Make Trade Fair: Our Human Rights Can't be traded

The time remaining befre the WTO ministerial affords the people at the grassroots level to have a say on the issues affecting their human rights and their livelihood.

The fifth World Trade Organization's Hong Kong Ministerial will take place in December 2005, where vital TRADE issues/agreements will be decided. The time prior the ministerial affords us the opportunity as the citizens to influence our WTO ministerial not to sign for issues that affects our human rights and that exacerbate the level of poverty in our country and other developing nations.

The WTO has implemented agreements that have had a negative impact on people's human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other Human Rights instrument such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and cultural rights e.g. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that allows the multinational companies the right to patent access to live saving drugs like ARVs (aids DRUGS) for people living with HIV/AIDS, this agreement violates the people's right to health, the Agreement on Agriculture that benefit the developed countries yet violating people in developing countries the right to food and adequate standard of living by allowing the developed nations (e.g. The US and EU) to continue subsidizing their exports flooding the domestic markets of developing nations such as South Africa and therefore resulting in job loses and poverty.

Another agreement that has had a negative effect on the livelihood of the people is the General Agreements of Trade on Service, privatizing essential human needs such as health, water, education and technology thereby increasing the level of poverty and inaccessibility to essential services.

Sign this petition and mandate of government not to sign for any agreement that will negatively affect our human rights as the citizens of the developing nation.

On the upcoming Hong Kong Ministerial the delegation will sign for the new agreement that was put forward by developed nations called the JULY FRAMEWORK, that will give more power to emerged economies to continue to bully the developing nations and to increase subsidies of imported goods in South Africa and thereby causing more job loses and poverty, making our farmers uncompetitive as a result of cheap imported goods that are less than our domestic cost of production.

SIGN FOR FAIR TRADE AND STOP TRADE LIBERALIZATION THAT BENEFIT THE RICH WHILE THE POOR SUFFER.