Martin Khor: An irreplaceable leader, trusted by all CSOs Prof. Jane Kelsey

When someone who has left an indelible footprint on the world has left us, it is like a giant totara tree falling in the forest.

Martin has been a leader as long as I have known him. He provided wisdom, strategic insights, intellectual rigour, and political instincts that we all trusted. I first met him at Brussels in 1990 at an activist meeting in the middle of the Uruguay round, when he initiated us into the arcane world of what was being planned in the name of “trade”, especially this bizarre notion of “trade in services”. Along with stalwarts like Raghavan and a handful of others, Martin helped to build the foundations for campaigns against the WTO, MAI, GATS 2000, and so many others that have followed.

He has done his work. It is time for him to rest. We will miss him terribly. He is irreplaceable. But we need celebrate his life and honour it by building on the platform he created in the decades ahead.

(Jane Kelsey is professor of law at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.)