Ex-New Zealand premier, WTO chief

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Mike Moore, who served as New Zealand’s Prime Minister before leading the World Trade Organization during a tumultuous time when thousands protested in Seattle riots, died early Sunday. He was 71.

He died at his home in Auckland, said his wife, Yvonne Moore. He’d suffered a number of health complications since having a stroke five years ago.

Moore was an advocate for both advancing the rights of blue-collar workers and for expanding international trade, a combination which, to some, seemed at odds with itself. Although he had a long political career in New Zealand, Moore’s tenure as prime minister was brief: just two months in 1990 before he was defeated in an election.

He served as the third director-general of the WTO from 1999 until 2002, overseeing an expansion in the organization including China’s entry into the rules-based trading system. He later served five years as New Zealand’s ambassador to the U.S.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Moore had dedicated his life to helping the country.

“The world lost a man with a huge intellect, and huge heart today,” Ardern said.

When Moore became director-general of the WTO in 1999, it was the highest international role ever held by a New Zealander.

The “Battle in Seattle” in 1999 overshadowed Moore’s tenure at the WTO. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest WTO meetings in the city. Well-organized protest leaders managed to temporarily shut down some meetings and Seattle declared a state of emergency, with police using tear gas and pepper spray against the crowds.

“Never before had open trade within a rules-based system done so much to lift living standards and increase opportunity; yet never before had the persistence of poverty and exclusion been so glaring,” Moore later said. “In Seattle, the intersection of these interests became the site of a major pile-up, a collision, a clash of priorities and imperatives.”

Moore estimated that the Seattle riots set back the rise in global trade by a couple of years. Others said it was a decade. And the arguments about the benefits and drawbacks of global trade continue today, as evidenced by tensions between the U.S. and China, Europe and Britain.