Martin Khor: Great helmsman in fight for trade-environment justice D. Ravi Kanth

Almost 23 years ago, I received a telephone call from Martin Khor at Geneva. I had heard about him from then Indian ambassador to WTO, S Narayanan, and Mr Bhagirath Lal Das, former India’s trade envoy to the GATT.

In one of my articles in 1996 on Trade and Investment in Asia Times, Bangkok, I had quoted Martin to argue that investment should never enter the newly established WTO because it is not a trade issue.

Martin, during that telephone call, said he wanted to employ me for six months to work at the Geneva-based South-North Development Monitor – SUNS. I accepted the offer thinking it would open my eyes to the workings of the WTO. And that is how I landed in Geneva. The six-month stint at SUNS during December 1997-May 1998, was very useful.

Martin and his wife Meena, would spend time with me whenever they visited Geneva, and would inquire about everything – from my stay in Geneva to the Kafkaesque world of trade negotiations at the WTO. Martin would often provide guidance and share views through his Socratic-like questioning on the dynamics of the multilateral trade negotiations.

Subsequently, after my stint at the SUNS, I had started writing for several media outlets – in India, USA, the Economic & Political Weekly (India), IPS, and Mint among others. Through it all, I kept up my wonderful relationship with Martin and we would spend time at the Press bar of the Palais des Nations. Invariably, he would start discussions, raising questions about the developments unfolding at the WTO.

The renowned Cambridge academic and teacher, Joan Robinson, once said that every fool can answer about everything, but it is only the wise person who would ask the right questions. Martin’s questions vindicated that famous comment. He would raise pertinent questions that would force me to think about how decisions are reached at the WTO and why developing countries must always unite to stop the ugly outcomes at the global trade body, inimical to their needs and interests.

Unsurprisingly, for the WTO officials and trade envoys from the major developed countries, Martin posed a huge problem. Whenever I would check with the trade envoys from major industrialized countries for a clarification on stories I was writing, they would ask me whether Martin Khor has influenced me.

It was in 2001, at the fourth WTO ministerial meeting in Doha (Qatar), that I saw for the first time, Martin’s enormous capacity for mobilizing to support the developing and poorest countries. Rammanohar Reddy, the former deputy-editor of the Hindu, and I would meet Martin to know what was transpiring in the closed-door negotiations at the ministerial meetings.

He provided guidance to developing countries on how they should approach issues foisted by the major developed countries, particularly USTR Robert Zoellick and EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy. These two had joined hands at Doha, to push controversial issues, the Singapore issues (first raised at MC1 in Singapore) such as Trade and Investment, Government Procurement, Competition Policy, and Trade Facilitation, that would enforce onerous disciplines on developing countries and arrest their development.

As all developed countries united under the leadership of Zoellick and Lamy at the Doha meeting, it was Martin who marshalled his intellectual resources to expose the fallacies of the arguments advanced by these big boys.

The four Singapore issues, however, collapsed due to the lack of “explicit consensus” at the WTO’s ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003. For those of us covering that meeting, it was evident that Martin’s concerted mobilization efforts had brought about the requisite unity among the developing countries.

Subsequently, during meetings of the group of five countries – the US, the EU, India, Brazil, and Australia – in July 2006, Martin’s facts and evidence-based proposals helped the former Indian trade minister Kamal Nath to pursue the developmental agenda in agriculture.

In 2008, when Martin was covering the mini-ministerial meeting among the US, the EU, Brazil, India, Australia, Japan and China, at the WTO, he and I often exchanged notes on the developments at the closed-door negotiations. It was an opaque meeting in which trade ministers of many countries were excluded while these seven countries discussed the major issues in agriculture for finalizing the modalities.

Between 2009 and 2015, while Martin focused his time on the global environment negotiations, I would reach him to understand the developments in the trade front. He would often advise me to leave the trade issue and start focusing on climate change negotiations. He would say the climate change negotiations are at the centre stage while trade negotiations are pushed to the back burner.

He would often tell me that the climate change negotiations are a major battle between the developed countries, who had created the global climate crisis, and the developing countries who are being asked to pay a price by undertaking onerous commitments even though they were not responsible for the crisis.

In 2015, at the insistence of Chakravarthi Raghavan, Martin asked me to write for SUNS again; and I met Chee Yoke Ling, the director of the TWN and began writing again for the SUNS. Even as he was battling against cancer, Martin would send his responses to my articles in both SUNS and in the Indian newspapers. Recently, he liked one of my articles in an Indian media, and wrote: “A very good article, Ravi. However, it is hard to read due to the many adverts popping up. Keep up your good work.” Indeed, it is a badge of honour to receive from the man who brought me to Geneva and guided me from time to time.

On Tuesday, when I heard that Martin had passed away, I felt devastated and felt it is huge loss for the developing world and me. He was a great helmsman enabling people and governments of developing countries to stand up and fight against the trade-related and environment-related injustices inflicted on the daridra narayans (a term coined by Mahatma Gandhi to describe the wretched social and economic conditions of the poor in India).

Martin, it is difficult to fill the huge void you left behind for your colleagues and the developing world. Comrade Martin, you may have left us. But for us, who interacted with you, your decades of guidance and waging struggles against injustices at the local and international level are etched in our minds. And they will continue to help us in navigating through these uneven and imbalanced trade and environment negotiations.

May you rest in peace.

(D. Ravi Kanth contributes articles to the SUNS on trade issues and other activities at UN agencies.)