1999 Seattle WTO protests

1999 Seattle WTO protests
Part of the anti-globalization movement
A police officer sprays pepper spray at the crowd
DateNovember 30 – December 3, 1999
Location
Seattle, Washington, United States
Resulted inResignation of Seattle police chief Norm Stamper;
Increased exposure of the WTO in US media; 157 individuals arrested but released for lack of probable cause or hard evidence; $250,000 paid to the arrested by the city of Seattle; Creation of the Independent Media Center
Parties
Anti-globalization movement
Direct Action Network
NGOs
Labor unions
Student and religious groups
Number
~40,000
Unknown

The 1999 Seattle WTO protests, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Seattle,[1] were a series of anti-globalization protests surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, when members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington on November 30, 1999. The Conference was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations.

The negotiations were quickly overshadowed by massive street protests outside the hotels and the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The protests were nicknamed "N30", akin to J18 and similar mobilizations, and were deemed controversial by the media. The large scale of the demonstrations, estimated at no fewer than 40,000 protesters, dwarfed any previous demonstration in the United States against a world meeting of any of the organizations generally associated with economic globalization, such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.[2]

  1. ^ "WTO riots in Seattle: 15 years ago". November 29, 2014. Archived from the original on May 5, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
  2. ^ Seattle Police Department: The Seattle Police Department After Action Report: World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference Seattle, Washington November 29 – December 3, 1999. p. 41.
    "Police estimated the size of this march [the labor march] in excess of 40,000."