Labor and Consumer Protection Groups Announce Alternative Trade Agendas

 
President George W. Bush presented his 2001 International Trade Legislative Agenda to Congress in mid May. It proposes a conceptual framework for 'trade promotion authority' (TPA, formerly 'fast-track'), under which trade agreements negotiated by the president cannot be amended by Congress, but only supported or rejected. TPA remains at the top of Bush's trade legislative agenda.

At the same time that the president is lobbying congress for TPA, important US-backed civil society groups have presented their own criteria for a trade agenda. The AFL-CIO hosted the congress of the Inter-American Regional Labor Organizations (ORIT), which produced a resolution with 11 criteria for trade legislation that contemplates the social dimension. At the same time, Citizens Trade Watch, which is part of the Ralph Nader organization Public Citizen, released a "Ten Point Plan to Fight for the Americas. No to the FTAA." These documents share many similarities and are likely to receive wide support from Latin American social and labor organizations. Below are summaries of each:

Resolution 14: THE SOCIAL AND DEMOCRATIC DIMENSION IN INTEGRATION PROCESSES, ORIT Continental Congress, Washington, D.C., April 26, 2001.

"In our view, any hemispheric agreement must include the following components:

1. Protections for the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of the ILO relating to freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and the right of children to not be forced to work, the right to reject forced labor, and the right not to face discrimination in the workplace; as well as the rights relating to social security.
    

2. Protection of the rights of migrant workers under domestic laws and the obligations included in international treaties throughout the Hemisphere, regardless of their legal condition; and regulation of labor migration, temporary or permanent, to insure the respect for and application of labor and social rights to all immigrant workers.
    

3. Measures to ensure that countries preserve their capacity to regulate speculative capital flows in order to protect their economies against excessive instability.
    

4. Measures to alleviate the debt in order to strengthen the capacity of the developing countries to finance education, health care and infrastructure needs, which would contribute to closing the gap between rich and poor countries and to reducing inequity in each country.
    

5. Equitable and transparent standards for market access, permitting effective protection against import surges;
    

6. Rules and mechanisms for control of foreign investment, to guarantee that disputes over investment be resolved between states rather than between investors and states, and to ensure that states maintain the capacity to regulate the conduct of businesses with the objective of protecting the interests of their citizens.
    

7. Inclusion of services must be negotiated sector by sector and not be extended to State services of social interest and strategic character.
    

8. The establishment of bases for protection of public health, reaffirming the guidelines adopted in the framework of the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization, as well as the possibility of producing and commercializing generic medicines to combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
    

9. Democratic participation mechanisms, permitting a transparent, inclusive and democratic process.
    

10. Regulation controlling government procurement should allow the maintenance of national, regional and local preferences regarding national purchases and give governments the means to fulfill important public policy objectives, such as environmental protection, economic development, social programs and respect for human and labor rights;
     

11. Establishment of a chapter aimed at preservation and restoration of the environment and its ecosystems, as priority measures for social and economic sustainability.

    
Public Citizen's World Trade Watch

"Some specific indicators of the unacceptable corporate-managed trade system for which we will be watching are:

1. No New Corporate Power Tools: Any NAFTA-style Chapter 11 Investment language allowing corporate suits against governments is unacceptable. This extreme mechanism in NAFTA allows corporations to sue governments in undemocratic, closed trade tribunals for cash damages for domestic regulations that the corporations claim undermine their future expected profits. Already under NAFTA, this mechanism has been used to attack important domestic environmental, health and safety policies, effectively limiting the ability of governments to maintain national standards. In fact, every time corporations have invoked this NAFTA tool, the rulings and settlements have always been against the public interest and for corporations. In this perverse process, countries must compensate the "victorious" corporation with taxpayer dollars and must continue to pay the company continued ransom if it keeps a public interest law in place.
    

2. Hands Off Basic Social Rights and Needs of the Americas: It is inappropriate and unacceptable for social rights and basic needs to be constrained by trade rules, such as those proposed under current FTAA talks. Promoting, respecting and realizing fundamental worker rights and other human rights by all relevant means is important, including action at the appropriate international institutions. Issues critical to human or planetary welfare, such as food and water, basic social services, and health and safety, must not be undercut by commercial agreements. Inappropriate encroachment by trade rules in such areas has already resulted in major public campaigns centered on genetically modified organisms, old growth forests, and predatory tobacco marketing.
    

3. Services Needed for Survival: Services needed for survival, such as health, education, water, energy and other basic social services, must not be subject to trade rules. Domestic consumer health and safety, environmental and labor laws regulating any aspect of the service sector that treat domestic and foreign providers the same clearly must remain outside the purview of trade disciplines. In the Americas and the Caribbean, structural adjustment programs privatizing and deregulating essential public services -- which were required by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank -- have already led to a severe lack of access to health care, schools and clean water for peoples throughout the region. Current FTAA proposals would lock in this failure forever, making it impossible for any government to reverse any bad decisions on privatization of services.
    

4. Stop Corporate Patent Protectionism - Seeds & Medicine are Human Needs, not Commodities: All intellectual property policies must allow governments to limit patent protection in order to protect public health and safety, especially patents on life-saving medicines and life forms. The patenting of life forms including microorganisms must be prohibited in all national and international regimes. Current intellectual property rules in trade pacts, such as the WTO TRIPs agreement and NAFTA's Chapter 17 Intellectual Property rules, effectively prevent consumer access to essential medicines and other goods, lead to private appropriation of life forms and traditional knowledge, undermine biodiversity, and keep poorer countries from increasing their levels of social and economic welfare. There is no basis for inclusion of such intellectual property claims in a trade agreement.
    

5. Food Is a Basic Human Right, Not a Commodity: Trade rules must not restrict countries' rights or abilities to establish or maintain policies safeguarding small farmers, rural economies and food security.
    

6. Control over Natural Resources: Citizens and governments -- not transnational corporations -- must have the right to make decisions about the use and protection of natural resources. Policies governing natural resources should strike a careful balance between the social benefits of preservation, job creation and economic expansion. Thus, international commercial terms such as those found in NAFTA, which allow corporate interests to challenge countries' control or regulation of land, mineral oil and gas deposits, forests, rivers and other natural resources, are unacceptable.
    

7. Do No Further Harm: NAFTA and the WTO both contain provisions that undermine domestic environmental, health, safety, agriculture and labor laws. There is no place for such anti-public interest provisions in future international commercial agreements. Moreover, actions taken to implement multilateral agreements dealing with workers rights, the environment, health, development, human rights, safety, indigenous peoples' rights, food security, women's rights, and animal welfare must not be challenged or undermined by international commercial rules.
     

8. Disadvantaging Women, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: There is no place in just international agreements for provisions that disallow a country from providing special and differential treatment to women, minorities, and indigenous people. Such an attack on countries' sovereign rights to determine domestic social priorities, for instance by offering preferential credit terms to disadvantaged segments of their populations, is offensive. Additionally, such policies are in direct conflict with international human rights agreements and the International Labor Organization's Conventions.
    

9. Promoting Development vs. Corporate Control: International commercial agreements must not discipline what governments can do to ensure that their citizens capture the benefits of foreign investment. The FTAA must not prevent governments from employing a variety of policy tools to promote equitable and sustainable development, such as restricting foreign capital in certain sectors, the reinvestment of profits, or limiting the purchase of farm land or other real estate.
    

10. Speedbumps Against Speculation: In order to prevent international financial crises from spreading, countries must maintain the power to take measures against speculative portfolio investment. The investment rules of NAFTA, which are the model for the FTAA, are exactly the wrong model, as they forbid governments to establish such basic protective measures."