Union leaders, politicians and anti-globalization activists have used the courts and zoning laws to keep big-box stores like Wal-Mart out of their neighborhoods.
Now the Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant and other major chains are hoping to counterattack with a powerful new weapon: the World Trade Organization.
This week, those retailers will head to Hong Kong to try to persuade negotiators to fashion a trade pact that would make it more difficult for governments to restrict foreign-owned stores, banks and telecommunications companies.
These retailers say they are not making a back-door attempt to undo various countries' laws. They say they are simply trying to get rid of protectionist barriers, such as size and geographic restrictions, that have unfairly hindered their growth, particularly in emerging markets such as China and India.
"These are issues we oppose in the United States and we want to make sure abroad we don't see the same types of issues," said Jonathan Gold, vice president of global supply chain policy at the Retail Industry Leaders Assn., which represents Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Home Depot Inc., Target Corp. and other big-box retailers. "There should be fair hearings to decide whether or not companies operate, not just based on size alone."
But critics, who include state Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) and Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, call the move a stealth attack on grass-roots democracy.
They fear that the proposals to change the WTO's 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services would make it easier to attack dozens of U.S. laws designed to restrict the growth of big-box retailers. That agreement was designed to open up trade in services such as retailing, accounting, medicine and entertainment that weren't covered under previous trade pacts.
Some WTO critics are organizing educational campaigns, pressuring trade officials and taking their protests to Hong Kong for the WTO ministerial meeting, which runs Dec. 13-18. They will be handing out copies of a report due to be released today by Public Citizen, a Washington-based watchdog group that also opposes the changes.
Concerns over the effect of trade pacts on state and local autonomy were also discussed last week at meetings of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Chicago and the National League of Cities in Charlotte, N.C.
