WTO fallout considered

Scholars take a look back

As World Trade Organization delegates left Seattle in a cloud of tear gas and disappointment, University of Washington scholars began studying and debating the outcome and its implications for the future.

Post-WTO examinations are under way in numerous corners of the university, said Jere Bacharach, director of the Jackson School of International Studies.

Upcoming events include a six-professor Jackson School forum, a lecture by a Business School expert on global trade, and a gathering of union and environmental leaders convened by the Center for Labor Studies.

Also in the works are a multi-state student-essay contest hosted by the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), a public-opinion survey from the School of Communications and a major political science department initiative on dissent, citizen participation and free speech.

The UW already had established itself as a neutral forum for serious discussion of trade issues during the months leading up to the Nov. 30 start of WTO talks, Bacharach said. The school even hosted a direct encounter between strong critics of the WTO and its director-general - a vigorous but civil exchange of ideas that stands in contrast to the chaotic clashes that later erupted downtown.

The university’s scholarly and educational contributions will outlive the furor of the Seattle talks, added Douglas MacLachlan, a marketing and international business professor who co-chaired with Bacharach the university’s WTO working group convened by President Richard L. McCormick.

CIBER, for example, designed a secondary-school curriculum on trade to enrich social-studies classes. These lessons were brought to life in dozens of local classrooms by specially trained UW undergraduates, dubbed Student Ambassadors.

Campus forums, lectures, courses and debates setting the stage for WTO were too numerous to list. The Law School alone hosted speakers as divergent as pro-trade ambassador Thomas Foley and free-trade critic Ralph Nader.

Meanwhile, economics professor Kar-yiu Wong staged an interactive discussion with scholars in Hong Kong, and international studies professor Donald Hellmann and the Institute for International Policy conducted a major conference.

Equally significant are new efforts by UW students, faculty and staff to probe beneath the surface, said Debra Glassman, a senior lecturer in finance and business economics who will deliver a Feb. 2 campus lecture on international trade.

“The public perception is that the WTO Ministerial Meeting pitted protesters against the WTO,” Glassman said. “But we all missed a bigger and more important story: the conflict between the developed and developing countries that unfolded.”

Here are some of the major post-WTO campus events and studies: