The awesome power of the World Trade Organisation to rewrite national laws to favour global business is being challenged at the grass roots. Andy Rowell reports from the frontline of protest

The party of the millennium is not, contrary to popular thinking, happening on New Year's Eve. It's occurring just over a month earlier in Seattle, where environmental, human rights and labour organisers are planning a ding-dong of a protest.

Last month, the cream of the American direct action community held a five-day strategy meeting at Pragtri Farm, a 25-acre small-holding in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, north of Seattle, on America's Pacific Coast.

The protesters' aim is to stop the third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Seattle in late November. John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, organisers of the strategy meeting, says: "I feel like we have all the ingredients to create a defining political moment."

There is a similar feeling in European cities, where environmental and other protesters are planning their own "parties".

The WTO was set up in 1995 at the formal end of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is now the most powerful trade body in the world, with some 134 member nations and a further 33 wanting membership. WTO trade agreements provide legally binding rules for international commerce and trade policy. Trade disputes are settled by three unelected bureaucrats, operating in secret.

At Seattle, the delegates will be discussing a new round of trade liberalisation talks - called the Millennium Round - in areas such as investment, agriculture, forest products and government procure ment. In Europe, where the EU is pushing in favour of the new round, discussions are about to start as to what negotiating line to take.

What happens in Seattle will help to define the trade, environmental, development and health agenda into the new century. In Britain, it may change the future of public education, the minimum wage and the NHS, which could face anti-trade rulings by the WTO.

"It is the policy of industry lobbyists to press for liberalisation of health care," argues David Price, research fellow at Northumbria University. "Conditions are being created to pressurise the government to privatise health services."

The WTO is accused of being a faceless, undemocratic organisation which puts the interests of corporations above everything else. "The WTO has the right to completely rescind any law passed by the citizenry to protect the environment, health and labour rights," says Kelly Quirk, head of the Rainforest Action Network, co-sponsors of the Ruckus camp. Every environmental or public health law challenged at the WTO has been ruled illegal.

"What is wrong with the WTO is that it is totally representative of the interests of corporations and money and the richest one-tenth of 1% of people on the planet" says David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, who spoke at the camp. "In that sense, it is contrary to life, the principles of life and everything we need to get a world that works both for people and planet." Activists point out the record of the WTO on dolphins, sea turtles as well as the three Bs - bananas, beef and Burma. The WTO ruled in favour of commercial interests against dolphins protected by the US marine mammals act and turtles protected under the US endangered species act. It ruled in favour of US banana interests in Central America which objected to Europe buying bananas from small-scale Caribbean producers. It ruled against the EU, which did not want to import US hormone-treated beef because of its links to cancer. And a law passed in Massachusetts against working with companies investing in the repressive regime in Burma was also attacked at the WTO.

Another 'B' could be added to the list, as biotechnology will be one of the main issues discussed at Seattle. Any measures by Europe to stop the import of GM food will be ruled as a violation of trade. Worried that it is losing the argument, the WTO is fighting back with a PR offensive, saying that nation states, not them, are to blame. Mike Moore, former New Zealand prime minister who is the new head of the WTO, also believes that everyone can benefit from free trade. "People who march in Seattle will be marching against opportunities for poor people to sell their products and services," he says.

But the protesters won't only be marching. At the Ruckus training camp, direct action techniques were taught. Workshops were held in political theatre and WTO delegates will be greeted by an array of thousands of colourful puppets. Activists were taught about the ethics of non-violence, and practised de-escalating violent situations.

They also learned from their British counterparts. In the early 1990s, British activists took the philosophy of Earth First in the US and imported it over here. Mass direct action and protest was born and redefined on the roads schemes at Twyford Down, Newbury and the M11 in east London. Since then, groups like Reclaim the Streets (RTS) have turned protests into mass parties of resistance. Dave, from the Art and Revolution collective in San Francisco, says: "RTS has influenced and inspired a lot of activists in America." And John Sellars adds: "The great challenge for us in the US is to start putting up the same numbers of people protesting against globalisation that we have seen in Europe and in the global south."

A debate raging within direct action communities is whether property destruction is a legitimate form of non-violent protest. "One thing that has happened in Europe, which I very strongly believe will not play here, is mass demonstra tions that lead to some sort of property destruction," says Kelly Quirk. "Private property is God."

Another reason for the Ruckus camp was alliance building. John, from RTS, says: "There is more of a willingness to make broad-based alliances in the US. To see steelworkers, reformists, anarchists, peace activists and environmentalists all sitting around the campfire was amazing." "For years, unions have tried to stand on their own," says Ron, one of the steelworkers, "but it doesn't work. The corporations used to tell their workers that if you get involved with environmentalists they will come and shut your plant down. We have found that that is not true and they will help you with your job." Environmentalists and steelworkers have formed the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment.

Celia, a consultant to the steelworkers, believes that the growing labour and environmental alliance is one of the strongest cards that the opposition has in the run-up to Seattle. "Because labour and environmentalists are both strong constituencies that have to be listened to, the idea that they are singing the same song is really scary to a lot of policy makers," she says.

Indeed, a comprehensive alliance has formed to fight the WTO. Over 1,000 organisations from 87 countries have signed a statement opposing the Millennium Round and any further liberalisation. "In the past five years, the WTO has contributed to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few; increasing poverty for the majority of the world's population; and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption" says the statement.

They are joined by an array of interests, from international churches and unions to Indian peasants and French farmers.

The protesters definitely feel that the momentum is behind them with two recent significant anti-free trade victories. They felled the ill-fated multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) and in the US they stopped Bill Clinton's "fast track" of the North American Free Trade Agreement. "I do think it is a strategic moment in an on-going confrontation between civil society and corporate rule," says Mike Dolan.

"I think there is a definite possibility that the WTO will be defeated after Seattle, so what do we do then?" asks John, from RTS. "We have to remember to go for the heart of the beast, which is capitalism itself."