In this section, I analyze actions by the secretariats of the FAO, WFP and OHCHR intended to influence decision-making at the GATT/WTO. Despite these three IOs varying considerably in mandates, functions, and their focality in the regime complex for food security, their secretariats each chose to intervene at the GATT/WTO in an effort to alter a decision they expected would worsen world food security.
5.1 The FAO mobilizes GATT members
The first case demonstrates intervention by the FAO secretariat during the GATT Uruguay Round (1986–1994) of trade negotiations, which created the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. FAO officials were motivated to intervene due to their concern that proposed new agricultural trade rules would exacerbate hunger in developing countries. They mobilized and steered a group of GATT members to channel new trade rules intended to protect food security onto the negotiating table.
The FAO was established in 1945 and mandated to end world hunger by improving agriculture production in developing countries and coordinating the world’s food resources. Its mission to end hunger continues to strongly shape the FAO’s organizational culture, especially the identity and professional values of its staff (Christoffersen et al.
2008). Over the course of its history, the FAO has had several highly activist Director-Generals, who transformed the organization from a technical body into a vocal advocate for the world’s hungry (Shaw
2007). During the tenure of Director-General Edouard Saouma (1976–1993), which corresponds to the period analyzed in this case study and who was known for his activist and confrontational leadership style, the FAO championed the interests of the Third World (Shaw
2007) and launched major policy initiatives without prior consultation or the full consent of the FAO membership (Davies
2013). The FAO secretariat has had a longstanding cooperative relationship with the GATT/WTO and holds observer status.
Launched in 1986, the Uruguay Round was intended to liberalize trade in agriculture and food, with states negotiating the new WTO Agreement on Agriculture that would set out the rules governing international agricultural trade. The FAO secretariat was a vocal supporter of the Uruguay Round, having long argued that the US and European Union’s (EU) protectionist farm policies distorted the international market for agricultural trade (FAO
1986). The expert consensus was that reform of rich country farm subsidies would greatly improve global economic welfare: it was projected that taxpayers in rich countries would receive a $200 billion “financial dividend” from cutting farm subsidies and developing countries would earn an additional $900 million in farm exports (World Bank
1986).
However, while the FAO secretariat supported subsidy reform, as the negotiations progressed, it became increasingly concerned about the potential negative effects for food security.
5 FAO studies estimated that the proposals at the GATT to cut rich country farm subsidies would increase world food prices, resulting in a 20% rise in the food import bills of net-food importing developing countries (NFIDCs) and reduced food consumption among poor households (FAO
1987). NFIDCs depended on cheap, subsidized imports of staple foods, such as wheat, from rich countries and were therefore expected to be the major losers from the negotiations. While a large portion of the GATT’s membership – 90 out of 123 members – were NFIDCs, they were weak actors in the negotiations. The most powerful players – the US and EU – dominated the negotiating agenda and proposal development process (Steinberg
2002). Most NFIDCs lacked full-time representation in Geneva and the technical capacity to effectively participate in the negotiations (Narlikar
2003). Moreover, their diverse economic interests and lack of political unity rendered them “incapable of articulating a common line, much less of pursuing it aggressively from a position of strength” (Walch
2003:170). As a result, the NFIDCs lacked a coherent negotiating strategy and instead focused on making broad political statements, such as that the agriculture negotiations were a threat to their national sovereignty and political stability, rather than submitting concrete bargaining proposals, which is essential to engage effectively in multilateral trade negotiations (Narlikar
2003:150–153).
Senior FAO officials felt, what they described as, “a professional and moral responsibility” to take a more active role to protect the food security interests of NFIDCs at the GATT.
6 However, its official observer status stipulated that the FAO secretariat was bound to remain neutral and not take any action that could “prejudice the negotiation positions of GATT member states” (GATT
1987:5). Indeed, the FAO had been explicitly warned against interfering by certain powerful GATT members, notably the US, EU, Canada and Australia, who communicated that it would be “inappropriate” and “exceed the FAO’s mandate” for the organization to involve itself in sensitive trade negotiations among sovereign states (FAO
1987:45). Rich countries were dissatisfied with the FAO’s activist leadership and FAO officials took the warning seriously given that these states had already threatened to cut the FAO’s budget and exit the organization (Lall
2017; Knill et al.
2018). Despite the risk of backlash, however, the FAO secretariat choose to insert itself into the politics of decision-making at the GATT. This was initiated by the FAO secretariat without any request or direction from its member states. Senior FAO mangers discussed the matter internally and, with the approval of the FAO Director-General, made protecting the food security of NFIDCs at the GATT a top priority (FAO
1991:521–22).
The FAO secretariat chose a pragmatic course of action – its involvement at the GATT would be strictly behind the scenes in order to avoid a direct confrontation with rich countries. FAO officials concentrated their efforts on using the organization’s resources to strengthen the bargaining capacity and effectiveness of NFIDCs. To facilitate this, the FAO permanently stationed staff in Geneva to take on the role of coordinating the work of NFIDC trade negotiators. FAO officials organized and led strategy sessions for NFIDC trade negotiators, at which FAO officials presented econometric analyses of the impact of rich countries’ proposals and proposed solutions to address the potential problem of higher food import bills (FAO
1993a). NFIDC trade negotiators welcomed the FAO’s involvement, knowing this would enhance their bargaining capacity given their weak position at the GATT.
7 The FAO went beyond merely providing technical assistance to NFIDC trade negotiators to steering their strategy in the negotiations. For example, in the lead up to the 1988 GATT Ministerial Conference, FAO officials persuaded NFIDC trade negotiators to present the problem of higher future food prices as a balance of payment problem and to demand new multilateral financing to address this problem. This framing proved successful in convincing trade ministers to put the issue of NFIDC food import bills on the agenda of the agriculture negotiations (GATT
1988).
In spring 1989, the GATT agriculture negotiations shifted into a critical stage of bargaining focused on finalizing the design of the Agreement on Agriculture. Proposals put forward by rich countries, however, did little to address NFIDC and FAO officials’ concerns about the risks to food security (GATT
1989). By this point, for over two years, NFIDC trade negotiators had failed to produce a bargaining proposal of their own due to internal divisions and the lack of technical capacity (Walch
2003; Narlikar
2003). Troubled that NFIDCs were floundering in the agriculture negotiations, FAO officials stepped in to lead the development of a bargaining proposal. FAO officials formulated a proposal containing pro-food security trade rules and presented this strategy to NFIDC trade negotiators.
8 This included demands for additional food aid, monetary compensation, support for agricultural research and infrastructure, and the creation of a new multilateral fund to offset the costs of higher food import bills. Many of the FAO’s proposed solutions reflected long-held policy preferences of senior FAO officials; for example, the proposal for a new multilateral fund had been advocated earlier by Saouma in 1979 as part of his failed Food Security Assistance Scheme (FAO
1979). NFIDC trade negotiators deferred to FAO officials to hold the pen and draft the bargaining proposal. In interviews, FAO officials described this active role as “inevitable” and NFIDC trade negotiators stated that it “made sense for [FAO officials] to do the drafting of the bargaining proposal” due to their in-depth knowledge of agricultural trade policy.
9
As a result of the FAO’s involvement, the NFIDCs tabled their first bargaining proposal at the GATT in November 1989 (GATT
1989). The proposal was notable for its technical sophistication, which included a new methodology for measuring the negative impacts of trade reforms on food security using historical trade data compiled by the FAO. The 1989 NFIDC proposal – conceived and written by FAO officials – became the basis for negotiations on rules to address food import bills at the GATT. FAO officials subsequently led the drafting of two additional NFIDC proposals to further elaborate how to operationalize the measures proposed to offset the costs of higher food import bills (GATT
1990b,
1990a). The NFIDC proposals proved highly significant, as most of the provisions formulated by FAO officials were eventually accepted by rich countries and incorporated into the WTO Agreement on Agriculture as the
Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries (FAO
1993b:2–3; WTO
1994).
The FAO secretariat acted in a self-directed manner in choosing to insert itself into the politics of decision-making at the GATT. It did so by mobilizing NFIDC trade negotiators and leading them in formulating a bargaining strategy and drafting negotiating proposals. Only under the FAO’s guidance did the NFIDCs become an effective negotiating bloc at the GATT. There is no evidence to suggest that FAO officials were instructed formally by the FAO’s member states to mobilize NFIDCs at the GATT or lead them in developing their negotiating position and proposals. Any such instructions would not only have raised objections by rich countries, but also would have been grounds for the FAO to be stripped of its observer status to the GATT. FAO officials chose to intervene in the GATT negotiations despite clear signals from rich countries that doing so could result in backlash. Driven by its mission to end hunger, the FAO secretariat intervened of its own accord due to concerns that new disciplines on agricultural subsidies would worsen food insecurity in import-dependent developing countries. Importantly, FAO officials were not seeking to increase their resources or expand their own organization’s mandate at the expense of the GATT/WTO; their intervention was not designed to have these effects, nor did it. Instead, by working with and through NFIDC trade negotiators, the FAO secretariat intervened in GATT negotiations in an effort to shape the design of global trade rules to protect world food security.
5.2 The WFP publicly shames WTO members
The second case analyzes intervention by the WFP secretariat at the WTO using the strategy of public shaming. The WFP is a humanitarian agency that coordinates and delivers international food aid in emergency situations, feeding approximately 90 million people annually at risk of malnutrition and starvation. It has observer status at the WTO, and WFP officials represent the organization at WTO committee meetings and have discretion to convey the organization’s views to WTO member state representatives. The WFP secretariat routinely cooperates with the WTO secretariat by providing information and statistics on food aid volumes to inform technical work and negotiations.
The WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture includes rules to prevent the misuse of food aid as a hidden agricultural export subsidy. These rules became subject to renegotiation with the launch of the Doha Round in 2001. Competing agricultural exporters, such as the EU, Canada, Australia, Argentina and Brazil viewed the negotiations as an opportunity to discipline the US Food for Peace Program, which requires the American government to provide the majority of its international food aid in the form of domestically-produced agricultural commodities that are processed, bagged and transported by US-based firms. This US food aid policy has long been critiqued for giving American grain exporters an unfair trade advantage and became a “bargaining chip” in the highly politicized Doha negotiations (Clapp
2015:129). There was wide support among WTO members to discipline US food aid by imposing new rules that would prohibit “in-kind” food aid and allow governments to provide food aid only in the form of cash donations, which is the practice of most donors.
WFP officials closely monitored the negotiations. In principle, the WFP preferred donations of cash rather than in-kind commodities, because the former is a more efficient and cost-effective mode of procuring and transporting food aid in emergency situations (Shaw
2007). However, WFP officials were alarmed by the humanitarian implications of the WTO’s proposed new food aid rules, which they feared would significantly cut the supply of international food aid without any assurance to make up the shortfall with other resources.
10 The US is the single largest food aid donor, and the WFP estimated that the proposed WTO rules would result in a 25% drop in food aid donations.
11 The prospect that new WTO rules could induce a massive reduction of food aid concerned the WFP senior leadership, especially given that donations had already fallen in 2004 by nearly 40%, leaving the organization struggling to meet the needs of a growing number of humanitarian emergencies around the world (Clay 2006). WFP officials were also concerned that the proposed rules would undermine their efforts to attract donations from new middle-income donors, who, due to their lower level of economic development, were more likely to provide in-kind food aid rather than cash donations (WFP
2005a). The WFP’s Executive Director, James Morris, summed up the organization’s position at the time as follows, “[t]he issue for WFP is simple. We need more resources – cash and food – to feed the growing number of hungry, seriously at-risk people” (WFP
2005a).
The WFP’s Geneva-based officials communicated their organization’s concerns about the proposed rules in a series of bilateral meetings with WTO member state representatives. In addition, the organization held a series of high-level briefings with WTO representatives, including flying in the WFP Executive Director from Rome to make the case for rethinking the proposed food aid rules. At a meeting held in May 2005, Morris told WTO members that he supported the goals of trade liberalization and was not there to tell them “what kind of disciplines you should place on food aid from a commercial perspective” but that as the WFP Executive Director he had a mandate to prevent any unintended consequences that could impede the fight against hunger (WFP
2005b). The WFP offered to work with WTO members to help them design food aid disciplines to create “a firewall between commercial food transactions and food aid” and achieve a “win-win” solution; however, Morris stressed that the WFP was “absolutely opposed” to any WTO rules that would discourage donations of commodities by new and traditional donors and potentially cut off hungry people from life-saving food aid, which the WFP warned “would be both a moral and public relations disaster for the WTO” (WFP
2005a:2,6).
However, while some WTO member state representatives privately acknowledged that the proposed rules could negatively affect food aid supply, the political dynamics of the negotiations were such that the EU and Canada refused to reduce their own agricultural export subsidies – a key goal of the negotiations – without concessions from the US on food aid (WTO
2005:8). Seeking a political end game to the agricultural negotiations, the draft agriculture agreement submitted to trade ministers for approval at the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial thus included the proposed rules banning in-kind food aid.
At this point, Morris and other senior WFP officials recognized that they had failed to persuade WTO members to change track on the proposed food aid rules.
12 WFP officials believed that if trade ministers approved the proposed rules it would have disastrous consequences for world food security. Having exhausted all other alternatives, the WFP took the extraordinary step of publishing an advertisement in the
Financial Times on the opening day of the 2005 WTO Ministerial. Emblazoned with the title “Will WTO’s negotiators take the food out of their mouths?”, the WFP advertisement depicted four starving children followed by the message: “Trade reform is good, but restrictions on donations of food aid to the United Nations could leave these children hungry. Sadly, millions who rely on food aid to survive have no voice at the negotiating table in the Doha Round. Who will fight for them?” (WFP
2005c).
The WFP’s message was unmistakable – WTO members were depicted as recklessly endangering the lives of vulnerable and hungry people. The WFP employed a strategy of public shaming in the hope that going public with its concerns, and exercising its moral authority as the UN agency charged with feeding the world’s hungry, would trigger public outrage and pressure WTO member states to change course.
13 The advertisement ignited international controversy as the world’s media ran with coverage that the UN was claiming the WTO wanted to starve millions of innocent children (Clapp
2015). The WFP’s claims were a public relations disaster for the WTO and seen to reinforce the perception that trade was skewed against the interests of the global poor.
The efforts by senior WFP officials to alter food aid rules at the WTO were self-initiated; they did not consult the WFP’s Executive Board or receive any direction from states prior to taking action.
14 On the contrary, most of the WFP’s Executive Board members and largest donors – including the EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – supported the WTO prohibition on in-kind food aid and would have likely taken action to stop the WFP secretariat from intervening had they been aware of its plans to publish the advertisement. Instead, Morris exercised his discretion as head of the WFP to insert the organization into the politics of decision-making at the WTO. Trade ministers attending the 2005 Ministerial had no advance warning about the WFP’s advertisement and were caught off guard by the controversy it generated (Heri and Häberli
2011). Indeed, many trade ministers were incensed at the WFP for so publicly and directly “lobbying on a sensitive WTO negotiating issue” (Khor
2005). The EU, for instance, the WFP’s second largest donor, condemned the WFP’s actions as “shocking” (Mandleson and Fisher Boel
2005).
The WFP’s intervention at the WTO was primarily driven by the principled beliefs of its staff and the mission of the organization to feed the hungry and avoid the preventable loss of life. Its actions cannot be explained simply as self-interested: while the proposed trade rules would have decreased the supply of international food aid, this would have been of no consequence to the WFP’s authority, survival or budget, which is financed through voluntary financial contributions from states, not through in-kind food aid.
15 The choice to publicly shame the WTO was a calculated risk by the WFP secretariat, who were acutely aware that vilifying WTO members was not only controversial, but a highly political act that could harm the economic interests of powerful states. In fact, the EU later blocked Morris’ reappointment for a second term as WFP Executive Director, in a move widely regarded as retaliation for his intervention at the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial.
16 Nevertheless, however, when the WTO finally agreed to new rules on export subsidies in the 2015 Ministerial Decision on Export Competition, the rules did not prohibit in-kind food aid.
5.3 The OHCHR invokes international human rights law
The third case analyzes intervention by the OHCHR based on invoking an alternative legal framework. The High Commissioner for Human Rights is the UN’s senior human rights official, responsible for promoting human rights, implementing and monitoring states’ human rights obligations, and managing a secretariat, the OHCHR (UN
1994). The High Commissioner straddles many roles, including manager, politician, diplomat, norm generator, and “moral conscience” for the world (Gaer and Broecker
2013). While the office lacks judicial enforcement powers and is severely underfunded, the High Commissioner enjoys significant discretion and independence due to an ambiguous, open-ended mandate and the moral authority associated with the position (Seiderman
2019). Following the 1996 World Food Summit, at which states tasked the OHCHR to clarify their obligations in regard to the right to food under international human rights law, a number of international legal instruments were established to protect the right to food, which have encouraged issue-linkage between human rights and food security.
17 Within the regime complex for food security, the OHCHR diffuses the norm of food as a human right, leads human rights “mainstreaming” across the UN system, Bretton Woods institutions and regional organizations, and monitors the coherence of states’ policies with their commitments under human rights treaties. Unlike the FAO and WFP, the OHCHR does not have observer status at the WTO; however, it has a team in its Special Procedures and Right to Development Division that monitors developments at the WTO and cooperates with the WTO secretariat on an ad hoc basis.
18
Following the launch of the Doha Round agriculture negotiations in 2001, OHCHR officials expressed concerns that the negotiation of agricultural trade rules failed to “take sufficient account of the food security of the poor and vulnerable such as poor farmers and farm workers” (OHCHR
2002b:para. 57). This focus on the plight of poor populations was consistent with the OHCHR’s organizational culture and the foundational norm of the human rights regime – protecting the rights of vulnerable groups. Then High Commissioner Mary Robinson decided to seek to use her authority to put the right to food onto the WTO’s negotiating agenda (OHCHR
2002a).
19 However, since the OHCHR lacked observer status to the WTO, Robinson did not have the right to address WTO members at meetings of the WTO General Council or its other decision-making bodies. Doing so would require a formal invitation approved by the entire WTO membership, which would have been blocked by the US, for whom Robinson was persona non grata after naming and shaming the Bush administration for its use of torture in the “war on terror”.
20
Instead, in 2002, the High Commissioner chose to issue a report examining the human rights implications of agricultural trade liberalization. Reports issued by the High Commissioner differ substantially from those commonly produced by IOs in that their primary purpose is not to communicate information but to put forward formal recommendation to states that, under the procedures of the Commission on Human Rights, must be debated and voted on (Gaer and Broecker
2013). Such reports also carry considerable moral authority, as they are the main mechanism through which the High Commissioner alerts the international community to important and pressing human rights issues, and are therefore taken seriously by states, as well as NGOs and other human rights bodies (Hannum
2006). The High Commissioner was cognizant that her decision to publish a report on the agricultural trade negotiations at the WTO could prompt a backlash from states. It was highly unusual for a top UN official to comment on a “live” international trade negotiation among states. Furthermore, WTO members had already signaled that they were strongly against bringing human right considerations into the WTO, arguing that doing so would “unduly complicate” the negotiations (Petersmann 2004:607). However, the High Commissioner believed that it was consistent with her mandate and that the importance of the issue necessitated intervention by the OHCHR at the WTO (OHCHR
2002a:3–5). She did not notify states in advance of her plans to publish the report, which was released publicly by the OHCHR three months
before it came before states for formal discussion at the Commission on Human Rights.
21
The High Commissioner’s report, entitled
Globalization and its impact on the full enjoyment of human rights, offered a nuanced assessment of the relationship between agricultural trade rules and the right to food (Petersmann 2004; Lang
2011). In the report, the High Commissioner emphasized that the WTO had established a transparent, rules-based and fairer trading order, but also drew attention to the fact that trade liberalization resulted in greater vulnerability to food insecurity for certain groups (OHCHR
2002a:12–13). The report provided Robinson with a vehicle to intervene at the WTO, by declaring that WTO members had a prior legal duty as parties to human right treaties to ensure that the agricultural negotiations did not adversely impact the food security of vulnerable groups (OHCHR
2002a:5). The High Commissioner argued that:
The legal basis for adopting human rights approaches to trade liberalization is clear. All WTO members have undertaken obligations under human rights law. All 144 members of the WTO have ratified at least one human rights instrument … Further, those areas of human rights law recognized as customary international law take on universal application, which means that trade rules should be interpreted as consistent with those norms and standards whatever the treaty commitments of States in trade matters. In other words, whatever the human rights treaty obligations undertaken by particular States, WTO members have concurrent human rights obligations under international law and should therefore promote and protect human rights during the negotiation and implementation of international rules on trade liberalization. (OHCHR
2002b:8)
In light of these obligations, the High Commissioner argued that it was incumbent on WTO members to adequately consider the human right to food in formulating their bargaining proposals.
Drawing on international human rights law, the High Commissioner also proposed in the report that new food security safeguards be added to the agenda of the WTO agriculture negotiations. Specifically, invoking the core human rights principle of non-discrimination –which is set out in the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and confers on states a legal duty to protect vulnerable groups from unlawful discrimination – the High Commissioner argued that states are required to protect the right to food of vulnerable groups harmed by agricultural trade liberalization (OHCHR
2002a:16). The High Commissioner proposed that the WTO create two new trade rules to protect the right to food in developing countries: one rule that would make protecting the food security of vulnerable groups, such as low-income and resource-poor farmers, farm laborers and rural communities, grounds for exception from trade liberalization commitments; and a second rule that would specifically promote domestic food security, such as by providing food insecure countries greater flexibility to subsidize the production of essential foodstuffs. In advocating these new rules, the High Commissioner cited governments’ existing obligations under human rights treaties to respect, fulfill and promote the right to food of their citizens and those of their trading partners (OHCHR
2002a:18).
The High Commissioner’s report on agricultural trade liberalization was well received by many WTO members, who appreciated its “careful and moderate tone” and balanced assessment of the benefits and costs of agricultural trade liberalization, which served to assuage concerns at the WTO that the OHCHR was anti-trade (Lang
2011:121). However, the High Commissioner’s recommendations for additional food security safeguards for developing countries were viewed unfavorably by powerful agricultural exporters, such as the US, EU, Canada and Brazil, which wanted more aggressive trade liberalization.
The High Commissioner’s report created uncertainty for WTO members about whether their negotiating positions could be inconsistent with their obligations under international human rights treaties.
22 The prospect that the WTO negotiations could produce an outcome that contravened international human rights law was new information for WTO members, causing many trade negotiators to seek clarification from legal experts back in capitals and from the WTO secretariat.
23 The High Commissioner’s report also generated considerable interest and impact outside the WTO and was taken up among international lawyers, human rights advocates, NGOs and parliamentarians to call on the responsibility of governments to protect human rights in trade negotiations (Lang
2011).
Under Robinson’s successor, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the OHCHR intervened again at the 2003 WTO Cancun Ministerial Conference. In advance of the Ministerial, the US and EU agreed to a draft agriculture agreement that many expected would be forced on the rest of the WTO membership as a
fait accompli (Hopewell
2016:80–81). OHCHR officials analyzed the draft agreement proposed by the US and EU and were concerned by the absence of adequate safeguards to protect the right to food of vulnerable groups. The deal on the table going into the Cancun Ministerial was viewed by OHCHR officials as highly unfavorable from a human rights perspective.
24 In response, the OHCHR took the unprecedented action of making an “unofficial submission” directly to WTO trade ministers. Under the official procedures of the WTO, only its member states can table submissions for consideration by trade ministers at a ministerial meeting. The WTO secretariat accordingly refused to distribute the OHCHR’s submission as part of the official package of ministerial documents. Instead, the OHCHR distributed its “unofficial submission” by sending copies directly to national missions to the WTO and trade ministers in capitals, as well as posting a copy on its website for the public and media.
The OHCHR’s unofficial submission, entitled
Trade and Human Rights, was styled as a primer “to assist policy makers who might not be familiar with the international human rights system” by providing illustrative examples of how trade liberalization could infringe on human rights (OHCHR
2003:2). Similar to the High Commissioner’s 2002 report, the submission invoked the legal obligations of WTO members as parties to international human rights treaties to protect the right to food in trade negotiations. Illustrative examples included an overview of how agricultural tariff reductions could increase food security for consumers but worsen that of resource-poor farmers (OHCHR
2003:9–11). The purpose of the OHCHR’s unofficial submission was to influence the politics of decision-making at the WTO. The submission was an exercise of its authority by calling on WTO members to take into account not just economic considerations but also international human rights law in the negotiations. The OHCHR’s goal was to tilt the political balance in the WTO negotiations towards the inclusion of more robust food security safeguards than was preferred by powerful states, by presenting these safeguards as consistent with WTO members’ obligations under international human rights treaties. The decision to present an unofficial submission to WTO members at the 2003 Cancun Ministerial was made by the High Commissioner and senior OHCHR officials, driven by their concerns that a trade deal with negative consequences for international human rights was imminent; the submission was never presented or tabled for discussion by states at the Commission on Human Rights.
25
The OHCHR intervened in an effort to influence global trade rule-making by invoking international human rights treaties. The OHCHR’s actions were taken independently and motivated by concerns that proposed trade rules did not sufficiently protect the food security of vulnerable groups. OHCHR officials justified their interventions at the WTO as part of the organization’s mandate to promote the right to food; however, they were cognizant that their actions were risky because the most powerful WTO members wanted to keep human rights considerations out of the agriculture negotiations. The US and other developed countries signaled their displeasure with the OHCHR’s actions, both during private discussions with the High Commissioner, as well as by voting against resolutions endorsing the recommendations of the 2002 report at the Commission on Human Rights (UN
2002:471). Ultimately, the OHCHR’s call for protecting the food security of vulnerable groups was incorporated by WTO members into the draft text of the proposed Doha Round agriculture agreement (WTO
2008:55).