Asian Financial Crisis

Conference Report of the Alternative Summit of the Bangkok Appeal,
22-24 June, 2000

Jost Wagner

Institute of Interdisciplinary Study and Research
Trier/Germany

The debate about alternatives to the neo-liberal order was at the centre of the conference organised by the Swiss Comittee for the Bangkok Appeal. A group of different organisations supported the conference. Above all the French organisation ATTAC (Action for a Tobin Tax to Assist the Citizen), France and their Swiss sister organisation helped to prepare this international gathering of social movements, trade unions and NGOs from all five continents. The major aim of the three day long meeting in Geneva was to work out common positions and campaigns against neo-liberalism and in support for the losers of globalisation. The conference took place the weekend before the official start of the United Nation General Assembly Social Summit (UNGASS) +5, the follow-up of the Social Summit of Copenhagen that took place in 1995 in Denmark. The idea of the alternative summit was born in the run up of the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD-X) in February this year. Read the rest of this entry »