WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND RESPOND TO SUBCOMMISSION REPORT ON GLOBALIZATION

Subcommission on Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights
53rd session
8 August 2001
Morning



The Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights continued this morning its review of economic, social and cultural rights, hearing responses from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to a Subcommission report on globalization which contended that the rules of international trade and economic regimes did not show sufficient respect for human rights standards.

Two WTO officials spoke, saying among other things that dispute-settlement panels and Member States of the organization were required to take international human rights law into account when interpreting WTO provisions, and that in terms of access to vital medicines, WTO members were striving to ensure that the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was part of the solution and not part of the problem in the public health crises in developing countries.

A representative of the IMF said among other things that in a strict sense, the Fund did not have a mandate to promote human rights and was not bound by various human rights declarations and conventions -- but that was too narrow a perspective, because the Fund's activities involved economic matters that were critical for the empowerment of civil society and amounted to preconditions for the attainment of human rights in their broad sense.

The report on globalization, presented Tuesday by its authors, Subcommission Expert Joseph Oloka-Onyango and Alternate Expert Deepika Udagama, called for greater respect for human rights by international financial institutions and said greater connections had to be made between international economic law and international human rights law. It also said, among other things, that IMF and World Bank debt-reduction measures and WTO dispute-settlement procedures were not sufficiently taking into account human rights difficulties in developing countries.

Several Subcommission Experts, including Fisseha Yimer, Yozo Yakota, Asbjorn Eide, and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, said they were surprised to hear the IMF state bluntly that the Fund was not bound by international human rights instruments and standards. Mr. Yokota added that while the relationship between trade and financial regimes and human rights regimes was a vital issue, those regimes should not be compared on an equal footing -- human rights regimes were superior and could not be ignored even by agreements between States, or in the operations of international financial institutions.

Also speaking on matters of globalization, economic, social and cultural rights, and the right to development were the following non-governmental organizations (NGOs): the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (in a joint statement with the Association of Korean Human Rights in Japan); Liberation; the International Alliance for Women; the World Muslim Congress; the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations; Franciscans International; the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples; and Pax Romana.

Among Subcommission Experts or Alternates providing statements were El-Hadji Guisse, Jose Bengoa, Iulia-Antoanella Motoc, Fried Van Hoof, Yeung Kam Yeung Sik Yuen, Alonso Gomez-Robledo Verduzco, and Erica-Irene A. Daes.

The Subcommission will reconvene at 4 p.m. following a meeting of its working group on transnational corporations. It is expected over the course of the afternoon to begin debate on matters related to racial discrimination.

Statements

SEONGGI PAEK, of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, in a joint statement with the Association of Korean Human Rights in Japan, said the Japanese Government continued to violate the rights of Korean students studying in Korean schools in Japan. The Government insisted that Korean students were qualified to take university entrance examinations and receive educational support from the Government if they were educated to be Japanese at Japanese schools, but its policy discouraged Korean students from learning their own language and culture by putting Korean schools in disadvantageous conditions. Recommendations to end such discrimination had been issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Although Korean residents in Japan paid the same taxes as Japanese people, Korean schools received considerably less Government support than did Japanese schools, resulting in considerable financial burdens for parents of students attending Korean schools. The result was that many Korean students chose Japanese schools against their will. The Subcommission should recommend that the Japanese Government end its discriminatory policies against Korean schools and should suggest that the Special Rapporteur on the right to education investigate the situation in Japan.

MAGGIE BOWDEN, of Liberation, said transnational companies had a seemingly endless capacity to avoid responsibility to the people of the countries where they went in and set up shop. It was imperative to set up a mechanism for accountability for transnationals, particularly those who set up shop in developing countries. In Pakistan, recent statistics showed that the rural populations were not taken into the account. In these areas, there was a lack of education and infant mortality was high. Even in the richest province in Pakistan, these rural people were marginalized in their own country. In Japan, the Government discriminated against Koreans who lived there through the Japanese pension system. The people of Iraq and Cuba suffered unfairly because of the embargoes supported by the United States. Liberation was also deeply disturbed by the conflict among the indigenous peoples in India. The right to their land was an inherent right. Whether it was the transnational companies taking advantage of a country, or the States themselves marginalizing a population within it, at the end of the day, it was the ordinary people who suffered, and whose calls for help needed to be heeded.

SAMIRA YASSINI, of the International Alliance of Women, said there were continuing problems with the rights of persons from the Western Sahara -- including women and children -- in returning to their country because Polisario Front officials took children from their families to train them as soldiers, generally in foreign locations. This was tragic and ran counter to the United Nations plan for settling the status of the Western Sahara, which called for returning Western Saharans to their country and tribes.

These activities also violated family regroupment policies and violated United Nations standards for demilitarizing the area.

SHAH GHULAM QADIR, of the World Muslim Congress, said globalization had become a highly emotive issue. The world had become a much smaller place. But according to estimates, globalization had passed over more than three-quarters of the world's population. Half of the world's population had never made a telephone call. Even more lived on less than $ 2 a day. The recent events in Genoa reflected the growing discomfort among people with the implementation of globalization. It could not be denied that globalization was a reality, but it lacked a human face. Its benefits had been enjoyed by a selected group of countries. The Subcommission had to take action on this. The report presented yesterday analysed the affect globalization had on the enjoyment of human rights. The right to development was a human right, but the international community had yet to realize how to promote it. The Subcommission, as a think tank body of the Commission on Human Rights, had an important role to play. In areas of conflict, such as Jammu and Kashmir, linking the right to development and the right of peoples to self-determination should be the focus of a study.

SAFI GHULAM MUHAMMAD, of the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, said the debate about realization of the right to development had remained deadlocked for many years, largely because a small minority of countries considered this right an attack on their political and economic status. At the Millennium Summit, countries had undertaken to make the right to development a reality for everyone, and in the Millennium Declaration they pledged to spare no effort to free everyone from extreme poverty. One-fifth of the human race lived in the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and many of them were poor. How could States justify increases in their defence budgets and arms and missile races while millions of their citizens lacked basic things like food, clothing, shelter, education and medical care? Hostility and tension between India and Pakistan meant elimination of poverty would remain a distant dream if the Kashmir dispute was not peacefully resolved.

The report of the High Commissioner on Human Rights on the impact of the intellectual property rights regime described the framework under which the international economic system affected the enjoyment of human rights. The Subcommission should recommend the continuation of this study.

PHILIPPE LEBLANC, of Franciscans International, said the Secretary-General of the United Nations had referred to the moral quandary that economic sanctions represented. He said the use of sanctions against Iraq posed a moral dilemma for the United Nations. Experience had clearly shown the despite exemptions for humanitarian goods, sanctions still had the hardest impact on the vulnerable, while have a lighter impact on the military and the rulers. The moral issue was to what extent citizens should be held responsible for actions of the State in which they lived. Sanctions against trading arms were a sanction of choice, while sanctions against trade were reserved for the most serious cases. But humanitarian exceptions were often the subject of contentious debate. It was unarguable that food was not a humanitarian exemption. Iraq imported 13 million tons of food and medicine in the first two years, but it was not sufficient to ensure people had enough to eat. What was the acceptable trade-off between pressuring a government and harming its population? In April 2000, the President of the Security Council said extreme vigilance in humanitarian assessments had to be present in areas of sanctions. The aim was to force the Iraqi leadership to divest itself of weapons of mass destructions, but the unintended result was harm borne by the Iraqi citizens. It was recognized that the basic underpinning of the human rights regime was the respect of the dignity of every individual. These individuals had no say in the doings of their government. Compassion was called for -- it was an ethical challenge to all members of the international community. When the sanctions were lifted, the United Nations would be called on to rebuild a devastated society, and to revisit the use of sanctions.

VERENA GRAF, of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said the corporate powers dominating the world economy were wrong-doers not only in those cases where they violated human rights, broke national laws or destroyed or degraded the environment; it was the legal framework of the world economy itself which allowed harmful actions. The gap was widening between the legal framework and what was morally and ethically acceptable. The only way to respond was to enforce new forms of regulation into the world of private corporations. It was important that independent monitoring be carried out by trade unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups, and also be undertaken by international institutions such as a revived United Nations committee.

The power and economic influence exercised by transnationals and such international bodies as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank meant that developing countries were losing control of their own sovereignty; the demands placed upon these countries by international forces, including through structural adjustment policies, amounted to denial of human rights, including economic rights, and to the loss of ability to take national action for the well-being of populations.

CHULHYO KIM, of Pax Romana, said it welcomed the excellent report on globalization that was presented yesterday. And it also appreciated the words yesterday about the need to study the right to drinking water. There also needed to be a recognition of the right to participate in the globalization process. Two weeks ago in Genoa, one university student said that he could not afford the high tuition fees any longer after the privatization of education. One middle-aged farmer complained of decreasing prices in cheese since transnational corporations entered his domestic market. Some were also arguing that the Third World Debt should be cancelled for the reparation for the colonial history. For those people whose human rights were disregarded, the only way to transmit their political opinions to those isolated in intergovernmental institutions was flowing down the street to voice their frustrations. They felt that protesting was the only way to express their frustrations over the fact that globalization brought insecurity because of an uncertain future, as well as the lack of access to higher education and unemployment. The response of the G8, however, was a brutal repression beyond necessity with disproportional use of force that led to the denial of the right to assembly, the right to expression and even the right to life.

The right to popular participation in political and economic decisions had to be respected for the realization and promotion of the right to self-determination and the right to development. The participation of civil society in intergovernmental spheres had played an essential role in promoting and protecting human rights. However, most of the multilateral institutions, which were leading the globalization phenomenon, did not have any channel to guarantee the participation of civil society. Moving the venue of meetings to the peak of a mountain or the centre of the desert to escape protestors and isolating themselves from civil society was not the solution. Those multilateral institutions should establish the substantive mechanisms that enable dialogues with civil societies. The Subcommission was urged to discuss the right to popular participation in the globalization process in a serious manner during its Social Forum.

GABRIELLE MARCEAU, of the World Trade Organization, said that in the selection of panellists for dispute settlements at the World Trade Organization (WTO), staff members were forbidden to participate except as clerks or to carry out secretariat tasks; the procedure itself was free, although it was true that participants frequently had to pay to hire lawyers to help them. A legal aid system for the dispute-settlement mechanism was in development. It also was untrue to say that panellists never came from developing countries; especially in cases involving developing countries, one panellist almost always came from a developing country; and in fact panellists frequently came from such countries regardless of the nature of the dispute being adjudicated. In addition, dissenting opinions had emanated from such panels, contrary to what was claimed in the Subcommission report. It was true that developing countries initiated only a third of the disputes adjudicated by the WTO, but it also was true that their participation in world trade was correspondingly less.

Of course the dispute-settlement system could be improved. One intent of the system was to end unilateral actions in trade-related matters, or to reduce exercise of power in favour of the equality of States. The WTO Secretariat and WTO members were bound by international law; hence Member States must respect their human-rights obligations. When participants were interpreting WTO provisions, they were required to take all other rules of international law into account. WTO panels and WTO's appellate body, however, only had the institutional capacity to determine if WTO rules had been violated in the cases they considered.

JAYASHREE WATAL, also of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said a short paper had been provided by the WTO secretariat to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights so they could better understand the relationship between human rights and intellectual property rights. The WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) sought to strike a balance between incentives for future inventions and the short-term use of today's invention. TRIPS said the protection of intellectual property rights should contribute to innovation, and should be balanced with economic and social welfare. The TRIPS Agreement had a minimum rights agreement that gave States leeway to implement provisions. It was a matter of opinion whether the actual right balance had been achieved. The issues raised in the report of extending TRIPS to traditional practices or medicines were under review by the TRIPS Council, and several delegations had expressed their views. On access to medicines, WTO members had been engaged this year to ensure that TRIPS was part of the solution and not part of the problem in the public health crises in developing countries.

GRANT B. TAPLIN, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said that at the annual meeting held last autumn, the IMF's membership had redefined and refocused the Fund with the aim of promoting sustained non-inflationary economic growth that benefited all; making the Fund the centre of competence for stability of the international financial system; allowing it to work in complementary fashion with other institutions; and making it an open institution that adapted to changing circumstances. The Subcommission report lucidly set out a number of pertinent issues, and the IMF fully agreed that further debate and understanding were needed of the globalization process. The Special Rapporteurs also described the shift in the Fund to an emphasis on poverty reduction. Although the Special Rapporteurs were sceptical about this shift, it was indeed genuine, but it had to be added that little could be accomplished in defeating poverty in a context of basic macroeconomic imbalances -- high inflation, for example, was a fundamental obstacle.

The Special Rapporteur had contended that the IMF's new poverty agenda was a "thinly disguised conditionality which still failed to take on board a critical human rights perspective in its approach to the issue of debt reduction", but there was never any intent for the IMF to provide financial support on a non-conditional basis, since the Fund's rules did not permit that. As a human rights perspective with respect to debt reduction, the Fund, by its articles, was required to focus on the financial and macroeconomic dimensions of a country's policies. There was not, moreover, an agreed human rights perspective with respect to debt reduction. The Special Rapporteurs had perhaps misunderstood the discussion on debt sustainability undertaken by the Executive Boards of the Fund and the World Bank. In any case, the issue of debt sustainability was one that the staff was closely monitoring. One reason many countries had yet to be included in the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was that many were in civil conflict, in post-crisis rebuilding, and in arrears to the fund. The IMF hoped they would be in a position to benefit from the initiative soon.

In a strict sense, the Fund did not have a mandate to promote human rights and was not bound by various human rights declarations and conventions -- but that was too narrow a perspective, as the Fund's activities involved economic matters that were all critical for the empowerment of civil society and amounted to preconditions for the attainment of human rights in their broad sense, he said..

FISSEHA YIMER, Subcommission Expert, said this was the first time in many years that a representative of the International Monetary Fund came here and said human rights were not the concern of the Fund. Saying that before a human rights body was quite a surprise, even though the representative tempered his comments later on. It was quite blunt. The second section of the report on globalization was interesting. The problem was that some countries had not benefitted from this new development. The points made about intellectual property rights was important. There was a need to ensure that the pharmaceutical companies did not have the incentive of innovation taken away, but there was a need for a balance. There should be a renewed commitment to social activity. There was agreement that globalization did affect economic, social and cultural rights, and it was hoped that the updated report would contain elaborations on this.

YOZO YOKOTA, Subcommission Expert, said the report on globalization was rich, balanced, fair, and detailed, and engaged a number of pressing issues. Globalization had many faces -- economic, technological, social, cultural, and so on. One welcome aspect of globalization, it was worth noting, was the globalization of human rights -- the notion was being constantly expanded, and included now such concepts as the right to self-determination, the right to development, and the right to a peaceful life. One could only hope that this great achievement would continue.

The relationship between trade and financial regimes and human rights regimes was a vital issue. The two regimes should not, however, be compared on an equal footing. Human rights regimes were superior to trade and financial regimes. Human rights were peremptory norms -- they could not be ignored even by agreement between States, or in the operations of international financial institutions. No actions of these parties could justify violations of the human rights of people of the States concerned. Global trade and economic law must respect human rights -- there was no room for negotiation on this matter. He had thought this went without saying, but after hearing what the representative of the IMF had just stated, he was glad to make the point clearly.

It was vital to consider how multilateral international financial institutions could be used to promote human rights, capitalizing on their expertise in matters of economic growth and development.

EL-HADJI GUISSE, Subcommission Expert, said the drafters of the report should be congratulated, and it was hoped that they would continue their work. More focus should be made on international standards. Globalization would be a good thing if it made it possible for all individuals to enjoy all economic, social and cultural rights enshrined in international law. When the representative of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said the organization was not interested in human rights, it was almost an insult. But this was a forum. It should be said to the International Monetary Fund that the developing countries only represented 3 per cent international trade, and they did not need that much attention from the WTO. World trade should be respected regardless of the size of the country. The WTO was not interested in civil society -- domestic laws of its members did not interest it. The WTO was a rich man's club which aimed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Since its inception, it had done nothing to show it was interested in the poor and the developing countries. It only spoke of profit, and how to increase profit. It was true that many countries acceded to it, but they joined an organization which had no interest in them. They would realize no benefit. The statement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was also cause for worry. Since its inception in 1945, it had only served as a debt collector for the developed countries.

In South Africa, it was noted that the IMF and the World Bank withdrew from some extent to enable the rich to crush the poor more successfully. They did not participate in the new world economic order. They sacrificed the international community, and said to the United Nations that they were not interested in the laws that the United Nations created. They would be governed only by their own laws. They practised protectionism -- protecting an economy that was closed to the rest of the world. But the world was changing. The developing countries were saying no. They could be bound and gagged, but they would still say no. The Third World countries looked at these institutions as institutions which made their lives worse.

JOSE BENGOA, Subcommission Expert, said that in order to analyse globalization and its impact on human rights, a number of elements had to be considered; in many ways globalization was not a recent phenomenon; it went back as far as colonialism and the Industrial Revolution. He had more questions than he had answers, but if globalization was a new, distinct phenomenon having serious impact on human rights, there would be some apparent ruptures with the past.

And he did see some ruptures -- ruptures of local communities, for example; globalization stuck its nose into your personal life and into your culture; it destroyed local culture; it destroyed the basic ties which joined people. People had to rethink their identities. It was changing habitats and raising questions for the youth of developed and poor countries alike. It raised ambitions among the latter to migrate to developed countries. A second rupture was the breakdown of the nation State, which in part explained the mushrooming protest movement against globalization. The responsibilities of States, the weakening of their responsibilities and the increase in their vulnerabilities were having telling consequences -- globalization was leaving the citizens of poor countries exposed to serious and damaging forces. Another rupture was the breakdown of prevailing multi polarity in the international order -- now there was the domination of the United States. Protectionism was being applied by the United States and to some extent by Western Europe, for example, against the exports of developing countries.

A serious problem with globalization was that it was not equitable globalization, Mr. Bengoa said. So far the system was not fair. Citizen participation in globalization clearly was vital for correcting the balance -- what everyone was seeing on television was not citizen participation but protest. The Subcommission should consider how to empower citizens to participate in globalization.

ASBJORN EIDE, Subcommission Expert, said Mr. Yokota said he welcomed the globalization of human rights. But there was a difference between the universalization of human rights, and economic globalization. The universalization of human rights was about all States respecting human rights, while economic globalization was about developing global markets.

With the World Trade Organization, it was interesting and encouraging that its officials were open for a dialogue. They pointed out that as an intergovernmental organization, they were bound by international human rights law. They also said human rights laws were taken into account. They opened up for a dialogue. With the International Monetary Fund, it appeared at this stage that no dialogue was possible. There was no doubt that the Member States of the IMF were bound by human rights law. Hopefully, a dialogue would evolve in the future. States that were members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) had the obligation to respect, protect and fulfil economic and social rights, including in the areas of health, education, water, and sanitation. There could be the risk that States could divest their responsibility to international service providers, who might not have the same social consciousness as the States.

Concerning intellectual property rights, the comments of the WTO were most welcome. Even though there could be disagreement with some of the points, at least there was a growing recognition that intellectual property rights affected human rights. The existence and scope of intellectual property rights as a human rights was not necessarily congruent in domestic legislation. Different countries had different scopes in their laws. Saying that something was an intellectual property right did not necessarily make it a human right -- it had to fit into the scope of human rights.

The High Commissioner's Office was called on to have observer status with the WTO with regard to the implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). In addition, the Commission was called upon to request the High Commissioner to hold an expert seminar on the TRIPS Agreement.

PAULO SERGIO PINHEIRO, Subcommission Expert, said the International Monetary Fund representative had made an extraordinary statement; he wondered if this observer could elaborate a little further so that the Subcommission could know the foundations for this splendid isolation of the IMF within the world of international organizations. This debate should be shared through the summary records of the Subcommission with the Commission on Human Rights and with the High Commissioner for Human Rights so that everyone could benefit from this bold and intriguing doctrine of the IMF on human rights. Perhaps a real and valuable dialogue would result.

IULIA ANTOANELLA MOTOC, Subcommission Expert, said there was a problem with the title of the report. Given the scope of the problem, the experts were only able to discuss intergovernmental institutions. How could the Subcommittee continue working on globalization in other aspects? Another important problem was the crisis of legitimacy, in which the international economic agencies found themselves. The time had come to see how the human rights bodies could help give them greater legitimacy. How could the Subcommission ensure greater participation between the dialogue between these institutions and the protestors on the street? The Subcommission had said human rights law had to be respected. The World Trade Organization could take stands against torture and against massive human rights violations. If these international bodies were prepared to accept the indivisibility of human rights, were they prepared to adopt policies to this end? Economic, social and cultural rights were the majority of rights that these institutions saw.

A lot of academics said States did not even realize what they were buying into when they agreed to the TRIPS Agreement. It was a technical matter, and the Subcommission should focus on the role of TRIPS because it was going to play a large part of the world economy. The Bretton Woods institutions should be told that there was a human rights framework, and they must respect it. The European Union, after many years, had finally adopted a charter on human rights. There was a Court of Justice which said there was a code of human rights that had to be enforced. Could the Subcommission propose that there be social and economic councils attached to these agencies, and to ensure that there be civil society representatives on these councils? It was very important for the Subcommission to realize what its role was.

FRIED VAN HOOF, Subcommission Expert, said he aligned himself with the statements of Mr. Eide and Mr. Yokota. There should be a constructive dialogue with the other players in the field, but that required that everyone understand everyone else; it was clear that the Subcommission had obligations in this respect, that it must learn more about international economics and such matters as TRIPS.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), he felt, was in fact bound by human rights standards; yet it was worth noting that the IMF had its own perspective and its own rules, and that the statement presented by its representative was well-reasoned and cogent. As part of such a constructive dialogue, the Subcommission needed to work out and elaborate the various obligations contained in the major human rights instruments and illustrate how they might apply to the international financial institutions. It was likely that how these instruments applied to the IMF might be different than how they applied, for example, to the World Trade Organization.

YEUNG KAM YEUNG SIK YUEN, Subcommission Expert, said the study before the Subcommission was brilliant, and the authors should be commended. There should be more emphasis on the human development aspect, and less on the market-orientated aspect of globalization. This wish joined the stand of one of the speakers of one of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) this morning, who put himself in the shoes of the demonstrators in Genoa. He talked to the university student who could not afford school. Everybody wanted to move quickly, and privatization helped move things fast. But was the price that was being paid the right price? There was a plethora of multilateral agencies looking after specific aspects of human activities. Perhaps specialization was a good thing, and those institutions, maybe, should focus on a special field of activity. But while focusing on a specific field, they could not become ignorant institutions. It must be remembered that the primacy of human rights was always there. All institutions had to act in a way in which human rights were respected, promoted and fulfilled. Everyone painted their own picture, but the frame remained human rights. The frame was already there.

ALONSO GOMEZ-ROBLEDO VERDUZCO, Subcommission Alternate Expert, said the report on globalization had deservedly incited a number of reactions. He agreed that globalization was a political phenomenon and that it was necessary to determine whom it benefited and whom it left out. Developing countries, it seemed to him, saw little of the bright side of globalization.

It was clear that discussion was needed on how to lay responsibility effectively on the shoulders of the international financial organizations; to do that it was necessary to find a way to do so under international law, and it was not apparent that this could be done based on a strictly legal standpoint. Perhaps a framework agreement should be concluded with States to that effect. Although it sounded like a pipe-dream, it might be possible if enough international opinion was brought to bear over time.

ERICA-IRENE DAES, Subcommission Expert, said the authors of the report should be congratulated. It reflected in a clear manner so many of the most important and complex issues facing the international community. Indigenous peoples today stood at the crossroads of globalization. They did not accept the assumption that the world would benefit from world consumerism. Over the last 500 years, they had learned to believe that a culture of consumerism would result in certain peoples being left behind. The Earth Summit of 1992 was not able to agree on any major initiative because the rich countries did not want anything that would lead to higher prices. In Southeast Asia, where most of the indigenous people of the world lived, flows of private dollars had been invested there. This growth had made many people in the North very rich, but it had come at the expense of the well-being of the people who lived in the area. Nothing seemed to have been learned from the large-scale development projects of the 1960s and 1970s which proved to be environmentally unsound. The very existence of the world indigenous movement was a product of globalization. In Canada, the was an indigenous people' television network, and there were other undertakings worldwide. They were using the products of globalization to tell the world of the dark side of globalization, namely reckless consumption. Globalization created a global market for ideas. Indigenous peoples were rich in ideas -- that was traditionally their main form of capital.