Tom Turner, Earthjustice

Tom Turner is senior editor at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm based in Oakland, Calif. He edited daily newspapers at the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. He is the author of many books and articles on environmental subjects, most recently Justice on Earth: Earthjustice and the People It Has Served.

If the definition of compromise is something that makes everyone unhappy, then the draft ministerial declaration that finally emerged yesterday shortly after noon was a howling success. Nearly everyone had something bad to say about it.

The NGOs were the most cutting and passionate in their denunciation of the draft, which, in the most contentious areas -- agriculture and whether or not to launch negotiations on the four new so-called Singapore issues -- mainly reflects the wishes of the U.S. and E.U. on agriculture and the E.U. on Singapore. You may notice that we did not list areas where the draft tilts toward the developing countries; that's because there aren't any, or hardly any.

"It completely ignores the concerns of the developing world," according to Ronnie Hall of Friends of the Earth International. "It is horrifying, scandalous, and outrageous to say the least," said Meena Ramen of Friends of the Earth Malaysia. She reported that developing-country delegates, after being given copies of the document, streamed out of the hall shaking their heads and looking dazed, not understanding how they could have been so utterly ignored.

The agriculture section of the draft is hardly changed from the earlier draft, which itself was very similar to a proposal put forward by the U.S. and the E.U. in August. It calls for developing countries to open their markets to agricultural products from Europe and the U.S. in return for vague assurances of lowered export tariffs and reduced domestic price supports. Often documents like this will include references to competing proposals such as the one put forward by the new Group of 21. This one does not; it's as if that proposal did not exist.

In addition, more surprising yet perhaps, the new draft includes the four new so-called Singapore issues. This is surprising because just two days ago 70 countries declared bluntly that they would not tolerate the inclusion of any of the Singapore issues in the declaration. Somebody's playing chicken here and it's hard to see how anything of substance can now be agreed to.

The U.S., in fact, refrained from commenting save for a two-paragraph statement from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in which he called the draft "constructive."

The E.U., whose spokespeople here, Pascal Lamy and Franz Fischler, are tough, charming, personable, and occasionally funny, held the only formal press briefing immediately following the release of the draft. Lamy said he had big problems, medium problems, and small problems but would only mention the big ones: agriculture, cotton, the Singapore issues, industrial tariffs, and the environment. Fischler said, "It is a basis we are ready to work with, even though it adds serious headache to the stomachache we already have."

The National Association of Manufacturers, a large U.S. trade association, distributed a statement saying it wants "the total elimination of trade barriers on industrial products," and thinks the draft gives "too much of a free pass to the more advanced developing countries." Scandal.

A coalition of farmers from 45 countries blasted the draft and called the meeting a failure, demanding "a new model of fair agricultural trade based on food sovereignty."

One thing that has lots of people nervous is a phenomenon that has happened before at these meetings and could well be happening again. To wit, a final declaration isn't produced until a few hours before the meetings are scheduled to end. This does not allow time for a careful review of the document, especially by poor countries, which don't have flotillas of lawyers waiting with their engines running. At Doha two years ago this happened, and when the text finally appeared, the WTO, the U.S., and the E.U. put enormous pressure on other countries to approve it. It worked, and a document that contained items many countries would later object to was accepted. Remember, there are no votes in the WTO. Everything is done by consensus and off the record. This seems less likely to happen this year with the G21 and other developing country blocs seemingly ready to stand firm, but time will tell.