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FTAA Negotiating Draft
Text
FTAA Timetable in Doubt After Mini-Ministerial
Background
At the Summit of
the Americas held in Miami in December 1994, the leaders of
the 34 democratic governments of the Hemisphere agreed to the
formation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), by
January 2005. Since then, this effort to unite the economies
of the Western Hemisphere into a single free trade arrangement
has been moving ahead.
The FTAA is
structured according to 5 functional levels: the Presidential
Summit, Meeting of Ministers responsible for Foreign Trade, the
Americas Business Forum in which recommendations are drafted for
the Ministers, Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) and the nine
Negotiating Groups.
There have been
three Presidential Summits held to date: The First took place in
Miami, in December 1994; where the 34 democratically elected
leaders of the 34 countries of the Western hemisphere agreed to
immediately begin the process to create the FTAA. The Summit
resulted in the signing of the declaration of principles
entitled "Partnership for Development and Prosperity: Democracy,
Free Trade and Sustainable Development in the Americas".
The Second
Presidential Summit was held in April 1998 in Santiago, Chile
where the FTAA negotiations were formally launched. The leaders
agreed that the FTAA negotiating process would be transparent
and take into account the differences in the levels of
development and size of the economies in the Americas, in order
to facilitate full participation by all countries.
The Third Summit was
convened in Quebec, Canada, in April 2001. During the course of
this meeting, the dates agreed to by the FTAA Ministers during
the negotiation phase were reiterated. It highlighted the
emphasis placed on the democratic clause, which provides that
any member country without a rule of law will not be allowed to
participate in the trade agreement.
The Chairmanship of
the Negotiations is rotated every eighteen months, or at the
conclusion of each Ministerial Meeting. Following the Quito
Ministerial in November 2002, U.S and Brazil jointly hold the
Chair until negotiations are completed at the end of 2004.
The Ministers
Responsible for Trade are given the responsibility for the
oversight and management of the negotiations. They meet
generally every eighteen months in the country which is holding
the FTAA Chairmanship.
There have been
seven Ministerial Meetings thus far: Denver, Colorado;
Cartagena, Colombia; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; San Jose, Costa
Rica; Toronto, Canada; Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Quito,
Ecuador. The First Draft Agreement was formally received at the
Sixth Ministerial in Buenos Aires, in April 2001. Just over a
year and a half later in November 2002, the Second Draft
Agreement was formally received at the Seventh Ministerial
Meeting in Quito.
The nine Negotiating
Groups of the FTAA, each have specific mandates from the trade
Ministers and the TNC to negotiate text in their respective
subject areas. The nine groups and their current Chairs are
shown in the table below.
Three special Committees and Groups have been set up with the
aim of addressing horizontal issues related to the negotiations.
These are: the Consultative Group on Smaller Economies (CGSE);
the Committee of Government Representatives on the Participation
of Civil Society and the Joint Government-Private Sector
Committee of Experts on Electronic Commerce.
The Tripartite
Committee of the FTAA has been put in charge of providing
assistance to the negotiating groups. This committee consists of
the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Organization of
American States (OAS) and the United Nations Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The Summit of the
Americas Declaration of Principles stresses the need to
construct the Free Trade Area of the Americas, in which barriers
to trade and investment will be progressively eliminated by
2015. In the Declaration, the participating leaders stated, "We
recognize the progress that already has been realized through
the unilateral undertakings of each of our nations and the
sub-regional trade arrangements in our Hemisphere. We will build
on existing sub-regional and bilateral arrangements in order to
broaden and deepen hemispheric economic integration and to bring
the agreements together."
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