WTO Confidential Memo

World Trade Organization Secretariat
November 12, 2001

This confidential memo from the World Trade Organization Secretariat shows, that after a series of secret meetings with top business executives, European trade negotiators accepted the corporate position on a key provision in the General Agreement on Trade in Services. That provision, known as the "necessity test," would undermine national environmental and labor laws, according to free trade critics. The confidential document was not supposed to be leaked to executives. For a full look at the secret meetings and their global implications see Greg Palast's special investigative report for CorpWatch: The WTO's Hidden Agenda.

WTO Confidential Memo in PDF format, March 19, 2001 (4MB)