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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Citizen's Groups Unite Against FTAA |
Current rating: 0 |
by Public Citizen
(No verified email address) |
21 Apr 2001
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Consumer, Labor, Green Groups Throughout Hemisphere Launch Unified Campaign Against "NAFTA for the Americas/FTAA" at Quebec Summit Grassroots Events in 80 U.S. Cities Scheduled to Coincide With Quebec FTAA Protests |
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See also:
http://www.tradewatch.org
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QUEBEC CITY - April 19 |
by Public Citizen
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Apr 2001
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Consumer, labor, environmental and other international civil society groups are launching a "Ten-Point Plan for the Americas" in opposition to a proposed NAFTA expansion, the groups announced today. Representatives from unions and other civil society groups from throughout the Western Hemisphere joined Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch in unveiling a campaign agenda aimed at halting negotiation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) based on the NAFTA model.
"The Bush agenda boils down to NAFTA on steroids -- spreading to the entire hemisphere the NAFTA model that has caused damage in the U.S., Mexico and Canada," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. "Expanding NAFTA to 31 more nations is not popular in Congress given NAFTA’s seven-year record of corporations using NAFTA to extract compensation for complying with local zoning and health laws and given the public outcry about NAFTA food poisonings, hundreds of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs and now the demand that the U.S. allow unsafe Mexican trucks on U.S. roads."
The proposed NAFTA expansion has spurred opposition in many countries throughout the hemisphere. The NAFTA model covers many issues, such as domestic environmental and health laws and public interest regulations for investors and service providers, that far exceed traditional "trade" matters. FTAA terms would place new restrictions on the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest, even when policies treat domestic and foreign goods and investors the same.
The talks also cover the establishment of controversial new privileges and rights for investors and corporations. One such right is for foreign investors to have access to NAFTA tribunals to demand cash compensation from governments for corporate compliance with many common domestic health, zoning and environmental laws. Also being negotiated are expansive new patent rights on medicines that threaten governments’ abilities to combat the AIDS crisis.
Points of the plan unveiled today include protecting the ability of governments to set health, safety and other public interest regulations that cover both domestic and foreign investors and companies; stopping the corporate patent protectionism that is keeping vital AIDS medicines and seeds out of the hands of poor people in the hemisphere; ensuring that services needed for survival, such as health, education, water, energy and other basic social services, are not subject to trade rules; and ensuring that citizens and governments -- not transnational corporations -- have the right to make decisions about the use and protection of natural resources. A copy of the full action plan is available at www.tradewatch.org.
"The broad coalition of corporate globalization critics in the U.S., Canada and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are mobilized in opposition to this expansion of NAFTA to the entire hemisphere," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "The day is long gone when people will stand by while the corporations design and implement trade policies that benefit their profits at the expense of working people, the environment and human rights."
U.S. groups working on the unified international campaign have brought the spirit of the Quebec City protests against FTAA to communities throughout the U.S. with rallies, protests and other events being held from April 12 through April 21.
"The Quebec City Summit is not much more than a pep rally for NAFTA expansion," Wallach said. "The U.S. Congress must decide whether it will delegate its constitutional authority to set trade terms to President Bush to expand NAFTA, which is why we are bringing the spirit of the Quebec protests to a congressional district near you."
Since its 1994 launch, the FTAA has been negotiated in secret by the U.S. and the 33 other nations in the Western Hemisphere with the exception of Cuba. Although members of Congress and civil society groups have demanded access to FTAA documents, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office has made only its finessed "summaries" of U.S. negotiating positions available. At a recent FTAA ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, the countries agreed to repeat the practice established in negotiations of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) of releasing a "scrubbed" draft text. This text includes bracketed language but deletes references to national positions and interpretive notes that are necessary for elected officials and the public to participate in informed dialogue.
Analysis of the proposed agreement has been possible because several environmental and labor representatives have been given the security clearance enjoyed by more than 500 corporate representatives who are official U.S. corporate trade advisors.
For a listing of the 80 U.S. grassroots events being held in opposition to the FTAA, please see www.JWJ.org.
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See also:
http://www.JWJ.org
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