Dark Side of the 90's (2021)
Catitos 2 points 3 years ago.

Well, considering civil rights are “guarantees of equal social opportunities and protection under the law, regardless of race, religion, or other characteristics”, and the WTO directly infringes on countries’ sovereignty and the environment and, therefore, on the citizens’ freedoms, opportunities and rights, I would say it did have to do with civil rights. The world is not only the US.

kahnwiley 2 points 3 years ago*.

I actually agree with your political perspective but the term simply does not apply to the WTO.
“Civil rights” are issues that deal with equal protection of human beings under the law. Insofar as the WTO is an economic organization regulating economic interactions between states, it does not deal with the equal application of human rights to individuals or groups. The WTO, while it certainly is discriminatory in treatment of developing countries as a whole and individually, does not single out racial or ethnic groups, or any other subdivision of their population for differential treatment under the law.
It is most definitely a tool of economic control by economically-powerful states against less-powerful ones, and is used as a means of enforcing protectionist policies on a global level, but it does not prevent groups of people within countries from voting, or affect the application of criminal laws as it applies to individual humans.
To reiterate: the WTO is a regulatory economic body amongst states, not a body that affects the rights of individuals or groups within those states to have equal access to democratic processes or other basic human rights. It may secondarily affect those, in a broad sense, but not in a way that could be regulated under the rubric of international human rights laws, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Poltiical Rights.
Once again, I agree with you that the WTO is a terrible thing. As I said, I had friends that were involved in the protests. But the objection to the WTO was over their economic policy towards developing nations, not their effect on individuals’ political rights.