[bestbits] Argentina bars NGOs, civil society from attending WTO conference

[Norbert Bollow]

Further to this topic of civil society disaccreditation for the WTO
Ministerial... here's a TV interview which puts these developments into
context, with an IMO quite brilliant explanation (by Deborah James) of
what is going on at the WTO and why this issue of disaccreditation
matters so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR5solRTa8A

(Also see the Our World Is Not For Sale website
http://ourworldisnotforsale.net )

Nota bene, this disaccreditation issue in not about civil society being
blocked from formal participation in the substantive discourse (that
was never possible at WTO in the first place, see the Call for Openness
and Transparency in Rulemaking for the Internet in regard to that:
wto-ic.justnetcoalition.org ), but about civil society being even
denied the opportunity to meet with the decision-makers.

This is as if citizens and civil society organizations were suddenly
denied all opportunities for meeting with members of parliament, for
reasons that citizens and civil society organizations have interests
and concerns which are at odds with those of multinational corporations!

Greetings,
Norbert





On Fri, 1 Dec 2017 14:41:57 +0100
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 15:28:49 -0300
> Renata Aquino Ribeiro <raquino at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > A list of a few of the 31 denied accreditation is here
> > 
> > http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/in-a-bizarre-move-argentina-bars-ngos-civil-society-from-attending-wto-conference-59254
> > 
> > Apparently the number keeps going up and could have doubled
> > already  
> 
> Indeed. The “Our World is not for Sale” (OWINFS) network is reporting
> that they know of 63 civil society folks who had already been
> accredited by WTO, but who are now rejected by Argentia.
> 
> http://ourworldisnotforsale.net/
> 
> Greetings,
> Norbert