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September 10, 2003, 11:30 a.m. Mexico Protects Its Border On the ground, and the beach, at the WTO in Cancun. By Nick Schulz

CANCUN, MEXICO — With the Spring Breakers of The Real Cancun fame tucked safely, if not soberly, away on their SEC and Big 12 college campuses, this Caribbean resort town is safe for a five-day nerd festival: the Fifth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Multilateral organizations are famous for picking exquisite locales for their earnest group efforts to save the world from itself. And this first-world resort, sequestered on the far east coast of a still-developing country, is no exception. The cool beach sand is pillowy and looks and feels like cornmeal. The water is warm with four distinct azure hues peeling gently away toward the horizon. The hotels that line the beach are large, comfortable and exhibit elegant architectural styles.

You might think that with this postcard-perfect setting, the most-striking contrast is what might be called "The Unreal Cancun": instead of drunken frat boys trolling the beaches and bars in tank tops and flip flops, the town is hosting thousands of diplomats, ambassadors, and delegates from over 100 countries sweating profusely in the tropical humidity, soaking their suits right down to their trademark soft, sensible shoes.

But it's not. Instead, it's the Mexican-armed naval forces setting hard against the Cancun coastline. Up to half a dozen monstrous steel-gray hulled Mexican warships sit jarringly, ominously just off the idyllic Cancun shoreline. According to U.S. government sources, the ships are there because the Mexican government fears anti-capitalist protest groups such as Greenpeace — of "Rainbow Warrior" fame — will storm the beaches in Cancun via the sea.

The only problem for the protest and activist groups, particularly those focused on environmental issues, is that they might be too little, too late. Just this week, one of their biggest champions, the European Trade Representative Pascal Lamy, admitted that they are losing the intellectual argument.

At a plenary session to commemorate what the European delegates were calling "Sustainable Trade Day," Lamy was asked about Europe's largely failed efforts to push stringent environmental regulations into trade rules. Lamy said, "we in the EU know that we have not convinced enough countries, either on the developed side or on the developing side" of Europe's views on linking trade and environmental standards [emphasis added].

To understand the magnitude of this admission, it's important to understand a little background. Ambassador Lamy, and most of the diplomatic Eurocracy, has been trying for the past two years to drive environmental issues up the agenda of the World Trade Organization. This has been difficult to do, since the organization was created to liberalize and facilitate international trade, not pressure for tough eco-regulations.

Meanwhile, the United States had been routinely vilified by activist groups like Greenpeace and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as a global bully and evil-doer for standing in the way of efforts to protect the developing world's environment from what they perceive as a rapacious global capitalism. Greenpeace described the WTO this way: "The WTO is a tool of the rich and powerful. By placing trade above all other goals, it threatens our health and the environment."

The underlying assumption of the protesters is that countries like the United States use multilateral institutions, such as the WTO, to advance its interests at the expense of the health and environmental well-being of the world's poor and less developed countries.

But the truth is turning out to be a little more complicated. For example, at the World Summit for Sustainable Development last year in Johannesburg, the United States joined with several developing countries in shaping the summit's declaration to affirm that economic growth and well-being are necessary preconditions for societal and ecological health since environmental degradation is largely driven by poverty. As such, efforts should focus primarily on improving living standards. Such efforts include a liberalized global trade system unencumbered by stifling restrictions and regulations.

At Johannesburg, NGOs and their allies in the European delegation were largely rebuffed by the very developing world they claimed they wanted to help. Lamy's remarks in Cancun seem to mark that Europe is beginning to get the message, whether it wants to hear it or not. Meanwhile, Mexico finds itself in the unusual position of having to protect a porous border — to keep out well-intentioned environmentalists.

— Nick Schulz is editor of Tech Central Station.