Bob Kolasky is the managing editor of IntellectualCapital.com. His e-mail address is bob@voxcap.com

"For those who came here to peacefully make their point, I welcome them here because I want them to be integrated into the longer-term debate ... For those who came here to break windows and hurt small business or stop people from going to meetings or having their say, I condemn them." -- President Bill Clinton, 12/1/99

SEATTLE, Dec. 2 -- Some semblance of order, albeit one enforced by a heavy police presence with a zero-tolerance for civil disobedience, has put the World Trade Organization talks back on track. For the most part, the tens of thousands of protestors, some of them rampaging through the city on Tuesday, decided, 24 hours later, to stay out of harm's way. With good reason: despite the relatively small number of protestors, arrests were running 10 times greater than the day before. Now, the delegates from 135 countries assembled in Seattle are actually doing what they came here to do -- discuss the future of the WTO.

The lingering question remains, however: Will Tuesday's protests change the substance of the talks?

Inside the negotiations

One of the reasons so many anti-WTOers had wanted to shut down the ministerial conference was because they feared what those at the meeting would decide. Wednesday offered some evidence that those fears were justified. One of the first major policy changes emerged: the European Union is reversing its opposition to the establishment of a WTO biotechnology working group.

Decisions such as these are precisely what galls many of the protestors who took to the streets on Tuesday. One of the main complaints to the fallout from globalization and the expansion of the world trading order is that it is leading to the increased use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food products -- or "franken food" as some of the protestors' placards described it. European leaders, and many consumers, too, have been stalwart in their objections to the use of GMOs. Yet, here is a decision, made on the first day of the WTO, that seems to ease ministers' objections and acquiesce to the more biotechnology-friendly North and South American countries, led by the United States.

Environmental and consumer groups -- who make up many of those protesting the WTO -- see such a working group as the first step toward making biotechnology an economic issue rather than an health issue. They worry that if such a group is established in the WTO then the so-called Biosafety Protocol (the international environmental treaty that has jurisdiction over trade in biotech products) will be undermined.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), one the leading progressives in the U.S.Congress and an outspoken proponent of food safety, expressed a concern common to WTO working groups. "What worries me is the 'preposition' associated with the working group," Kucinich said at an Environmental Media Services (EMS) briefing yesterday. "Are these groups working for us, working on us, or working us over?"

One environmental group especially dismayed by the EU move is Friends of the Earth. "Bringing the issue within the remit of the WTO could allow the U.S. and biotech companies to pressure government for free access of genetically-modified food and crops to their markets," decried a statement from the group.

David Byrne, the European commissioner for health and consumer protection, defended Europe's shift in position, however. At the EMS briefing, he said, "We believe that there could be room for a fact-finding exercise in the WTO, designed to address the full range of biotech-related issues." He argued that the EU was conceding nothing: "We reject requests to deal with biotech exclusively on trade grounds.¿We reject any attempt to derail, divert or delay the biosafety talks."

A crude deal?

The establishment of the biotech working group, if it occurs as expected, is a perfect case study for two different sides of the anti-WTO debate. On one side are those who have gotten the large share of the media attention this week and who are demanding that the WTO be disbanded; on the other are those who, while not enamored with the trade-regulating body, feel that it is reform not rejection of the WTO that is necessary.

Environmentalists are clearly not happy that the EU has changed its position. But some hope the working group won't end in complete disaster. Cameron Griffith, the director of federal relations at the Consumer's Choice Council, told me that he was impressed by Byrne's strong reiteration of European principle regarding the potential working group.

Biotechnology in foods is an issue where there is a clear divergence in public opinion between the United States and most of the rest of the world. So far, Americans seem largely to be unaware and unconcerned about the potential for food safety issues in bio-engineered products. Much of the rest of the world clearly sees it as a huge problem. Dr.Mae Wan Ho, a scientist studying the issue, spoke with Kucinich and Byrne at the EMS briefing. He described how much of the world outside the US views GMOs. They are "crude, unreliable and unpredictable," she said. "They cause viruses, potentially cause cancer, screw with the ecology and are inherently unstable," she added.

But in the United States, those concerns have been largely marginalized. As President Clinton said yesterday at a speech at the Port of Seattle, he considers agriculture-biotechnology a promising advancement, if based on sound science. Just the position that is anathema to GMO-critics.

You are what you eat

So here's a chance for the WTO to prove its environmental critics wrong. Those critics argue that the global trading system puts market concerns in front of all others. If biotechnology is dealt with in the WTO, they fear, then the lowest common denominator of environmental safety will be promoted. "The WTO is structurally biased against precautionary action," writes Ralph Nader in yesterday's World Trade Observer. He fears that if the WTO is involved with GMOs then the proper safety steps will not be taken.

There is a counter-argument, however. Perhaps the global opinion on biotechnology expressed via the WTO will actually cause Americans and the American government to change their minds. If so, then maybe environmentalists and consumer advocates will rethink some of their objections surrounding the World Trade Organization.

Kucinich certainly hopes that something causes Americans to take food safety more seriously. "If we are what we eat, we must know what's in our food, so that we will know what we will become," he says.

For more on the Battle in Seattle, visit VoxCap.com's Globalization Action Center.