Explicit Consensus

Rabble reports from the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun:

“...More amazing is what the WTO is doing to prevent speech which is specifically aimed at making the WTO uphold it’s own democratic processes between countries. Some NGO’s have created special badge holders which say ‘Explicit Consensus’ in a number of different languages. The argument is that the WTO can not get an agreement or declaration just because countries aren’t about to voice opposition at exactly the right time, but they must rather explicitly express consent for any declarations. They say this because often the text is changed in back room deals and many of the poorer countries don’t have the people to have at every meeting. The last time i passed in to the Convention Center, the Security people told me that i could not wear the badge holder and that if i wanted to keep it i must put in in my backpack. It was banned ‘propaganda’.

If the WTO can’t even take such a mild act of criticism along the lines of quietly asking them to make sure every participating country is informed about the decisions they are consenting to, then how can we let the WTO make decisions which govern 97% of the world’s population?”