Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / April 26, 2001, edition 1 / Page 12
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April 26,2001 The Blue Banner Page 11 Opinions An Environmental Viewpoint Free Trade is Undemocratic Candice Carr Columnist This past weekend, more than sixty thousand people from all over the Western Hemisphere marched in Quebec City to protest the negotia tions of the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, or the Sum mit of the Americas. UNCA students were among them. One of them told me that the tear gas in the air was so dense that it was unsafe for those without gasmasks I the area around the three by five kilometer perimeter which was fenced off to keep citizens of the Americas out, while the trade offi- ials and corporate representatives and lawyers met inside. The police were reported to be more eggressive than at any of the lobalization Convergences so far. The corporate media chose to focus of the few confronations that went on outside rather than what was ;oing on inside, which is not very ;urprising. Is it right to ban citizens from a meeting of unelected officials which ! deciding their fate? What is FTAA? FTAA is the extension of the North Ainerican Free T rade Agreement po he entire Western Hemisphere, ixcluding Cuba. Hundreds of delegates from 34 nations will meet to finalize a draft of the FTAA on Sunday, which is Earth Day. There couldn’t be a more ironic day for such a document to be rafted. What information has been re leased about this agreement sounds like all the usual elements of the corporate free trade agenda. This isn’t surprising when you :onsider that over 500 corporate representatives have security clear ance to access these FTAA-NAFTA :xpansion documents, while the rep resentatives of the people, like those in the United States Congress, have not. Congress has never set goals for U.S. participation in these talks, nor have they authorized the execu tive branch of our government to assume the role of setting terms for nternational commerce, which con stitutionally belongs to Congress. Still, a variety of corporate com mittees have been advising the U.S. trade representatives. This agreement, like all neo-lib eral free trade agreements thus far, threatens the sovereignty of nations and communities, public health and Worker safety laws, environmental protections, indigenous peoples and all people throughout the Americas, leading to massive poverty and ex panding the gap between economic classes. Its’ main goal is to reduce govern ment regulations on corporations, opening markets to foreign compe tition and expanding trade in all products. Action for Community and Ecol ogy in Central America recently published a Green Paper that states: Investment agreements facilitate the movement of capital, by restrict- iitg governments’ ability to limit the ow of money. Investment agree ments actually provide corporations protection on their investments and tlieir investment plans. The risk of investment then rests with govern ments and is paid for by people, not V the corporations who reap the profits.” S^at i.i Free Trade? One major part of the FTAA is the I'i^eralization, or elimination of tar iffs, which more freely allows goods and services to cross borders, stimu lating international commerce. I find it ironic that a meeting with the purpose of allowing transnational corporations more freedoms in border crossing is also the cause of the Canadian government’s tight border patrols this past weekend. Many citizens were turned away from the Candian border, while in Quebec they were planning how to open the gates for business and industry across the entire hemi sphere. If this agreement is supposed to benefit the people of the Americas, then why are the documents such a big secret? The only information that we have on the FTAA is annotated outlines from some of the negotiating groups that the Chilean government re leased to representatives of Chil- ean-civil society. This is a good precedent that has not been followed up on by any of the more northerly countries, de spite numerous requests from over 400 organizations in the Americas. Will the FTAA really strengthen democracy the way that pronounce ments from previous Summits of theAmericas have claimed it would? The shroud of secrecy certainly makes one wonder. “NAFTA on Steroids” So what will the FTAA do? We know that it will include pro visions on services, investment, ag riculture, intellectual property rights and other issues under negotiation could clearly have far-reaching im pacts on our economies, societies and environments. The FTAA will most likely con tain agreements to privatize ser vices such as education, health care, energy and water utilities, which often raises the rates and hurts those who can least afford to pay for these needs. When Bolivia privatized its water utility, water rates increased 200 percent, leading to riots that re sulted in six deaths. Slippery Global Legislation Some of the expected components are pieces of international legisla tion that global public outcry pre vented from being included in the language agreed upon by the World Trade Organization minesterial in Seattle in 1999. Two such specimens are the Mul tilateral Agreement on Investment and the Advanced Tariff Liberal ization. These boring and technical sound ing titles disguise some bold and spine-chilling ideas. Corporate Control of Government If included in the WTO, (which it still could be at some time), the MAI would have forbidden the con sideration of a company’s human rights, labor or environmental records as investment criteria. It also would have granted large foreign corporations new absolute rights to enter markets with prefer ential treatment, preventing gov ernments from promoting local economic development. The MAI also would have banned certain investment “conditions ” al together, such as requiring recycled or domestic content in manufac turing, or hiring local workers. The WTO contains similar poli cies to these, although not as com prehensive as the original MAI was designed to be. Most importantly, the MAI con tains provisions “empowering for eign corporations to sue national governmants in MAI tribunals for monetary compensation if they be lieve that government policies un dercut their future profits” (www.tradewatch.org/otherissues/ MAI/WTO/miainthe.htm). I would assume that the most important word in the above para graph is the word, ftiture. Currently, corporations can sue WTO member governments through the WTO’s tribunal of trade lawyers for protectionary measures or barriers to trade, but suing for monetary compensation for loss of future profit is something that seems to be unique to NAFTA. Chapter 11 of NAFTA has al lowed several precedent-settingsuits for the future of international com merce and regulation thereof The expansion of Chapter 11 would mean that a lot of tax dollars from many different countries would be pouring into the pockets of transnational corporations (mainly North American), as they whine about their projected losses. One example of this was the re cent case of the California-based corporation, Metalclad, who wanted to expand their hazardous waste site just over the border of Mexico. The governor of the Mexican State of San Luis Potosi objected, declar ing the area an “ecological zone” due to the sensitive underground alluvial stream found by environ mental impact assessment. Objecting to this decision, Metalclad invoked Chapter 11 of NAFTA, suing the State of San Luis Potosi for $90 million. “The company claimed that the zoning law was a seizure of the company’s property and impeded their right to their investment. Under NAFTA, if property rights are seized, the restricting govern ment must pay compensation fees to the company. A NAFTA tribu nal decided that San Luis Potosi would have to pay Metalclad $ 16.7 million (U.S. dollars) in compensa tion fees. Grant Kesler, Metalclad’s chief executive officer, expressed disappointment in this settlement because he only received money for the loss of property, not the company’s potential profit losses” (http://66.33.47.229/fraa/ corpprofit.htm). Global Free Logging Agreement The other major policy piece that was defeated in Seattle, but is still being proposed, is Advanced Tariff Liberalization or what forest advo cates call the Global Free Logging Agreement. ATL would eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers on raw logs and timber products. This would increase the global harvesting and consumption of for est products 3 to 4 percent, and “thus provide further impetus for unsustainable logging practices in order to supply this gluttonous de mand. The timber lobby will seek to move forward with this agree ment at the Summit of the Ameri cas in Quebec City” (http:// www.nativeforest.org/ press releases/ ss releases toronto fi~aa alca 1104l999.html). After signing NAFTA, all three countries lowered protections for forests and biodiversity, and 15 U.S. forest-product companies set up new operations in Mexico, taking advantage of the lack of enforce ment of environmental and labor laws. One corporation, Boise Cascade, has been linked to extreme human- rights abuses against forest-protec- tion advocates in Mexico. Although their plans to build the world’s largest chip mill in the heart of Chile’s endangered rainforests have been blocked by Chilean and US citizen opposition, the FTAA could be the silver bullet they need to push their plans through fhttp:/ / WWW, am e r i ca nlands.org/ foresnveb/trade and foresrs hrm'l Sweatshops: a“Race to the Bot tom.” According to neo-liberal ideology, foreign investment is supposed to provide much-needed jobs to Latin America and the Caribbean. These investors would be attracted by certain guarantees provided by the FTAA, and move operations from the U.S. and Canada to the Southern hemisphere, where they can bust unions and pay lower wages in a “race to the bottom.” FTAA will likely pit Mexico’s ex ploited working class with the even more desperate workers of Guate mala and Haiti. In the U.S., many jobs would be lost or threatened. Of 400 plant closings or threat ened plant closings in the U.S. in a five-year period, 90 percent oc curred illegally during a union-or- ganizing drive. (Global Exchange) The model that has been aggres sively pursued in the past two de cades has been one of creating Tree Trade Zones.’ Unfortunately, the jobs created in F ree Trade Zones often deny work ers a living wage, humane working conditions and the right to orga nize a union. The FTAA, by extending the guar antees to investors while giving no guarantees to workers, will further spread sweatshops and the abuses of ‘Free Trade Zones’ to all of the Americas (http://66.33.47.229/ ftaa/sweatshop.hrm). Patents & Intellectual Property The Intellectual Property Rights debate might be the most conten tious. Protections for monopoly patents in the FTAA would allow compa nies with a patent in one country to have the exclusive right to market their products throughout the hemi sphere. For example, Brazil would not be able to produce the generic drugs for AIDS and tuberculosis epidem ics that make these drugs affordable to the world’s poor. This would allow these epidemics to worsen (http://w'ww. globalexchange.org/ ftaa/topten. h tml). Third World Needs Help Not More Competition Without debt cancellation and rules to curtail rampant capital speculation, the countries of the global South will remain depen dent on countries of the global North, inequality will continue to increase and it will be more difficult to reach goals of sustainable devel opment. Bolivia, for example is a ‘heavily indebted poor country,’ who will not benefit from increasing its ex ports to America if all of the export earnings are siphoned off to pay debts to the International Mon etary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (Global Exchange and ACERCA). U.S. negotiators are also trying to force the rest of the hemisphere to accept genetically-modified organ isms, such as those developed by Monsanto Corporation which have not been adequately tested or regu lated here in America. So, what are the alternatives? Corporate control of globaliza tion is not inevitable! Citizens’ groups from across the world have written an “Alternative Agreement for the Americas” that explains how countries could de velop socially responsible and en vironmentally sustainable com merce. The document is on the Global Exchange Web site, WWW.globalexchange.org. The Blue Banner Stajf Editorial Board Sarah Wilkins Lena Burns Kathryn Krouse Luke Knox Kathryn Krouse Justin Meckes Rachel Grumpier Matt Hunt Sarah Lacy Editor-in-Chie News Editor Features Editor Sports Editor Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Copy Editor Co-Online Editor Co-Online Editor Stajf Amanda Anderson, Angela Brock, Keith Cromwell, Rachel Crumpler, Mason Currey, Justus D’Addario, Deleon Dendy, Thad Eckard, C.J. Eland, Walter Eyler, Anthony Greco, Claire O’Brien, Eric Price, Gabriel Rexrode, Orin Shepherd, Jessica Welch Managers Cate Bergman Advertising Manager Emily Schell Asst. Advertising Manager Matt Deal Circulation Manager Breandan Dezendorf Computer Consultant Columnists Jenny Bowen, Brian Buder, Candice Carr Mark West, Faculty Advisor The Blue Banner is the student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. We publish each Thursday except during sum mer sessions, final exam weeks and holiday breaks. Our offices are located in Karpen Hall, room 244. Our telephone number is (828) 251-6586. Our campus e-mail address is banner@unca.edu. An online version of The Blue Banner is also available at http:// WWW. un ca. edu/banner >. Nothing in our editorial or opinions sections necessarily reflects the opinion of the entire Blue Bafiner staff, the faculty advisor, or the university faculty, administration or staff. Unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of The Blue Banner editorial board. Letters,columns,cartoons and reviews repre sent only the opinions of their respective au thors. 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April 26, 2001, edition 1
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