statistics very dubious indeed. There are
normally a number of findings as the complaints are lodged under many
different clauses and articles. How did the percentages of win/loss come
out so neat? In this very example - clove-cigarettes - we have a number of
rulings and both parties seem to be claiming they lost. Further, the
source for these statistics is here:

 http://www.citizen.org/documents/WTODisputesSummaryOnePagerwtables.pdf

It's own sources are hilariously listed as follows: "Sources: World Trade
Organization, World Bank". Not exactly academic rigour! I'd like a
methodology at least before I believe them.

Glancing at the case in question, the WTO ruled mostly against Indonesia,
finding that the US's ban was indeed a good one because there is
"extensive scientific evidence supporting the conclusion that banning
clove and other flavoured cigarettes could contribute to reducing youth
smoking." The argument in the article turns on the sensibleness of
allowing menthol cigarettes to avoid the ban, because apparently removing
them would put pressure on the health care system as people seek treatment
for withdrawal. I imagine, firstly, that people would simply turn to
normal tobacco; moreover, if fear of people seeking treatment for quitting
smoking is a worry, why all the surgeon general labels? Presumably they
put these on in the assumption that they might work? Moreover, I think the
benefit to the US in terms of reduced health costs might outweigh the
cost. Lastly, I'm not sure that it was ever proven that the amount of
people in question, menthol cigarette users, really make up that big a
demographic to strain the healthcare system. This being America, are we
not at all prepared to accept the possibility that lobbyists for big
tobacco, who make menthol cigarettes in the US, wanted their product
exempted and got their way? As a result, the WTO might not have been so
unreasonable. Indeed, here's a blog which outlines the bias of the
original bill http://reason.com/archives/2007/02/21/all-for-philip-morris

That's the article reasonably factually analysed I think Tom.

Furthermore, I never said I was against democratic decision-making. I want
to question the idea, which seems very prevalent and unchallenged, that
more democracy is always a good thing, and that as a result, whenever an
organisation could have more democracy, and yet doesn't, it is ipso facto
meriting criticism for that alone. I want to make people justify the need
for more democracy in particular cases, rather than assume that it is a
good thing and thus a source for never-ending critique. I cited the Bulger
case as an example, admittedly an extreme one, of where more democracy is
not a good thing. I will happily debate this with anyone privately, since
I doubt there will be a clamour for it on this list.

If I haven't justified the good of free-trade as a rule to strive towards,
or shown what the optimal level of democracy is, it's because I don't want
to write seventy or eighty thousand words (a wildly optimistic minimum),
and if I did, I presume that no one would read them. Anyway, the good of
free trade thing was a personal aside, the point was that there seems to
be a complete lack of cost-benefit analysis in articles such as the one
referenced. International organisations seem to suffer most from this sort
of attack: throw as much bad stuff as possible and conclude from weight of
matter that the organisation must be bad; without contrasting that matter
against possible benefits. It's not an academic way of reaching
conclusions to my mind.

Sorry for the length.

Best,

Mike


> I always hate the sort of article which starts "I always hate this sort of
> article".
>
> Michael Keary doesn't like democratic decision-making (beyond some minimum
> he is prepared to concede. He isn't interested in discussing the very
> particular issue about tobacco harming people's health (or the more
> general
> one of the WTO ruling against national policies on health and
> environmental
> issues 90% of the time). "Even if true, it's just a tiny case". So don't
> worry about truth and falsity of cases officially deemed to be 'tiny'.
>
> Instead, half his email is a rant against a referendum around the Bulger
> case, and the rest is spent attacking other people's "narratives" while
> keeping his own pretty implicit.
>
> His own implicit grand narrative seems to be one that he himself wants to
> keep innocent of complication by nasty facts (he doesn't cite one) is
>
> (a) representative democracy is in good health (by implication, don't
> worry
> about current government practice on the NHS, for example, or the mass
> corrupt practices of MPs in the last government), and please remember any
> more democracy than our current one is not a good thing,
>
> (b) perfect free trade is a key force for good, and anybody who criticises
> the pattern of WTO decisions is a nit-picker, and doesn't need debating in
> detail,
>
> (c) if you are a perfectly reasonable citizen who wants to explore
> 'trade-law niceties' that call his narrative into question, then this is
> too
> democratic and we should opt out of criticism of the WTO and interest
> groups
> because the real world is full of "immense complication" which (for some
> magic reason) only powerful people not contaminated by democratic leanings
> or interested in niceties are able to decide about.
>
> Keary says:
> "The public cannot possibly have access to even the most minimal amount of
> information necessary to make an informed choice on something like the
> WTO",
>
>
> but luckily Keary does know and can tell us that he knows (no facts or
> references) that the WTO is a "much more significant good". Despite the
> "immense complication" that should make everybody else back off from
> trying
> to judge the WTO (wrong), luckily Mike Keary is not "a member of the
> public"
> and so can set us right and tell us to stop worrying about niceties and
> tiny
> facts.
>
> I think his narrative is rather clear and that he hates democratic or
> civic
> accountability. How critical and radical can a geographer be? I ask as a
> sociologist.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Keary
> Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 4:01 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: U.S. measures to reduce teenage smoking deemed WTO violation
> Importance: High
>
> I hate this sort of article. One, because there's always far more nuance
> to the case than the biased reporting, which wants to present a particular
> side in line with its general narrative, allows, and two because even if
> true, it's a tiny case against a much more significant good. It's
> identical to when conservatives attack the EU over the chocolate or banana
> directives. If you want to attack the WTO, do so on broad grounds, rather
> than trying to convince people by hard cases such as this. Attack the
> benefits that a country gains. Attack the ideal of completely free-trade
> (that, of course, it is far from meeting, more's the pity). Don't try to
> mislead people that it's all about cases such as this, or chocolate
> directives.
>
> Moreover, what's this love of democratic decision-making? Why is more
> democracy always good? Why can't we say that a minimal threshold of
> democracy is a good thing, such as the democratic right of US citizens to
> pull out of the WTO if they wished, but beyond that it is more likely to
> produce knee-jerk responses to cases such as this which get blown out of
> proportion, rather than reflecting the more sober, long-term will of the
> people?
>
> The example I've always liked since I heard it is: what if there had been
> a referendum on crime and punishment in the weeks following the Jamie
> Bulger killing? What odds that the death penalty and god knows what other
> unspeakable laws would have come onto the statute? The public cannot
> possibly have access to even the most minimal amount of information
> necessary to make an informed choice on something like the WTO,
> particularly in an era of Fox news and generally confirmation-bias news
> reporting (and seeking). That doesn't mean it is thus a bad thing. We can
> either live in the real world of immense complication or else cry for an
> ideal of perfectly reasonable citizens who spend their lives in study of
> trade-law niceties. It's not going to happen. We have representative
> democracy for that reason.
>
> Best,
>
> Mike
>
>
>> More overriding of national sovereignty and democratic decision-making
>> by
>> the WTO:
>>
>> Public Citizen
>>
>> Eyes on Trade
>>
>> September 06, 2011
>>
>> "U.S. measures to reduce teenage smoking violate World Trade
>> Organization
>> (WTO) rules, according to a panel ruling released late last week.
>> Indonesia successfully argued that the U.S. Family Smoking Prevention
>> and
>> Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) of 2009 violated WTO rules. The ruling
>> opens
>> the door to more teenage tobacco addiction, while further imperiling the
>> legitimacy of a WTO that rules against environmental, health and other
>> national policies 90 percent of the time."
>>
>>
> http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2011/09/wto-opens-door-to-teen-tobacc
> o-addiction.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr Jon Cloke
>> Lecturer/Research Associate
>> Geography Department
>> Loughborough University
>> Loughborough LE11 3TU
>>
>> Office: 01509 228193
>> Mob: 07984 813681
>
>
> --
> Michael Keary
> PhD Candidate
> Department of International Politics
> Aberystwyth University
> +44 (0) 1970 623111 ext 4185
>


-- 
Michael Keary
PhD Candidate
Department of International Politics
Aberystwyth University
+44 (0) 1970 623111 ext 4185