International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

The protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington, from November 29 to December 4, 1999, are often referred to as the global justice movement's “coming out party.” Over 75,000 people took to the streets, 10,000 of them taking direct action which shut down the summit's opening ceremonies. Protesters converged from over 700 different organizations to participate in marches, teach-ins, and direct actions that occupied both the city's streets and the worldwide web for over a week, forever changing the national and international debate on the WTO, which, until that time, operated largely unnoticed by people in the global North. Internationally, November 30 (N30) was called as a global day of action by the Peoples' Global Action (PGA) Network – an international coalition, predominantly from the global South, committed to direct action against economic globalization. Discussions about this began during PGA's Intercontinental Caravan in July of 1999, in which 500 people from all continents traveled across Europe to protest globalization's impacts on peasant farmers in the global South. A month later, it issued a formal call to action. Actions in solidarity with those in Seattle took place in over a hundred cities worldwide. The WTO ministerial in Seattle was tasked with launching a new “Millennium Round” of trade negotiations, which would vastly expand intellectual ... log in or subscribe to read full text