Susan George (France) is the Associate Director of the Transnational Institute and is active in TNI's Global Economy Program. She holds degrees from Smith College, the Sorbonne and the University of Paris. She is active in the International Forum on Globalization and Jubilee 2000, whose aim is to eliminate the debt of the poorest countries. She has advised and worked with environmental and development NGO's in many countries. She gives lectures and press interviews worldwide, and her writings are translated into a dozen languages.

David Korten (U.S.) is a best-selling author whose books and lectures have made an invaluable contribution to raising public awareness of the dangers of the expansion of corporate power. His most recent titles are When Corporations Rule the World and The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism. He is the chair of the Positive Futures Network and publisher of Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures.

[Mark Ritchie (U.S.) joined the panel since David Korten was unable to appear for health reasons. A member of the International Forum on Globalization's Board of Directors, Mark Ritchie is the President and Globalization and Global Governance Program Director of Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The IATP was established in 1986 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organziation to create environmentally and economically sustainable communities and regions through sound agriculture and trade policy.]

Alice Slater (U.S.) is President of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) and a founder of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. She is a Board member of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security and a United Nations NGO representative. She has organized numerous UN conferences on nuclear and environmental issues and has spoken frequently at meetings and conferences worldwide. She has been widely interviewed by the news media and published in numerous periodicals.

Steven Staples (Canada) is the British Columbia Organizer for the Council of Canadians, a national citizens group dedicated to promoting democracy and fair trade. He is a board member of End the Arms Race, BC's largest peace and disarmament group. In May at the Hague Appeal for Peace, Steve helped to found the International Network on Disarmament and Globalization, a network of activists formed to address the relationship between globalization and militarism.

Martin Fleck (U.S.) Moderator, is the Director of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and a co-founder of the Northwest Disarmament Coalition. Founded in 1992, the NWDC coordinates the nuclear disarmament activities in the Pacific Northwest of fifteen member organizations, many of them affiliates of U.S. national or international organizations.

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Program

WTO and the Global War System
November 28, 1999

Welcome and Introduction
by moderator Martin Fleck
Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

Speakers

Susan George,
Transnational Institute, France

David Korten,
author of When Corporations Rule the World, USA

Alice Slater,
Abolition 2000,
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE),USA

Steven Staples,
International Network on
Disarmament and Globalization, Canada

Question and Answer Session and Discussion

This forum will examine how the World Trade Organization's pattern of economic globalization undermines security, creates conflict and promotes militarism. An international panel of four speakers will explain how WTO trade agreements endanger the social programs, public services and environmental regulations that are vital to survival and quality of life in the modern world.

Internal police forces, armies and weapons are exempted from WTO trade restrictions for "national security" reasons. Billions of dollars of public moneys are slashed from social programs and freely spent on militaries and invested in manufacturing new weapons. Unrestricted and highly profitable arms sales result, giving rise to the Global War System and undermining democracy.

The speakers will describe how this dangerous trend away from respect for human rights, legal obligations and diplomacy is also reviving the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. One key cause of this dangerous trend is the United States' failure to honor its legal obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to work to eliminate nuclear arsenals worldwide.

The forum will focus on the threat that the Global War System poses to our survival, the obligation of citizens to confront it and opportunities for Non Governmental Organizations to promote alternatives to it. The forum is free and open to the public, donations welcome. There will be ample time for discussion.