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OverviewBananas are taken for granted today as part of the diet of ordinary people in industrial countries. In the Windward Islands of the Caribbean, bananas provided around one-third of all jobs and half their export earnings – until recent WTO rulings began to undermine the industry. Much of this trade and employment has now disappeared as a result of these rulings; and at the end of 2005, the EU is due to give up the last non-tariff measures designed to enable this trade to continue. Unemployment, poverty, and further emigration therefore loom over these islanders, or the tempting alternative of growing and trading in illegal drugs. And all because WTO rules take too little account of the problems of tiny island economies and the human cost of rigid application of global free-trade rules. In this absorbing history, Gordon Myers tells the extraordinary story of how the US government, in response to grievances of one American corporation, led the World Trade Organisation to nullify a European Community commitment to protect the livelihood of small Caribbean banana growers. The WTO’s own working practices also emerge as inflexible and myopic. The story illustrates the inadequacy of an international trading system dominated by free-trade ideology but lacking the flexibility necessary to enable very small and highly vulnerable states, like the Windward Islands, to receive the protection that they need in order to survive. Moreover, increasingly powerful supermarket chains are able to exploit this free-trade framework to insist on ever lower prices, to the short-term benefit of consumers but the serious detriment of growers in the developing world. This book is a call for new arrangements in the EU that will enable the Caribbean banana industry to survive beyond 2005, and for an outlook in the WTO that gives greater consideration to the needs of very small states with vulnerable economies. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Gordon MyersPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Imprint: Zed Books Ltd Dimensions: Width: 13.50cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 21.50cm Weight: 0.263kg ISBN: 9781842774533ISBN 10: 1842774530 Pages: 208 Publication Date: 01 August 2004 Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , General , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. The Beginnings 3. A Benevolent Empire 4. The Windward Islands 5. Banana Wars in the Commonwealth 6. Judicial Review and Resolve to Reform 7. The European Community prior to 1993 8. The Market and the Major Players 9. Negotiating the New Regime 10. The First GATT Challenges, 1993-94 11. The Birth of the WTO: Compromise at Marrakesh 12. Chiquita and the US Campaign 13 .The First WTO Case 14. A Disputed Conformity 15. Spin and Reality 16. Seeking an Agreed Solution 17. Cotonou Complications 18. Winners and Losers 19. A Threatened Future 20. Prospects for Survival 21. Equitable Trading 22. Reflections on the WTO 23. Post Mortem Appendix: A Climate of UncertaintyReviews'Gordon Myers' expertise on the banana issue is well known. However his account of the Caribbean banana farmers' continuing struggle to survive eloquently reveals both his commitment and his concern. Current debates about world trade and unfettered liberalisation should be informed by the history of how livelihoods in the Caribbean have been destroyed, by decisions taken thousands of miles away in the US, in the EU and at the WTO. I commend The Banana Wars to all those who subscribe to the view that vulnerable banana producers need protection. The alternative is massive rural unemployment and a fall in national income levels. Unrealistic calls for diversification and restructuring should take into account the specific difficulties faced by traditional banana farmers in the Caribbean. With the prospect of enlargement of the European Union and the imminent inclusion of ten new member states, we have to protect the markets of Europe's traditional banana suppliers.' - Glenys Kinnock MEP 'Gordon Myers has written a thoroughly researched and very readable book, tracing the history of the banana as a commercial crop and placing it in the socio and political context of the Caribbean and Latin America. Its publication is both timely and relevant in the face of the global trade negotiations now in progress, and should be compulsory reading for all those in the Third World now engaged in these negotiations.' - Sir John Compton, Prime Minister of St Lucia 1982-1996 Author InformationGordon Myers, CMG, is a former senior British civil servant who, since 1993, has worked with the Caribbean Banana Exporters Association (CBEA) in trying to defend the interests of Caribbean banana growers who depend on the European market. His service in the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) (1951-89) included two periods dealing with crises in the Caribbean banana trade in 1970-73 and 1982-84. From 1975 to 1979, he was seconded to the Foreign Office to serve in the UK Permanent Representation to the EEC. Following retirement, he acted as Special Adviser to the British House of Commons Agriculture Committee during its inquiry into the negotiations for a single European market regime for bananas. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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