NEW DELHI: Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao has called upon the G-15 nations to ensure that industrialized nations do not release trade barriers lowered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) agreement with new ones in the garb of non-economic concerns.
Although the prime Minister did not especially what these “non-economic concerns” were, Indian worries about human rights and environmental issues being used as trade barriers by western countries were articulated by the Commerce Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Pranab Mukherjee.
Addressing the business forum of the G-15 meeting organized by the three apex industry associations, Mukherjee asked developing nations to come together to launch combined action to foil attempts by developed Countries to bring in non-tariff barriers like human rights child labor and environment to block exports of developing countries.
Calling for a more just international trade regime in the aftermath of the Uruguay Round Rao also sought reorganization in the United Nations Security Council to ensure proper representation to the developing world.
Forces of conflict, said the Prime Minister manifested themselves primarily as attempts (to undermine the nation-state system on which the international order rested. They had assumed dangerous proportions and diverse forms as terrorism, separatism and fundamentalism, he said.
India was fully convinced of the need to introduce reforms in the United Nations system and the expansion of the Security Council to provide representation to the developing world in the permanent membership of the Security Council, Rao said.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 1, 1994
