The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

how multinational corporations control food 317respect for Monsanto’s intellectual property rights, for example on apatented seed, the company will inform the American government, whichwill file a complaint with the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. The TRIPSagreement was also designed by multinational corporations to seize the geneticresources of the planet, chiefly in Third World countries, which havethe greatest biodiversity. India is a particular target, because it is a megadiversecountry where there are 45,000 plant species and 81,000 animalspecies. That’s why so many of us say the world of the living is no concern ofthe WTO, but rather of the Biodiversity Convention signed under the auspicesof the UN in Río de Janeiro in 1992. Signed by two hundred countries,this treaty says that genetic resources are the exclusive property of states,who must commit themselves to preserving them and organizing an equitablesharing of the exploitation of the traditional knowledge associated withthose resources.”“Can the TRIPS agreement be reconciled with the Biodiversity Convention?”“Absolutely not, because the two documents contradict one another. Andthat’s why the United States didn’t sign the convention. The problem is thatthe TRIPS agreement takes precedence over the convention, because it isunder the jurisdiction of the WTO, which obeys the orders of multinationalcorporations like Monsanto, which, under cover of the globalization of trade,in fact rule the world.”For those who think these words are excessive, I will quote a UN reportpublished in June 2000 by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protectionof Human Rights: “The greater percentage of global trade is controlledby powerful multinational enterprises. Within such a context, the notion offree trade on which the rules [of the WTO] are constructed is a fallacy. . . .The net result is that for certain sectors of humanity—particularly the developingcountries of the South—the WTO is a veritable nightmare.” 11