This document addresses the major topics on the official agenda of current trade negotiations (investment, finance, intellectual property rights, agriculture, market access, services, and dispute resolution), as well as issues that are of extreme social importance but which governments have ignored (human rights, sustainability, environment, labor, immigration, the role of the state, and gender). They should be considered as a complete package of proposals for positive economic integration.
December 2002
sponsored by the
Hemispheric Social Alliance
http://www.asc-hsa.org/
Download updated Chapter on Gender
This paper draws upon the contributions of many individuals too numerous to name. Over the course of many years, hundreds of people have participated in discussions, helped draft documents or conducted educational organizing activities around an alternative vision for our hemisphere. To a large extent, this paper is a culmination of all of these efforts. In preparing this fourth version of Alternatives for the Americas, international teams were set up to coordinate input around each chapter. The participants in those teams circulated drafts by email and met in various countries to discuss their respective proposals. The following individuals were the coordinators of their respective teams:
Javier Mujica, Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos y Democracia
Hilda Salazar and Alejandro Villamar, RMALC, Gabrielle
Pelletier, RQIC, Sergio Schlesinger, REBRIP
Sergio Schlesinger, REBRIP
Marceline White, Women's Edge/ART, Rosa Guillen, Mujeres Transformando la Economía
Alberto Arroyo, UAM/RMALC, Peter Bakvis, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Juan Manuel Sandoval, RMALC, Claire Picard, RQIC
Alberto Arroyo, UAM/RMALC
Jocelyn Berthelot, Centrale des syndicats du Québec/RQIC
Elvira Truglia, AMARC/RQIC
John Dillon, KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives/Common Frontiers (Canada)
John Dillon, KAIROS /Common Frontiers (Canada)
Alejandra Rotania, Ser Mulher/Rede Brasileira pela Integracão dos Povos (REBRIP), Kristin Dawkins, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy/ART
Stephen Bartlett, Agricultural Missions/ART
Miosotis Rivas Peña, Centro de Investigación Económica para el Caribe (CIECA) and Andrés Peñaloza, RMALC
Claudio Lara, Consumers International/Alianza Chilena por un Comercio Justo y Responsable
Terry Collingsworth, International Labor Rights Fund/ART
The individuals responsible for the overall coordination and editing of this document include:
Other people who made important contributions include: Victor Baez, ORIT; Gonzalo Berrón (REBRIP); Diana Bronson (Rights and Democracy); Raúl Moreno (Red Sinti Techan); Kathy Ozer (National Family Farm Coalition); David Ranney (ART) and Marcela Escribano (RQIC), and the translators: Maria Eugenia Gutierrez; Natalie Mariona; Jacobo Menajovsky; Keyllen Nieto; Dan Thomas; and Marco Velazquez.
We would also like to express our appreciation to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Solidago Foundation, whose generous support made the translation and publication of this document possible.
The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) brings together a broad range of organizations from throughout the Americas united by the conviction that any form of economic integration among our nations must serve first and foremost to promote equitable and sustainable development for all of our peoples. The members of the HSA, whether labor unions or environmentalists, family farmers or scholars, indigenous people or women, have been working for years to oppose the implementation of so-called neoliberal policies in our respective countries. In addition to our shared critique of the negative impacts of that model, we are united by our conviction that we must move forward with both feet, combining protest with proposal, developing a common vision about what an alternative form of integration might look like. This document expresses our determination to construct an alternative to the dominant integration model based on the proposals described herein.
The Hemispheric Social Alliance rejects the extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the rest of the hemisphere, as well as any accords based on the neoliberal model. We will oppose any agreement drafted along those lines. At the same time, we see the defeat of freetrade agreements as only the first step. We refuse to accept a status quo that continues to marginalize vast sectors of our populations and to degrade our environments. Driving our collective work on alternatives is the sense that the neo-liberal economic model has been a disaster for most of the peoples of the hemisphere, and because of that we must deliberate, propose and struggle for a different model.
Peasants whose labor once fed their nations and themselves are forced to export risky "cash crops" to bring in foreign currency and to provide the well-to-do in the North with meat and fresh produce throughout the year. At the same time, local markets have been flooded with subsidized agricultural products from the North, leading them to bankruptcy. This has resulted in hunger for many and reduced food quality for others, and has driven hundreds of thousands of small farmers from their lands.
This growing export dependency has added to the plight of landless peasants, particularly in countries where the ownership of the bulk of agricultural land is concentrated in a small number of hands. In Brazil, for example, despite decades-long promises of land reform, one percent of land owners control 44 percent of the lands. In recent years private militias and police have killed several hundred landless peasants participating in peaceful occupations of idle or underused lands belonging to wealthy landowners.
With the decline of subsistence agriculture, young women and indigenous peoples have often been forced into our hemisphere's export processing zones, particularly in Mexico and Central America. Paid less than a living wage, they are forced to live in squalor and often subjected to sexual harassment. Long working hours strain their family ties and limit their educational opportunities.
Peasants forced to abandon their lands sometimes come to cities in the hemisphere to seek work. But what many find is unemployment and poverty and a life in the "informal economy," since a great deal of domestic manufacturing has been eliminated by the penetration of transnational corporations and rules that block efforts to strengthen the domestic economy.
Other displaced peasants come north and are met by the militarization of the U.S. border with Mexico, new laws that violate their civil and labor rights, and racist hysteria promoted by right-wing politicians and their constituencies.
The substitution of subsistence farming with agriculture export production has also had serious impacts on local environments and standards of living. It threatens biodiversity and water and soil quality and neither benefits nor respects farmers' or consumers' interests and rights.
Neo-liberal rules to deregulate capital markets, combined with new telecommunications technologies, have opened our nations to the vagaries of hot money. Speculators pull their money in and out of our nations at will, leaving misery in their wake as usurious interest rates and currency devaluations slash the buying power of our wages and drastically reduce opportunities for livable wage work. Argentina is the latest nation to undergo a devastating economic crisis caused in part by the privatization and deregulation of financial markets permitting massive capital flight.
U.S. and Canadian workers have felt the pain of the elimination of hundreds of thousands of livingwage manufacturing jobs. Many have been unable to find comparable work, and their sons and daughters are facing the prospect of either no work at all or jobs that are temporary or part time with pay below what it takes to live a decent life in these countries.
In the United States and Canada, the governments are abandoning public housing subsidies as the ranks of the homeless soar. This has had a disproportionate effect on women, especially poor women. Public funds for basic subsistence living - food, clothing and medical care - programs won by workers' struggles of the past, are being eliminated, and people are told to find non-existent jobs. Meanwhile in both the United States and Canada, the reduction in fiscal deficits is further straining workers and the poor as programs in health care, education and public transportation are privatized, eliminated or seriously cut back.
Throughout the hemisphere, there is a stratum of society that is doing very well by neo-liberal policies. Speculators, transnational corporations and those in their service proclaim the wonders of the market. Those sectors, however, never let their rhetorical commitment to free trade limit their demands for special protections for their own particular interests, as evidenced by the recent debate on Trade Promotion Authority in the U.S. Congress, as well as the dramatic increase in agricultural subsidies to corporate agriculture. But for most of us, the past 25 years have meant declining living standards and in many cases abject poverty.
Neoliberalism entails the imposition of a set of rules that govern not only the economy but also the social fabric of our societies. The issue for us, therefore, is not one of free trade vs. protection or integration vs. isolation, but whose rules will prevail and who will benefit from those rules.
This struggle against the neoliberal model, as expressed in the struggle against free-trade agreements, has been going on for some time. It began with the fight against NAFTA's approval and advocacy efforts to change the characteristics of the Mercosur. A turning point was reached in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1997, when the ORIT unions and their Brazilian affiliate, the CUT, convened a meeting of union leaders from the Americas to which they invited the national multisectoral networks that had been working on the issue. Other civil-society networks were also meeting in the city at that time to discuss the same issues. We ended up working together and decided to join forces to initiate the formation of a great hemispheric social alliance that would involve all sectors of the population affected by this model. The decision was made to convene the First Summit of the Peoples of the Americas the following year. Various committees were established for that purpose, among them an international committee that prepared a draft on alternatives that became the first version of the document presented here.
It was a time of momentous decisions and meetings by hundreds of organizations from many sectors. It is important, however, to highlight the role of multisectoral coalitions in some countries that had been working together for years in a spirit of unity and consensus to defeat free trade agreements. Their experience and years of unified struggle were vital in the development of the nature and forms of struggle that came to define for the Hemispheric Social Alliance. These include to Common Frontiers (Canada), the Quebec Network on Hemispheric Integration, the Alliance for Responsible Trade (United States) and the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade -- which were already organized as a trinational network -- as well as the Chilean Alliance for Just and Responsible Trade (formerly the Chilean Network for a Peoples' Initiative). These multisectoral networks, together with the soon-to-be formed Brazilian Network for a Peoples' Integration, as well as the hemispheric coordinators of the labor sector (ORIT) and the peasant sector (CLOC), formed the initial nucleus that began the formation of the Hemispheric Social Alliance and its Alternative proposals.
The first Peoples' Summit, held in Santiago, Chile, in April 1998 parallel to the second official Summit of heads of state of the Americas, highlighted the fact that there is a growing movement of resistance. This has emerged even more forcefully during the enormous mobilizations that led to the failure of the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999 and at virtually every gathering of official policymakers since then. This global effort against neoliberal globalization also takes on the unified spirit of mobilization and the search for alternatives that characterized the meetings convened by the Zapatistas in the Chiapas jungle. This enormous, unified movement is one of people telling those political leaders, financial speculators and the transnational corporations who promote neoliberal policies that their agenda is unacceptable. It is a movement of people demanding their very humanity. They do so by stating that nutritious food, a comfortable place to live, a clean and healthy environment, health care and education are human rights. And they declare that respect for the rights of workers, women, indigenous peoples, black peoples and Latinos living in the United States and Canada must be central to any process of integration.
Supporters of neoliberalism are attempting to counter the resistance of the peoples of the Americas in a number of ways. In the United States, corporate giants have launched a massive propaganda campaign to "educate" the public on the benefits of free trade. In many countries, an extreme response has been to utilize the nation state as an instrument of terror against its own peoples. Under the guise of a "war on drugs", counter-insurgency efforts such as the Plan Colombia have become a plague in our hemisphere. Furthermore, the suppression of popular movements throughout Mexico, Central and South America is an attempt to limit our nations' demands.
History teaches many things. One lesson can be found in the words of the great African-American emancipator, Frederick Douglass,
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress...Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will...Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong."
Another lesson of history is that no amount of oppression can stop people from declaring their own humanity and acting on that declaration.
The first Peoples' Summit did not end with the negation of the neo-liberal rules; it was the beginning of a dialogue on alternatives. Earlier versions of this document were based on those talks. Our proposals have been enriched by continuous discussions at numerous seminars and meetings during the development of the Hemispheric Social Alliance. Those talks continued at the Second Peoples' Summit in Quebec, Canada in 2001, where more than 3,000 representatives of civil-society groups from throughout the hemisphere met to challenge the FTAA and to promote alternatives.
This new version of Alternatives for the Americas is the product of that continuing dialogue and is thus rooted in the aspirations of the peoples of our hemisphere to live and develop as full human beings. Alternatives for the Americas is an integrated proposal for an alternative vision of equitable and sustainable development for our societies. We firmly believe that the mere incorporation of one or more aspects or chapters from this document into the FTAA or similar accords would not resolve the fundamental problems of free trade.
The aspiration to build a more egalitarian and respectful society throughout the hemisphere transcends national boundaries and has a long historical tradition in the Americas. It goes back at least as far as the struggles to create free and independent countries in the American hemisphere. Almost two centuries ago Simón Bolivar, who led the movement to liberate a large part of South America from colonialism, declared:
"I wish, more than anything else, to witness the creation in America of the greatest nation in the world, not so much because of its immense territory or wealth, but rather because of its freedom and glory."
"Alternatives for the Americas" is not solely an economic doctrine, but is rather an approach to social integration through which the ideas, talents and wealth of all of our peoples can be shared to our mutual benefit. It is a living document that will be altered and expanded as we exercise our rights to continue the debate and discussion.
This document addresses the major topics on the official agenda of current trade negotiations (investment, finance, intellectual property rights, agriculture, market access, services, and dispute resolution), as well as issues that are of extreme social importance but which governments have ignored (human rights, sustainability, environment, labor, immigration, the role of the state, and gender). They should be considered as a complete package of proposals for positive economic integration.
Trade and investment should not be ends in themselves, but rather the instruments for achieving just and sustainable development. Citizens must have the right to participate in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of hemispheric social and economic policies. Central goals of these policies should be to promote economic sovereignty, social welfare, and reduced inequality at all levels.
A common human rights agenda should form the overall framework for all hemispheric policies, and include mechanisms and institutions to ensure full implementation and enforcement. This agenda should promote the broadest definition of human rights, covering civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, gender equity, and rights relating to indigenous peoples and communities.
Governments should subordinate trade and investment to policies that prioritize sustainability and environmental protection. They should also have the power to channel investment to environmentally sustainable activities, reject privatization of natural resources, eliminate policies that subsidize or encourage the use of fossil fuel energy, and use the precautionary principle in setting public policies. Natural resources must be used to serve people's basic needs, not simply as an object of market transactions.
A regional model for sustainable and democratic development requires the incorporation of the principle and objective of sustainability in all of the subjects addressed. These issues should be negotiated with the objective of resolving - with the support of national policies - our region's grave social problems, including inequality, unemployment, and environmental degradation. The agreements must commit the member countries to comply with international treaties and conventions designed to protect the environment, minorities, workers' rights, women's rights and other social conquests. They should also provide practical measures designed to make those agreements effective at a national level.
International conventions on women's rights should be central to all hemispheric policies. Women should have greater opportunities to participate in policy-making. Governments should also establish national laws to ensure affordable child care; address workplace sexual harassment; and implement the UN 20/20 initiative to allocate 20 percent of budgets to social programs. Women should have equal access to credit, education and other resources.
Hemispheric policies should guarantee the basic rights of working men and women, create a fund to provide compensation to workers and communities suffering job losses, and promote the improvement of working and living standards of workers and their families.
Governments should adhere to international conventions on migrants' rights; ensure labor rights for all workers-regardless of immigration status-and severely penalize employers that violate these rights; grant amnesty to all undocumented workers within their borders; demilitarize border zones; and support international subsidies for areas that are major exporters of labor.
Hemispheric policies should not undermine the ability of the nation state to meet its citizens' social and economic needs. Nation states should have the right to maintain public sector corporations and procurement policies that support national development goals. The goal of national regulations on the private sector should be to ensure that economic activities promote fair and sustainable development.
Education is not a commodity; it is a universal and fundamental social right that should be ensured through publicly funded services and should be the responsibility of the State. It should be excluded from agreements on the liberalization of services. Public education should be free and fully accessible in all areas and throughout people's lifetimes.
The right to communications is the right to produce and send, as well as to receive information. Communications should be considered a public good and should be preserved and regulated for society's social and cultural benefit. Communications and mass media should be guided by ethical principles inspired by a culture of life and humanity.
Investment should generate high-quality jobs, sustainable production, and economic stability. Governments should have the right to screen out investments that make no net contribution to development, especially speculative capital flows. Citizens groups and all levels of government should have the right to sue investors that violate investment rules. The NAFTA mechanism that allows investors to sue governments directly should be abolished and banned from other agreements.
100% of all debts of low-income countries and the illegitimate debts of middle-income countries should be canceled. Highly indebted countries should have their debts reduced in order to avoid crises in their balance of payments, pressures to exploit natural resources unsustainably and the other negative economic, social and environmental consequences that result from efforts to service debts that have already been paid. World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs must be abandoned, and those institutions either fundamentally restructured or replaced. Countries should be allowed to impose controls on capital flows and a multilateral mechanism should be developed to regulate speculative activity. Governments should have the power to establish their own monetary and financial policies and resist dollarization.
Governments should have the power to establish intellectual property rules that reflect their specific social, cultural and economic contexts. This should include the right to provisions to guarantee access to essential drugs and protect biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and traditional and farming communities. All life forms should be excluded from patentability.
Countries should assume the responsibility to ensure that their populations have food. Governments should have the right to protect or exclude staple foods from trade agreements. There should be a democratization of decisionmaking on agricultural, fishery and environmental polices, and especially land reform policy, that fully involves small-scale farmers. No element of any international integration agreement should limit the ability of the nation state to promote and consolidate that process.
Developing countries should work with developed countries to implement special policies to address the inequalities between our countries. The current dominant principle of "national treatment," which requires governments to treat foreign investors and products no less favorably than domestic ones, severely restricts national development planning. Governments should be allowed to pursue policies to strengthen domestic demand rather than relying entirely on external markets. Government must have sovereign rights to provide subsidies and fiscal incentives to productive services that reflect legitimate social interests.
Basic services such as education, health care, energy, water and other utilities should be available to all people throughout the hemisphere. In order to reach this goal, those public services should not be privatized or left to the forces of so-called market rules. Countries should promote national development interests and prioritize environmental and other social concerns above the goal of efficient resource allocation. Governments must also develop and maintain the technical and institutional capacity to effectively regulate services.
If the proposed policies are to be meaningful, they must be accompanied by dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms that are focused on reducing inequalities and based on fair and democratic processes. These should be designed to create sufficient incentives to encourage compliance so that enforcement actions can be avoided. This would involve an assessment of compliance in each country, action plans to address obstacles to compliance, and, as a last resort, the withholding of trade agreement benefits for corporate violators and/or governments with a record of pervasive non-enforcement.
No country can nor should remain isolated from the global economy. This does not mean, however, that the current free market approach to globalization is the only, much less the best, form of economic integration. The dynamics of the world economy are a reality that must be taken into account in any effort to develop a national development plan if the programs proposed are to be viable and sustainable. We refuse, however, to permit the world economy to define, with our governments' consent, the future of our countries and our peoples. We must democratically construct sustainable national development plans in our countries and, starting from that point, insert ourselves into the world economy.
This dominant free market approach (embodied in the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, and the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment) argues that the global market on its own will allocate and develop the best possibilities for each country. According to this view, it is unnecessary for us to envision the kind of nation we want to be or could be. We only need to eliminate all obstacles to global trade, and the market itself will take on the task of offering us the best of all possible worlds.
The difference between this dominant approach and the alternative vision presented in this document lies not in whether we accept the opening of our economies to trade. The two fundamental differences are the following: 1) whether to have a national plan we can fight for or let the market determine the plan, and 2) whether capital, especially speculative capital, should be subject to international regulation. The recent trend has been to allow all capital, even speculative capital, free rein, and let the world follow capital's interests. History has demonstrated that the market on its own does not generate development, let alone social justice. In contrast, we propose a world economy regulated at the national and supra-national levels in the interest of peace, democracy, sustainable development and economic stability at the national as well as international levels.
Our position in this regard is very clear: we cannot remain on the sidelines but must claim our role as valid stakeholders in the globalization dialogue. We must refuse to accept the current neo-liberal form of globalization as irreversible. We must not only reduce its negative consequences, but put forward a positive alternative.
As citizens of the Americas, we refuse to be ruled by the law of supply and demand and claim our role as individuals rather than simple commodities governed by the laws of the market.
Free trade has produced only social and economic exclusion. This has resulted in the creation of a social stratum of citizens devalued by the current economic system and the society that supports it. Exclusion renders people unable to enter or re-enter the economic circuit. The inability to reintegrate leads to a process of social "disqualification" and the loss of active citizenship. Anyone who has felt the negative effects of the transition to free trade has become chronically unemployed or whose job is precarious, lives and knows this exclusion.
We are not opposed to the establishment of rules for regional or international trade and investment. Nor does our criticism of the dominant, externally imposed form of globalization imply a wish to return to the past, to close our economies and establish protectionist barriers, or to press for isolationist trade policies. But the current rules have not helped our countries overcome, nor even reduce, our economic problems. We propose alternative rules to regulate the global and hemispheric economies that are based on a different economic logic: that trade and investment should not be ends in themselves, but rather tools for achieving just and sustainable development. Our proposal also promotes a social logic that includes areas such as labor, human rights, the environment, and minorities--that is, previously excluded issues and people.
While our critique and proposal have a technical basis, they also spring from an ethical imperative. We refuse to accept the market as a god that controls our lives. We do not accept the inevitability of a model of globalization that excludes more than half of the world's population from the benefits of development. We do not accept that environmental degradation is the inevitable and necessary evil accompanying growth. Behind the neoliberal economic measures lies not just a political and economic strategy but an unacceptable underlying conception of the human being and a culture that must be eliminated.
A profound ethical imperative pushes us to propose our own model of society, one supported by the many men and women united in hope for a more just and humane society for themselves and future generations.
The democratization of debates and decision making is a necessary precondition, but is not sufficient in itself for the development of new just and sustainable rules on investment, environment, and labor that takes citizens' interests into account. Democracy by itself does not ensure social welfare; clear and viable economic and social proposals must be developed based on consensus and public support. In addition, democracy must not be reduced to an electoral issue. The democratisation of decision making on fundamental economic and social issues is imperative. Citizens must not only approve economic and social policies, but also participate in their formulation, implementation, and evaluation. They must be able to change or modify these policies when appropriate. In order to achieve this objective it may be necessary to implement special initiatives to ensure that marginalized or oppressed groups, among them women, have access to these debates.
Global corporations have grown so large that they can no longer be effectively controlled by our governments. We need new instruments to reassert public control and citizen sovereignty over these firms.
The political stability needed for sustainable development requires that agreements on economic integration include mechanisms to ensure democratic security. Stability should be based on democratic participation and not on coercion. Any agreement should promote democracy in the Americas, without being interventionist in internal affairs. Democratic and non-coercive security entails civilian monitoring (accountable to citizens) of the forces of law and order. Civilian control is required, for example, to halt the arms race and the militarization of broad areas of the Americas that is currently being conducted under the pretext of fighting arms and drug trafficking and drug production.
International democratization requires reform of United Nations institutions, including the Security Council, as well as international banking and trade institutions. The reforms must be based on consultations in every country and should be oriented to serving humankind's objectives: sustainable development and democracy and peace based on justice and respect for human dignity. Such institutions should not continue to be the tools of large multinational corporations and nuclear powers. The democratization of the world and inter-American system must also stop the exclusion of countries for ideological or political reasons, as is currently the case with Cuba.
All integration agreements must ensure that the defense and promotion of human rights, taken in the broadest sense, is also globalized. That is, not only civil and political rights and individual protections should be included, but also the collective rights of peoples and their communities: economic, social, cultural, and environmental. Special attention should be given to the rights of indigenous communities and peoples, and mechanisms put in place to eliminate all forms of discrimination and the oppression of women.
The rules flowing from agreements should preserve the power of individual countries to set high standards of living, valuing dignified work, the creation of enough good jobs, healthy communities, and a clean environment within their borders. There should be no limitations on the sovereignty of states, provinces or localities.
In today's world, economic sovereignty, stability and social welfare require making productive economic activities a priority, while discouraging speculative investment and regulating the free flow of footloose capital. Corporate interests should not undermine our countries' economic sovereignty.
Economic integration should represent a commitment to improve the quality of life for all. Our countries should not be promoted on the basis of low wages, systematic discrimination against women or other groups, lack of social protections or lax enforcement. National competitiveness cannot be rooted in the deterioration of standard of living and/or the environment. Equalization of standards should be achieved through upward harmonization. Trade and integration accords, as wells as domestic economic policies, should include social objectives, time tables, indicators of social impact and corrective remedies.
National governments must protect local efforts aimed at achieving viable, economically sustainable and food self-sufficient communities, both urban and rural.
Giving priority to social welfare in international agreements means reducing military budgets and allocating resources to people's education and health. Money saved through military reductions in powerful nations should be channelled toward an international war on poverty.
Combating drug production, trafficking and consumption should be an element of integration accords. Rather than taking a purely military approach, however, this should be achieved through mass educational campaigns, the elimination of the poverty driving this lucrative business, fighting against corruption and the involvement in the drug trade of high-level authorities, and other measures aimed at the root causes of the problem. International agreements must preserve the sovereignty of nation states over domestic matters and in the application of their own laws. They should not allow for the presence of armed troops or foreign police forces within the borders of a sovereign nation.
A main objective of any agreement should be the reduction of inequalities within and among nations, between women and men, and among races.
a) Among nations: The rush toward the integration of highly unequal economies without social protections is creating a climate in which large corporations can reduce the standard of living and wages in all regions of the world. The new rules should include mechanisms to reduce imbalances among nations through raising living standards in the poorest countries. This would not only be a step toward meeting the demands for justice and equity in these countries. It would also reduce the power of corporations to take advantage of such inequalities to weaken standards and wages everywhere by threatening to move production to areas where labor costs and environmental protections are lower.
b) Within nations: Inequalities and extreme poverty have been increasing for more than a decade in the Americas. The new rules should reduce these inequalities, encouraging redistribution of income, land and natural resources.
c) Between women and men and among races: Women, people of color and indigenous peoples have had to shoulder a disproportionate share of the economic and social decline caused by neo-liberal policy. Cuts in public-sector services and jobs, together with the reduction in stable jobs and democratic structures, have hit women harder than men and girls harder than boys. In times of scarcity, the decisions made by families and society tend to favor men, whether consciously or not. Moreover, women's responsibilities increase, since they are traditionally responsible for care of the family, when family members lose access to jobs or programs funded by the state. This is one more burden added to the other forms of discrimination women confront on the economic, legal, social and political spheres in the hemisphere. Discrimination must be ended by implementing new strategies and economic models to reverse the impacts of current policies. Countries must respect international agreements designed to achieve equity. At the same time there should be social programs and the intensification of international cooperation toward this end.
a) The decision to work for sustainable and democratic regional integration requires the incorporation of those principles and objectives into all of the issues that comprise an agreement on integration: trade; investment; services, etc. Those issues must be negotiated with the specific objective of resolving, with the support of national policies, our region's serious social problems: inequality; unemployment; environmental degradation; poverty and many other issues.
b) Any integration agreement should commit the member countries to comply with international treaties and conventions designed to protect the environment, minorities, workers' rights and other social conquests. It should also provide practical means for the implementation of measures at the regional level. Consequently, nothing in such agreements should contradict those global treaties or conventions.
c) The contents of these agreements, especially on matters related to trade, investment and financial and technological assistance, should include mechanisms that prioritize domestic production of goods and services necessary for the population's basic needs. Instead of stimulating the production of superfluous consumer goods produced by large transnational corporations or of monocrop exports, they should protect production oriented primarily to the domestic market, whether industrial, craft, or from family-farms. In this regard, the preservation of cultural patterns of local consumption should be the object of special attention and protection.
d) In order to achieve sustainability, there must be progressive reductions in exports of goods intensive in natural resources and energy, whose production degrades the environment in the Americas, especially among its poorest populations.
In virtue of international law and, in particular, the Charter of the United Nations, Charter of the Organization of American States, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, American Convention on Human Rights, and the Protocol of San Salvador, states are required to respect, protect, and promote the exercise and fulfillment of all universal and indivisible human rights. In order to fulfill this obligation, states must demand and ensure that other social and economic players within their jurisdictions, including transnational corporations, also respect human rights.
Nevertheless, governments continue to either ignore prior commitments to the international community on human rights or they treat these commitments separately from economic matters. In some extreme cases, they have pushed for collective, social and labor rights to be excluded from constitutional protection. Frequently, free trade negotiations end up modifying domestic social pacts, making the weakest social partners bear the brunt of concessions made to benefit transnational corporations. These strategies have put human and social rights in jeopardy and have led to the deterioration of protections as well as the weakening of domestic and international enforcement mechanisms. In fact, many governments have put much more emphasis on negotiating trade agreements than protecting human rights. For example, the Committee which is charged with overseeing state compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (which has been ratified by 145 nations) is composed of 18 part-time experts and two staff persons. The World Trade Organization, on the other hand, with roughly an equivalent membership, has over 500 employees and much greater resources. These practices ignore the fact that, according to international law, governments have the fundamental obligation to respect and ensure the exercise of human rights by all persons in their jurisdictions and to demand that other actors, including transnational corporations, uphold basic human rights. Human rights must not be an element tacked on to negotiations, but rather the legal and normative framework for international economic relations. Trade relations should be seen as a means and not as an end for development, since the primary obligation of any government is to achieve its citizens' well being.
The current neo-liberal aproach is incompatible with human rights and has exacerbated the marginalisation of broad sectors of the hemisphere's population. In this context, four basic points must be considered:
The recognition of the rights derived from existing obligations and the ratification of other accords is only the first step toward the full implementation of human rights. This will bring into effect the right to development as a universal and inalienable right and as an integral part of fundamental human rights as declared by the General Assembly of the UN in 1986.
The bodies of the Inter-American system for the protection of human rights should carefully monitor the consistency of trade agreements with the respect of human rights.
The executive nature of the decisions made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights should be reaffirmed. States should comply with the decisions made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. States should also adopt the national legal and other measures required to ensure implementation of all decisions emanating from the bodies of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights should review periodically the impact of regional economic integration on human rights. States should ask the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for an advisory opinion on the compatibility between any proposed trade or integration agreement and the human rights principles set forth in the regional conventions.
Any conflict-resolution mechanism in a trade or integration agreement should take into account international and regional standards of human rights protection, as well as the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the process of resolving conflicts arising out of alleged violations of human rights prinicples set forth in those agreements.
In its annual report to the General Assembly of the OAS, the Inter-American Commission should include a standing chapter on measures and action to ensure compliance of all trade and integration agreements with Inter-American and universal instruments for the protection of human rights. In preparing this chapter, the Inter-American Commission shall take into account the contributions of civil society.
In order to implement these international commitments, all parties should ratify the principles of cooperation and coordination among international, regional and national human rights protection instruments.
The liberalization of trade and investment through the free trade agreements signed to date, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement, has had severe social and environmental impacts on peoples and workers. The peoples of the Americas aspire to an international economy based on different principles that prioritize the environment.
From an environmental perspective, the problems with classic trade and investment policy are that they: "externalize" (do not account for) environmental and social costs; they foster more intense energy use, especially of fossil fuels; and they lead to over-exploitation of natural resources and damage to biodiversity, all of which erode the underlying basis of the economy and society. Such policies intensify the expropriation of genetic resources, the destruction of natural ecosystems, environmental degradation in agricultural and urban areas, environmental deregulation, and the violation of the individual and collective civil rights of generations present and future. Therefore, we believe that an accord that is respectful of the environment cannot be achieved through the addition of environmental clauses to the dominant logic of trade agreements. In reality, an environmental perspective would bring profound changes in economic strategy as such and therefore also lead to new thinking about the rules that govern the world economy. Experience has demonstrated that true development that incorporates an environmental perspective is incompatible with leaving the economy to markets forces.
Environmental degradation has also had a disproportionate effect on people living in poverty, especially women, as they tend to live with the impact of polluted habitats and resources in places where there is little political will to improve those conditions. Supporters of neoliberal policies tend to view some dimensions of sustainability (such as food security, the protection and use of collective wisdom about and use of biodiversity, the sustainable use of ecosystems and the existence of fair and equitable ways of sharing the benefits of natural resources) as obstacles to international trade. Governments for the most part have rejected these ideals, yielding instead to international market pressures.
Trade and financial liberalization stimulate and favor the entry of large transnational corporations into our countries, companies that are dedicated, in general, to export activities based on the intensive utilization of natural resources and energy. Those activities are often stimulated by the use of public resources. This means that state resources, which should be directed to social investments, end up facilitating even more exports and consumption of natural resources by the wealthiest sectors of society, with prices therefore remaining artificially low in the international market. This is, therefore, a mechanism that stimulates both concentration of wealth and environmental degradation.
Forests
The forests of the Americas are the home of numerous indigenous peoples and other traditional communities that obtain from them the means of their physical subsistence, while at the same time ensuring their cultural survival. In addition, many other peoples and rural inhabitants living in areas near forests acquire from them numerous goods and services that ensure their livelihoods. Forests are also repositories of most of the current land-based biodiversity in the hemisphere, and also fulfill essential environmental functions, as much in the local as global realms. Therefore, the risks of the free trade model on the region's forests and for those who depend on them must be carefully evaluated.
The experience and results of trade agreements in this hemisphere, especially NAFTA, as well as neoliberal policies in general, show that the standards of protection for forests have been weakened. Indiscriminate logging has seriously harmed the peoples who inhabit forests or those who depend on forests. Moreover, employment has been lost in the forest sector, and the exploitation of native forests without improvements to inefficient and destructive forest extraction systems has accelerated. Industrial forest plantations cannot be considered to be forests, since they lack the majority of their characteristic values and in general contribute to processes of deforestation.
Therefore, any international agreement in the Americas should:
Biodiversity and Intellectual Property
Conservation of biodiversity has been the responsibility of thousands of communities that use and cultivate resources for subsistence rather than for profit. There is a direct relationship between cultural, natural and agricultural diversity; they support each other. The international exchange of the resources generated by biodiversity has historically been of benefit to many peoples, although those benefits have been distributed less equitably over the last few decades. Conservation, research and development of genetic resources ex-situ in public and private scientific centers, combined with intellectual property systems, has institutionalized the looting and monopolization of genetic resources.
The hemisphere currently faces enormous threats to its biodiversity due to pressure from international trade liberalization treaties and the actions of multinational corporations, supported by national or regional legislation that covers their activities.
These threats are, among other things, contributing to the plunder and overexploitation of resources, genetic and cultural erosion, the disappearance of species of flora and fauna and traditional agricultural varieties, the disruption of ecosystems, biological contamination with genetically modified organisms, multiple economic, social and cultural impacts on peasant, indigenous and other local populations with traditional lifestyles who have been displaced by force or by the destruction of their livelihoods.
In recent years some processes that result in increasingly negative impacts on natural as well as cultural diversity have intensified. Megaprojects of natural resource exploitation, including the energy and transportation infrastructure that go with them, have a direct negative physical impact. There are also more indirect processes that lead to very negative impacts. These are, notably, the accentuation of the privatization process starting with intellectual property laws, the introduction of genetically modified organisms, the looting and privatization of genetic resources and knowledge through "biopiracy," and the privatization - formal or de facto - of natural protected areas, depriving traditional populations of them and/or expelling them.
Taking these situations into account, the principles and objectives guiding any international agreement or regulation should serve to:
Sustainable energy sources
Sustainable energy development is predicated on respect for the right of communities, energy savings, and the fight against excessive energy consumption. Energy sources should be renewable, clean and low-impact. Access to those sources should be democratic and equitable.
In order to carry out this vision, it is clear that nation-states and local communities must control the development of energy sources and other natural resources. Unfortunately, the draft text of the FTAA includes various proposals similar to those in NAFTA that would make these controls difficult or impossible.
Specifically, the draft FTAA text includes measures that limit the use of export taxes, export quotas or minimum prices. In addition, it opens the door to one of the most dangerous articles in NAFTA, which requires countries to continue to export non-renewable natural resources even during periods of national scarcity. The chapter on competition policy includes provisions that would prohibit the establishment of "non-production" or other restrictions on the supply or demand of goods and services.
Energy integration should be a process that allows for the growth of potential and for cooperation among different countries, under equitable conditions that reflect each nation's economic, social and cultural characteristics.
Therefore, the following are proposed:
Mining
Mining in the Americas has involved many decades of heavy metal pollution and the destruction of land and sea habitats, as well as threats to the health and safety of mine workers and their families, who often live near hazardous work-sites and suffer effects to their physical and reproductive health due to contact with such contamination. These conditions are present throughout the hemisphere and reflect inefficient public policies designed to control the environmental impact of this activity, as well as clearly predatory corporate behavior.
The accelerated expansion of mining carried out by international companies has not been accompanied by stronger controls, regulations or safeguards for human or environmental health. Instead, it has generated greater demand for the use of resources such as water and energy.
Therefore, the governments of the Americas should:
Insecticides
The intensive use of chemical insecticides on monoculture agricultural export production creates serious public health problems, such as: frequent poisoning resulting from the use of extremely and highly toxic insecticides; the generation of chronic health problems such as birth defects, cancer, alterations of hormone systems, reproductive problems and effects on neurological systems. Children, women of reproductive age and indigenous migratory workers are the sectors that are at greatest risk.
Similarly, the intensive use of chemical insecticides threatens the biodiversity of agroecosystems and the region's environment due to the destruction of microflora and microfauna in the soil, the effects on beneficial insects, birds and other species of wildlife; the impacts of aerial spraying, contamination of subterranean water, leaching of contaminants from irrigation channels to rivers, lagoons and seas; in addition to causing resistance in insects, fungi and weeds.
The models of regulation and control of the pollution that results from insecticide use in the region have been ineffective due to the lack of enforcement of laws and standards, deficient monitoring and the lack of recognition of the public access to information on the use of insecticides and their impact on environmental and food quality. Therefore, the governments of the Americas must:
Toxic substances and residues, solid and dangerous waste products
The generation of dangerous waste products creates a serious problem of environmental contamination and public health that threatens the sustainability of the Americas. In spite of that, industry has promoted a paradigm of evaluation and risk management of toxic substances rather than the prevention of exposure to them, and favored technologies to treat dangerous wastes at the end of the production process instead of proposing changes and evaluating alternatives to the intensive use of toxic chemical substances and dangerous materials. Transnational corporations seek to homogenize consumer needs, centralize production at the cost of employment and the environment, and encourage waste production and generation in order to augment profits.
Neoliberal policies of indiscriminate trade liberalization and incentives for foreign investment promote self-regulation of industry and lead to lower levels of control of trade in dangerous substances and materials, the relocation of polluting industries in the region, and the export of dirty technologies for the treatment of dangerous waste products. In the case of NAFTA, protections are also provided for foreign investors through compensatory measures that allow them to claim damages worth millions of dollars if they are affected by conservation or public health protection measures, alleging discriminatory or expropriation practices.
Therefore we demand that the governments of the Americas:
In the official documents related to the FTAA negotiations the expression "sustainable development" is limited to formal declarations by ministers and heads of states following their meetings or summits.
Just as "free trade" dangerously appropriates the concept of "freedom", the concepts of development and sustainability take on very different meanings depending on who is using them.
The promoters of free trade defend their positions based on the general theory that liberalization will result in international specialization of production based on free competition among producers, leading to benefits for all, with reductions in production costs and, consequently, prices to consumers. This would lead, therefore, to a general increase in production and consumption, i.e., economic growth. This consumption, as it generates more wealth, would also lead to new cycles of growth and expansion of trade. The virtuous circle of trade would therefore close with economic growth, reductions in poverty and environmental protection.
The promoters of free trade, in spite of their frequent appropriation of the term "sustainable development", hold out the promise of unlimited growth of production and consumption, as if it were possible that all inhabitants of the planet could have access to the already unsustainable patterns of consumption that occur in developed countries.
Meanwhile, the consequences of growing trade liberalization and international financial flows produce very different effects from those predicted by the neoliberal doctrine. International specialization of production has made the terms of trade less and less favorable for developing countries. Free circulation of capital, whether speculative or not, worsens many countries' balance of payments. The indiscriminate withdrawal of mechanisms to protect industrial production worsens this scenario even further, generating unemployment and needs for additional imports. The case of Mexico under NAFTA demonstrates the unsustainability of this model, as official data acknowledge that the cost of environmental deterioration and degradation is equivalent to 10% of GDP every year under NAFTA. Beyond that, the promised economic growth has not materialized, as average GDP per capita grew just 0.94% a year.
Pressured both by foreign debt and by the international financial institutions' policy conditions, these countries have had to adopt measures that, while dealing with the short-term external account problems, compromise their populations' quality of life over the long term:
The historical tendency toward falling prices for primary export commodities, linked to the increasing need to import industrial goods, as well as growing capital remittances for interest payments, profit remittances, royalties, etc., only increase the gap between rich and poor countries.
Therefore a growing segment of the population in Latin America finds it impossible -- due to insufficient income - to obtain the basic natural resources needed for decent living standards. At the same time, the richer countries, who benefit from profits on investments and the fall in the prices of primary goods, adopt patterns of consumption that are increasingly unsustainable.
As it is based on this logic of unlimited growth in production and consumption by the most favored sectors of the population, the FTAA plan goes against the path of sustainability with social justice that we want. The addition of new countries to an agreement that restricts the freedom to adopt autonomous economic, social, and environmental policies implies the loss of sovereignty to implement sustainable development plans at the national and regional levels.
Our analysis leads us to conclude that, at least in name of the precautionary principle, we should take a firm position against the FTAA in the form it is now being presented. As we see it, that agreement will lead us away from a plan for sustainable and democratic development that deals with the totality of our societies' real needs, something that is not surprising, since none of the member countries have any plan that would point in this direction.
The achievement of sustainable regional integration that promotes the welfare of the majority of the population would require regulatory mechanisms. Regulations that put the integration processes, and within them trade agreements, at the service of social interests and sustainabililty should be constructed with broad participation by civil society. Organized social actors, not markets, should be the protagonists in the definition of the course of integration and the development of countries. Moreover, integration based on equity both among countries and within them would require democratic institutions capable of ensuring transparency and civil-society participation.
This institutional structure should contribute to the development of mechanisms for cooperation among countries that should replace the practice of sanctions that characterizes trade negotiations. Social control, regulation, democratic institutions, and cooperation, therefore, should be the pillars for the constitution of a process of democratic and sustainable integration.
The globalization that characterizes the contemporary world is provoking significant changes occurring at an accelerated rate. Economic integration schemes in the American continent, arising from the regional and bilateral free trade agreements and the policies of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), have brought with them processes of social exclusion and polarization. However, their effects have not been homogenous and acquire distinct depths, forms and meanings according to the contexts in which they are inserted. The American continent is a mosaic of cultures and races, indigenous peoples and African descendents, and economic, social and ecological realities, in which globalization takes on specific traits. This diversity is also expressed in gender relations, which are a fundamental component of the economic and social organization of the region's nations and peoples.
The changes which have occurred in the lives of women and men over the past twenty years are not the simple result of the free market economy. The decade of the 1990s and these first years of the new century have also been marked by social mobilization to defend the exercise of integral human rights: economic, social, labor, cultural and environmental, as well as political and civil rights, as the standard and framework which should guide development strategies. The social mobilization of female workers and campesinas, and indigenous and urban-popular women, together with the feminist movement, have achieved the placement of a broad range of proposals for the advancement of gender equity in the national and international political agendas.
The proposals to achieve social and gender equity are often built against the tide of growing inequalities characterizing the globalized world. The concentration of wealth and power, exacerbation of both public and private violence, imposition of cultural models promoting consumerism and aimed at standardizing lifestyles, increasing poverty, deterioration of natural resources and sustainable forms of production, and prevalence of discrimination (for motives of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, or indigenous or African- American ethnicity), coexist with the conviction of broad population sectors that "another America is possible." This obligates us to identify the effects of the neoliberal model which are common for all women and men, while also analyzing the specific forms acquired by gender inequities and building alternatives to eradicate them.
The negative balances that characterized the so-called "lost decade" work in detriment to the possibilities of greater empowerment and autonomy for women incorporating within the worst segments of the labor market. Their incorporation not only has not relieved their housework burden, but that work has actually increased due to the shrinking of the State.
The structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and early 1990s paved the way for negotiation, signature and instrumentation of the free trade agreements and the intensification of foreign investments associated with those agreements. The adjustment programs were oriented to promote structural transformations in economies, including redefinition of the State role, modification of legal frameworks in particular in reference to the regulation and control of strategic resources, and reorientation of production in developing countries toward the export sector. More concretely, the adjustment programs meant drastic reductions in price subsidies, especially of agricultural products and basic services, and a strong drop in public investments in infrastructure, education and health.
A greater proportion of the social costs of reproduction and maintenance of the workforce were transferred to the "private" sphere, with the consequence that the economic and social value of this contribution has become even more invisible. Women, who traditionally - and still - are responsible for a large part of social reproduction,1 saw their labor burdens increase to replace a State which reduced and limited its functions. Women absorbed the impact of structural adjustment by working longer and harder both in and outside the home.
Latin America and the Caribbean grew from 620 billion dollars in 1995 to 752 billion in 2003. By that year, Brazil's debt reached 235 billion dollars, followed by Mexico with 149 billion and Argentina with 145 billion (CEPAL, 2004).
The beginning of the 1990s was accompanied by the initiation of negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the first such agreement of the continent, which has been followed by several others within the same scheme. The promises of economic growth which would External debt in translate into better levels of social well-being, not only have not been fulfilled, but the negative effects of these agreements have been added to old problems such as the enormous external debt burden -in some countries transformed into or accompanied by heavy internal debt- with the exacerbation of the economic dependence of the majority of, if not all, Latin American and Caribbean countries. The populations of the United States and Canada have not enjoyed improvements from the free trade agreements either. More than 37 million people in the world's wealthiest country are officially classified as poor and this figure increases year after year. The well-paid jobs for low-qualified operators in heavy industry, which once elevated the level of the United States middle class, have virtually disappeared and continue to do so. Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 2.7 million jobs in the manufacturing sector (Reuter Noticias, 2005).
Female labor participation went from 39% in 1990 to 44.7% in 1998 with an annual increase of almost 5%, while that of men during the same period remained stable at levels around 75% (ILO, 2005). In Canada and the United States, female economic participation rates are higher, at 57. 5% and 59.2% respectively in 2004 (ILO, 2004).
Urban informal employment in Latin America and the Caribbean increased from 42.8% to 46.7% in 2003. By that year, female informal employment was 50.1%, while that of men reached 44.1%.
One of the most important changes in women's participation in the economy is produced in this economic context: their massive and accelerated integration into the labor market, both formal and informal, and in both the urban and rural spheres.
This intensification of women's integration to the labor market is combined with the increase of women's access to distinct levels of education and other advancements achieved in this period. Nevertheless, the advantages of obtaining their own incomes are limited or in fact reverted by the quality of the jobs generated, characterized by their precarious and informal status. The labor flexibility implanted by the new production schemes make women's integration into the workforce possible, but in frankly exploitative conditions. Low wages, poorly-paid piecework or work out of the home, extra long workdays, and job instability and rotation, are some of the characteristics of a female labor force which is flexible and inclined to accept conditions which allow it to combine housework with that carried out outside the home. These conditions are repeated in micro-industries and are accentuated in the exportoriented'maquiladora assembly-line manufacturing industry, which for many years was the primary source of formal employment for women in various countries, especially in Central America and Mexico.
Women's incomes are 75% lower than those of men. This percentage improves in the case of more highly educated women (Grynspan, 2003).
Furthermore, women continue to obtain wages inferior to those paid to men, and they are employed in traditionally female branches and sectors (Birgin, 2001). At the same time, education, health, and social security services are in abject deterioration, or access to them has been significantly restricted, as in the reforms to the pension and retirement systems. This decline in social services is added to the attempts to privatize health, education, water, and other services to leave them subject to the free play of the market like any other "merchandise."
More than 200 million people were poor in 1990 (48.3%), and according to CEPAL estimates this number reached 225 million in 2003 (43.9%) (CEPAL, 2003).
Concentration of wealth and expansion of poverty have been the signs accompanying world-scale encroachment of the neoliberal model. Inequalities have been accentuated in our continent, considered the region with the greatest social disparities in the world. Poverty reaches its greatest proportions in rural areas, especially those inhabited by indigenous and Afro-mestizo populations. The urban poverty, including that present in the developed countries of North America, is also worrisome. There are more poor women than men, including a greater proportion of impoverished households headed by women.
Levels of exchange and trade dependency of Latin American and Caribbean countries in relation with the United States. Percentage of total exports whose destination is the United States: Mexico, Haiti and Honduras: More than 50% Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia and the majority of the members of the Central American Common Market and the Caribbean Community: Between 25 and 50% The countries of MERCOSUR, Chile, Panama and Peru: Less than 25%. Fuente: Red Internacional de Género y Comercio. 2003.
Three out of ten persons in Latin America and the Caribbean live in rural areas and depend on agriculture, fishing, livestock, forestry, tourism, and other activities for their subsistence. The rules established for the free trade agreements, such as NAFTA and other bilateral agreements, have wrought havoc in the lives of women and men in the countryside, who have faced an accelerated increase in imported agricultural products and the opening of borders to the large agro-industrial and agro-trade companies. In the rural regions, it is common to find a dynamic agro-industrial sector linked to export crops, controlled by large national and transnational capitals, and a severely straggling traditional sector, resulting in lost food security. The intensification of female participation in field work and other rural tasks obeys a family poverty-relief strategy and the decrease of agricultural and fishing incomes. Some calculations indicate that the women of the continent contribute close to 40% of food production and their contribution to poverty alleviation is significant. Micro-enterprises and self-employment contribute continuously more income sources, especially for poor women. However, the small projects have low possibilities for success because local, national and international markets are dominated by the giants who control the agro-food sectors, against which it is impossible to compete.
Women's right to land ownership, loan access, water source concessions, biodiversity, and access to other natural resources, lag far behind the rhythm of women's contribution to the rural economy. Programs promoting joint property titles to family land, so that ownership be officially shared by women and men, face legal, political and cultural obstacles that redound in a lack of economic and social recognition of women's productive role. That role, and women's traditional backyard activities and household work, are not taken into consideration in allocation of land ownership titles or usufructuary rights to water, forests and other resources. On the other hand, the rules imposed by the free trade agreements on intellectual property rights open the doors for transnational companies to patent and appropriate the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of the indigenous communities.
Some 25 million Latin American and Caribbean adults live outside their countries of origin. Two out of three of these regularly send money to their families (IDB, 2005).
Migration is an escape valve amidst the decline of the agricultural sector that combines with the sustained demand for cheap and flexible labor in the United States. The flow of Latin American and Caribbean male and female workers to that country grows and maintains itself, despite reinforced security and bordercontrol measures implemented in recent years. The money sent by Latin American and Caribbean migrants to their communities of origin reached 45.8 billion dollars in 2004 (IDB, 2005) and constitutes an important proportion of the national foreign exchanges and economies in El Salvador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and other countries. The proportion of men who immigrate -especially without legal documents- continues to be higher than that of women, but many young women and even entire families move internally to work in the maquila industry, as export-crop agricultural field hands, or as domestic workers. The figures indicate that gender discrimination factors are reproduced in jobs occupied by Latin American and Caribbean female migrants in the United States (Gammage, 2004) who occupy the lowest-paid jobs, together with children. Employment conditions are also disadvantaged for women in agro-industrial companies in their countries of origin. The difficulties encountered for the return of male migrants often result in abandonment of their homes of origin, contributing to increase the number of rural homes headed by women who are forced to assume the responsibility to sustain their families in very precarious conditions.
The growing military presence, as an act of domination over our peoples, has contributed to the sexual abuse of women, girls and boys, and to increased incidence of prostitution and violence. Along the borders, trafficking of persons has intensified, with specific dangerous consequences for women. In our America, feminicides increased following the establishment of neoliberal policies and with the tolerance of our governments. The State of Law in our countries is limited to the discourse, because the reality is characterized by impunity and lack of security in our homes, on the streets, and in women's lives in general.
It is clear that the current continental economic integration scheme is disadvantaged for women and does not contribute to reduce social and gender inequities. Alternatives must urgently be promoted which effectively lead toward profound cultural changes to eliminate the discrimination of women and contribute to the construction of a more dignified and equitable society.
To advance toward economic integration schemes which are inclusive, democratic, and respectful of the social and cultural diversity of the countries of the Americas, guiding principles must be adopted to constitute a frame of reference for analysis, proposals, and action toward a new globalization. Some of the guiding principles oriented to diminish and eliminate the gender asymmetries are:
The guiding principles toward a new model of relations among the countries of the continent must be accompanied by objectives which foster the generation of social mobilization capable of opening opportunities and spaces for society's participation -including women and men- in the design of the international trade agreements and treaties as well as the national public policies which sustain them. The objectives enunciated below outline the action program of the Women's Committee of the Continental Social Alliance:2
1. Social reproduction refers to the whole of activities, generally carried out in the home, which allow human beings to satisfy their daily needs such as food preparation, cleaning, healthcare, childcare, and care of the elderly.
2. These objectives have been adopted from various documents of the member organizations of the Women's Committee of the Continental Social Alliance.
Women's Committee
Women's Committee Coordination of Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA)/The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), Hilda Salazar Ramírez, María Atilano, Leonor Aída Concha, Rebeca Salazar, Silvia Sandoval.
Hilda Salazar Ramírez
Nalu Faria, Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Transformando la Economía (REMTE), Brazil; Karen Hansen-Kuhn, Alliance for Responsible Trade, United States;
Norma Maldonado, Mesa Global, Guatemala; Norma Sanchis, International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), Latin American chapter focal point, Argentina;
Alexandra Spieldoch, Center of Concern/ International Gender and Trade Network, United States;
Tania Vanegas, Alexander von Humboldt Center.
In Mexico:
Centro de Apoyo a la Mujer Margarita Magón, A.C.; Comité de Mujeres del Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (STUNAM); Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT); Marcha Mundial de la Mujeres en México (MMM); Mujer y Medio Ambiente, A.C.; Mujeres en Acción Sindical (MAS); Red Nacional de Género y Economía (REDGE); Sección XXXV del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social; Unión Campesina Democrática, A.C.
María Atilano
Gabriela Sánchez
We would like to thank the Heinrich Böll Foundation for its support for the realization of this publication.
Selected Bibliography: Works Cited and Consulted
Arroyo P., Alberto (2001). Resultados del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte en México. Lecciones para la negociación del Acuerdo de Libre Comercio de las Américas. RMALC, Mexico.
Birgin, Haydeé and Pautáis, Laura (2001). "¿Género en la reforma o reforma sin género?. Desprotección social en las leyes provisionales de América Latina". Serie Mujer y Desarrollo No. 36."Unidad de la Mujer y Desarrollo CEPAL, United Nations Publications, Santiago de Chile.
CEPAL (2000). El desafío de la equidad de género y de los derechos humanos en los albores del Siglo XXI. Serie Mujer y Desarrollo, Unidad Mujer y Desarrollo. United Nations, Santiago de Chile.
CEPAL (2002). Panorama Social de América Latina 2000-2001 (LC/g.2138-P/E), Santiago de Chile, United Nations, September, 2001, cited by Grynspan, Rebeca, 2003.
CEPAL (2004). Estudio Económico de América Latina y El Caribe 2003- 2004, September, www.eclac.cl/publicaciones/DesarrolloEconomico/5/ LCG255pe/lcg2255-ere.pdf.
Cuadernos Feministas (2003). "Comercio y Globalización. Las mujeres nos rebelamos contra el ALCA", "Las mujeres mexicanas ante la V Reunión Ministerial de la OMC", "Declaración dirigida a las Redes de Mujeres de América Latina" in Cuadernos Feministas Número 23, July-September, Mexico, 2003.
Comité de Mujeres de la Alianza Social Continental. ¡Mujeres contra el ALCA! Electronic newsletter, www.comitemujeresasc.org
Deere, D.C. and León, M. (2001) "¿De quién es la tierra. Género y programas de titulación de tierras en América Latina". Humanitás Portal temático en Humanidades. Cuadernos de Cendes/ Año 18, No. 48. Segunda Época, Caracas, September 2001.
ECLAC (2002-2003). Poverty and inequity from a gender perspective. Social Panorama of Latin America 2002-2003 (LC/G.2209-P), United Nations, Offprint.
ECLAC (2004). Roads towards gender equity in Latin America and the Caribbean. 9th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and The Caribbean. Mexico City, 10-12 June 2004. United Nations.
FAO (1999). El acceso de la mujer latinoamericana a la Tierra. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome.
Gammage, S and Schmitt, J. (2004). Los inmigrantes mexicanos, salvadoreños y dominicanos en el mercado laboral estadounidense: las brechas de género en los años 1990 y 2000. Serie Estudios y Perspectivas, Unidad de Desarrollo Social, CEPAL, United Nations Publications, Mexico.
Grynspan, Rebecca (2003). "Tendencias económicas y sociales en Latinoamérica: hacia una agenda desde la perspectiva de género" en Paloma de Villota (ed.) Economía y Género, política fiscal y liberalización. Análisis de su impacto sobre las Mujeres. Icaria Editores, Barcelona, 2003.
Mesa de Trabajo Mujeres y Economía (2004). ¿Porqué las mujeres nos oponemos al TLC? 10 razones desde las mujeres colombianas. Pamphlet sponsored by the REMTE, Bogotá, Colombia.
Ocampo, José Antonio. Panorama Social de América Latina 2002-2003. CEPAL, www.eclac.cl/publicaciones/DesarrolloEconomico/presentaciónPS2002- 2003_F1.pdf.
OIT (2004). Panorama Laboral 2004. América Latina y El Caribe, Lima, Perú, www.oit.org.pe/portal/documentos/panorama_laboral_2004.pdf.
International Gender and Trade Network (2003). Comercio y género: El ALCA y las otras alternativas de integración americana. Latin American chapter, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
International Gender and Trade Network (2003). "A Gender Perspective on the Multilateral Investment Agreement; Updates and Announcements.""Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 3 No. 3. www.igtn.org/Bulletins/Bulletins.htlm
Sirven, Martin (2004). El empleo rural no agrícola y la diversidad rural en América Latina. Revista de la CEPAL 83.
Working people in the Americas believe that a just trading system is one that recognizes that basic labor standards and other measures for improving the welfare of working people cannot be left exclusively to markets. Any hemispheric agreement must include provisions that guarantee basic worker rights, that ensure proper assistance for adjustment as markets are opened up, and that promote the improvement of working and living standards of workers and their families.
For a century, trade unions and other progressive forces have been campaigning at community, national and international levels for recognition of the need to respect and apply international labor standards. This recognition was one of the forces, together with the profound upheavals of 1917 in Russia and in the following months in a series of other European countries, which led to the creation in 1919 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). That institution that survives to this day as a UN agency that has the specific mandate of defining and monitoring international labor standards. All 35 countries of the Americas are members of the ILO and all ILO members are bound by the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which covers the eight core conventions.
Some of the current trade agreements in the hemisphere have adopted specific agreements stating that fundamental principles regarding labor conditions should be respected within all member countries and that the agreements should contribute to a general improvement of the living standards of workers. Such is the case, for example, with the NAFTA side-agreement on labor, officially called the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and with the Mercosur' Declaration on Social and Labor issues. However, not even the most optimistic analyst of the impact of trade agreements such as NAFTA and the MERCOSUR would claim that these agreements have contributed to a general improvement of working conditions in member countries. On the contrary, the introduction of these agreements has led to greater instability of jobs and insecurity in the workplace. This has been the case most dramatically in Mexico since NAFTA came into effect in 1994. Eight years after the introduction of NAFTA , Mexican real wages were lower than prior to the agreement, despite the fact that worker productivity was substantially higher. The specific provisions on labor standards, such as NAFTA's NAALC, tend to be strong on principles but weak on any specific mechanisms that can have a favorable impact on working people.
Moreover, it is a recognized fact that even the most basic labor standards agreed upon at the ILO are regularly flouted by employers throughout most countries of the Americas, more often than not in attempting to obtain a competitive advantage over other employers. Governments often turn a blind eye to these violations, believing that such behavior ensures that foreign investment will keep coming their way. For example, much of the recent growth of industrial employment in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean has taken place in maquiladora or export processing zones that openly feature restrictions on the right to organize and other violations of labor rights in order to guarantee a supply of low-cost labor. This takes place in spite of the fact that all countries of the hemisphere are members of the ILO, thus endorsing in principle the respect of fundamental labor rights. Unless concrete steps are taken to ensure respect for and improvements in labor rights, economic liberalization fostered through free trade agreements will continue to drive down labor standards and job security throughout the hemisphere.
Since the early 1990s, the international labor movement - led in the Americas by ORIT (Inter- American Regional Workers' Organization) and other union forces -- has promoted the inclusion in international trade agreements of a "Workers' Rights Clause" that would force employers and governments to confront the frequent and repeated violation of fundamental workers' rights. During the negotiation of NAFTA and its parallel agreement on labor, these unions and civil-society networks in North America rejected the limited nature of that agreement, particularly due to the fact that it did not contain an effective mechanism to guarantee respect for and promotion of basic rights or the possibility of sanctions when that was not the case. Since then, these groups have come to agree that it is not enough to add a labor or social clause to a bad agreement. These groups, together with other sectors of civil society, have advanced numerous proposals to radically reorient the nature and orientation of what was being negotiated in each of the substantive chapters of NAFTA. The years of experience under NAFTA and its parallel agreement on labor issues, as well as the Mercosur Declaration on Social and Labor Issues, have affirmed this evaluation and have taught that the problem was not just the limited nature of the workers' rights clauses in such accords, but rather in the very orientation of the free-trade agreements. Therefore, the Hemispheric Social Alliance, the labor movement and other sectors of society have taken one more step toward integrating the workers' rights clause within a global proposal that refuses to ratify the market as the supreme law, and moreover, they seek to develop a compliance mechanism that truly makes the workers' rights clause effective.
Effective safeguards for fundamental worker rights will not be ensured without substantial changes in the dominant orientation of globalization. Free trade and the elevation of purely mercantilistic criteria above all others are incompatible with the protection of not only labor but also human rights considered integrally: economic and social; environmental; cultural and peoples' rights, including the right to development. But, at the same time, a new logic for the world economy and the agreements that regulate it also requires an explicit and agreed upon mechanism to ensure respect for and promotion of basic labor and social rights. Our proposed clause for any economic, financial or trade agreement in the Americas could result in the application of sanctions that could result in the loss of privileges accorded by the trade agreement if fundamental workers' rights are not respected and the national agencies and ILO recommendations and assistance have not changed that situation.
The fundamental rights were defined in the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and are covered by eight core conventions of the ILO, namely:
The 1998 ILO Declaration binds all member countries, whether or not they have ratified the eight conventions on which it is based. However, the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are routinely violated by a vast number of countries in the hemisphere, and child labor is endemic in several countries, as is workplace discrimination against women and specific racial or ethnic groups.
For these reasons, we propose that the eight fundamental ILO workers rights conventions described above be included in any economic-financial or trade agreement in the hemisphere and that compliance changes from being a moral and voluntary obligation to an obligation subject to enforcement mechanisms that could result in sanctions. This means that employers and governments would be obliged to respect these conventions as a condition of access to the benefits of the agreement.
Naturally, such a workers' rights provision would be effective only to the extent that nothing else in the economic-financial agreements in the hemisphere weakens the ability of nation-states to enforce worker rights and that it is accompanied by monitoring and effective international enforcement mechanisms. This monitoring and enforcement mechanism should imply gradual steps that would result in sanctions in extreme cases.
a) We propose that the monitoring function be delegated to the ILO, whose expertise in the field of monitoring the application of international labor standards is universally recognized.
The ILO would, as a first step, be used to receive and investigate complaints under the worker rights clause in the Americas. However, the current ILO complaints procedures are not efficient, in that they are not able to rapidly receive and process these complaints. They must be improved to achieve greater agility and efficacy. Unions and other nongovernmental organizations should be able to present a complaint and request a swift review process by the ILO when fundamental rights contained in the core conventions are violated. The second step would be for the ILO to promptly carry out an investigation to verify if the conventions have been violated or not. In cases where the conventions are confirmed to have been violated, the ILO would, at a third stage, formulate recommendations to the country to assist it in complying with the conventions that have not been respected.
b) In those cases in which the procedure described above does not achieve the expected results and the violations are serious and repeated, we believe that a mechanism should be established to apply sanctions. Any sanctions mechanism should operate in a public and open manner, with suitable representation of workers. The mechanism should only enter into force when its intervention is expressly requested by organizations representing the workers whose rights have been violated, and when other opportunities for the violating government or company to accept technical and financial assistance to remedy the problem have not been successful. Affected workers should also have the right to participate in decisions on the size, nature and duration of any sanction authorized by that mechanism. It should provide for the possibility of directly sanctioning companies, not only governments, and the sanctions applied should correspond to the gravity of the violations and last until the violations cease.
More generalized sanctions-i.e. sanctions which would apply to all exports from a particular country-would only be administered if the country's government were shown to be an active and repeated accomplice in the violation of fundamental workers' rights in that country. If both countries and companies were obligated to respect and apply fundamental workers' rights, this would help to establish and generalize workplace practices throughout the Americas, in which:
The elimination of tariff barriers and other forms of protection will inevitably lead to the elimination of certain people's livelihoods in industries unable to meet the challenges of increased competition. For this reason it is important that any agreement on trade and investment include mechanisms to allow national economies to adjust to the impacts of increased competition through the creation of high quality jobs, with special allocations for women.
These mechanisms should consist of:
Compensatory financing would obviously be necessary in order to take account of the unequal levels of development and capacities to adjust of different national economies and, as well, particular regions within countries. Specific funds would be provided for adjustment programs targeted to assist those women and men working in industries or living in areas that suffer job losses through economic integration.
The European Union (EU) has established precedence for such financial support by providing structural development aid to the lower-income countries in the EU and also to specific geographic regions within higher-income member countries that have suffered from a decrease in protection or otherwise have not been able to reap the benefits of the integrated market. In a similar fashion, a structural development fund should be created as part and parcel of the agreement for the Americas to provide financial support for worker training, infrastructure development and job creation in lower income countries and in designated regions within countries.
Such a fund could be financed either through levies paid by countries on a scale which varies with the per capita income level (as is the case in the EU), or through a specific financing mechanism such as a Tobin Tax (i.e., a tax on international financial transactions) applied in the Americas.
There currently exist enormous differences between the countries of the Americas in the area of social and income-support programs, although there is a general tendency throughout the hemisphere for a serious deterioration of these programs as a result of government cutbacks. Even Canada, which used to pride itself on according a level of social protection that put it in the same league as Western European countries, currently has fallen behind all member countries of the EU in terms of income maintenance for unemployed men and women. In other countries, universal state pension schemes are being privatized or otherwise eroded, and in most cases do not cover the growing number of informal-sector workers. This has the effect of penalizing all retired workers, but especially women, who participate in lower proportions in the jobs covered by social security.
If economic integration of the Americas is to contribute to a generalized improvement of living standards in the hemisphere, the rapid erosion of social protection that has taken place over the past decade obviously has to be reversed. Specific targets for basic income-support programs should therefore be included in the agreement, including unemployment insurance, compensation for injured workers, and pensions for retired workers (whether they were formal sector workers or not) that in no case should be less than what is need to cover minimum living standards as defined internationally. Similar targets for basic social programs such as health care, education and childcare would also be established. In addition, financing through the hemispheric agreement must be provided to countries that, because of low per capita income levels, do not have the means to finance such schemes entirely on their own. A financing mechanism, perhaps modelled on the EU's social fund, could provide the necessary financial support.
Over and above the inclusion of a workers' rights clause and appropriate adjustment mechanisms, we believe that any economic integration process among our countries must include mechanisms for improving basic labor standards and social programs so that the agreement contributes to improvements in working and living conditions for working people and a more equalized distribution of income within countries. Given the vastly different levels of development between countries of the Americas, we do not envisage developing anything like a common minimum wage throughout the hemisphere, but internationally defined minimum living standards should be covered by each country's minimum wage.
Guidelines could also be established in the area of hours of work, rules on overtime pay, rest periods and vacations. As a first step, there would be a process for meeting minimum ILO standards in these areas and making them obligatory, and, over the medium term, harmonizing upwards in order to move towards the highest existing standards within the hemisphere. A more rapid process of harmonization would be put in place regarding the definition of hemispheric norms for the prevention of workplace accidents and work-related disease, based on the highest existing standards in the Americas. These processes would be established with the full participation not only of governments but also of representative trade union and employers' organizations.
Hemispheric economic integration can be expected to make capital even more mobile than it already is and, subsequently, lead to greater employment instability. Any hemispheric agreement should provide for protection of workers against increasing job instability, especially with respect to employers who may seek to avoid their obligations to their employees by transferring their production to another country. All employers would be required to adhere to nationally administered funds ensuring the payment of all due wages and other indemnities employees are entitled to in case of job termination. Basic hemispheric standards regarding advance notice of layoffs and protection for part-time and sub-contracted labor would also be put in place.
Furthermore, the effects of free trade on women are disturbing. In the Americas, women often work in poorly paid jobs, with appalling working conditions (impossible schedules, mandatory overtime, bonus work, production quotas that are sky-high, deficient health and safety conditions, lay-offs without notice, among others). Inside the maquiladoras (assembly plants), women's most basic rights are ignored. They are subjected to pregnancy tests and sexual harassment, and often fired when found to be pregnant. Miserable working conditions, job insecurity and unemployment have forced many women to find work in the informal sector. As most women are responsible for educating their children, for providing care to family members (sick or aging people) and for domestic work, the reduction in the State's role in social policy, combined with the degradation of public services, has greatly impeded the achievement of a balance between work and family. Together, these factors have produced a generalized impoverishment of women and a noticeable deterioration of their living conditions. (Please see chapter on Gender for additional detail).
Any international agreement should acknowledge the needs of women, notably by giving official recognition to the core convention of the ILO on equal pay for work of equal value and also the convention on the prevention of discrimination in the workplace (Conventions 100 and 111). Any hemispheric agreement should also require participating governments to implement social programs (such as daycare, flexible work schedule, strict limits on overtime) that improve the work-family balance or that enable women to undertake waged work if they wish to do so Governments must periodically analyse the impact of trade liberalization on women and track the impact of trade agreements and policies on the formal, informal and unwaged sectors, through sex-desegregated data gathering.
Any future hemispheric agreement must recognize the dramatic growth of the informal sector and develop mechanisms to extend minimum labor rights and standards to workers in this sector. The latter would include ratification, implementation and enforcement, by governments of the Americas, of ILO Conventions 177 on home work and 175 on part-time work.
Finally, the agreement must ensure access to labor rights for migrant workers wherever they are working. (Please see chapter on Immigration for additional detail.)
In the contemporary world, large-scale movements of people are a function of the accelerated process of global integration. These migrations are not isolated phenomena: in nearly all cases, movements of goods and capital give rise to movements of people. Global cultural exchange, facilitated by improved transportation and the proliferation of print and electronic media, has also led to immigration. International migration has grown in volume and significance since 1945, particularly since the mid-1980s. Immigration will likely continue to grow in the 21st century, and may be one of the most important factors in global change. World population growth and the increasing gap between rich and poor countries encourage poor citizens to emigrate, legally or not, hoping to better their living standards and those of their families. Political conflicts also produce refugee flows. Taken together, these factors lead to increasing movements of people from south to north and east to west.
Without question, the problem of immigration is a global problem. Despite the fact that there are currently 150 million migrants on a planet with a population of over five billion people, the impact of immigration is much larger than its relatively small numbers might suggest. Immigration can have considerable consequences for economic and social relations in the area of origin. For emigrants, the choice of destination country is closely tied to employment opportunities, which are most often concentrated in industrial and urban areas. The impact on the receiving community is also considerable. Immigration, therefore, affects not only the emigrant, but also the sending and receiving societies as a whole. In fact, there are few people in today's industrialized or developing countries who have not experienced personally the effects of immigration.
These migratory flows also have important economic impacts. According to the International Organization on Migration (IOM), in 1980 foreign workers sent US$67 billion annually to their various places of origin. The International Monetary Fund reported that in 1997, remittances sent by foreign workers reached US$77 billion. For some national economies, these remittances can be as important to the Gross Domestic Product as exports. In El Salvador, for example, remittances exceed the total value of exports. In the Dominican Republic they are equivalent to more than half of exports, and even in Mexico (with some US$10 billion annually), remittances are first in net foreign exchange, although there is trade deficit, and in recent years they have been higher than income from tourism. It is estimated that Latin America receives some US$25 billion yearly in remittances. Statistically, this work force is second only to petroleum in importance within the global market. In Mexico, for example, remittances are just 20 percent lower than petroleum exports.
Although many countries in the hemisphere are dealing with immigration-related issues, U.S. immigration policy has attracted the most attention, even though the United States is the destination of only about one percent of global immigrants each year. U.S. policy is designed to attract more skilled immigrants (currently, the majority of those who attempt to immigrate to the United States are "unskilled") and to supply a large, inexpensive, and strictly controlled work force for certain U.S. industries (particularly agribusiness growers, canneries and packaging plants, certain manufacturers such as clothing, and the service industry).
Understanding U.S. immigration policy is important in the FTAA context because the United States is attempting to regionalize and globalize this policy. For example, U.S. policies against organized crime (which includes issues related to undocumented immigration), as well as policies against terrorism, both of which were strengthened by new measures implemented in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC on 11 September 2001, have been globalized and contribute to the military manifestations of U.S. hegemony. The incorporation of new functions to be carried out by the U.S. government's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Border Patrol as part of the new Department of Homeland Security (which is set to begin on 1 January 2003), and the establishment of "Smart Borders" among the United States, Canada and Mexico, which will create a "Security Perimeter" in North America (creating a "United States Fortress" similar to the "European Union Fortress"), are all intended not just to limit migrant's mobility but also citizens' individual liberties. Flows of undocumented workers, however, will continue to arrive at this country in spite of those measures, as they have done over the past decade in spite of such programs as "prevention by dissuasion" (metal fences, electronic sensors, more guards, etc. in the so-called "Operation Hold the Line" in El Paso, Texas in 1993, Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego in 1994, Operation Safeguard in Arizona in 1997, and Operation Rio Grande in MacAllen, Texas in 1997). According to recent analyses by experts, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has increased to higher levels than those that existed in the period before the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 (also called the Simpson-Rodino Law).
For some time the United States has pushed certain strategies to regulate immigration (particularly of the undocumented kind) in its immediate geographic realm, principally through the following three initiatives:
Thus, in the process of transnationalizing the neoliberal economic model, the elite technocrats who support this model and unjustly hold tremendous power are in league with local officials who have agreed to impose similar immigration measures. In these affairs, the Mexican government has thus far been the biggest collaborator. Along with the U.S. government, Mexico has declared that NAFTA, by itself, will solve the Mexican emigration problem in the long term. In fact, this position was tactically accepted before the NAFTA negotiations began, as a result of the conclusions of the International Commission for the Study of Migration and Cooperative Economic Development, created by the U.S. government in 1986 in the wake of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA-86). This was the greatest effort since 1965 to establish economic mechanisms to regulate immigration to the United States.
Between 1988 and 1990, the Commission held a series of public hearings and investigations by specialists from the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, focusing on forming responses to two major issues: a) the conditions that contribute to unauthorized emigration of persons from Western Hemisphere countries to the United States; and b) economic development initiatives that could be taken cooperatively to alleviate the pressures that cause emigration from the sending countries. The Ascenio Commission, as it is still known, presented recommendations in 1990 that, according to the Commission's president, were well received on the part of the involved governments. The conclusions declare that:
"1. Despite other important factors, the search for economic opportunity is the principal motivation of the majority of unauthorized migration to the United States.
2. While economic growth leading to the creation of jobs is the ultimate solution to reduce the rate of migration, the process of economic development itself will stimulate short and mid-term emigration, thus creating expectations and facilitating the migratory capacity of people. Development and the availability of new and better jobs in the country, however, is the only manner in which migratory pressures may be reduced over time."
The Commission was convinced that extensive trade between the emigrant-source countries and the United States would solve the problem. This created the basis for eliminating the immigration issue from economic and trade agreements in the Western Hemisphere. As a result, workers from emigration-source countries are left to feel the consequences of U.S. policies, instituted either unilaterally or in cooperation with other governments, to regulate and control immigration flows.
Starting in February 2001, the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to negotiate a new migration policy (which was temporarily interrupted by the September 11 attacks). The Mexican government proposed that, in exchange for increased legal avenues for Mexicans to work in the United States (a guest worker program, an increased number of permanent visas, greater protections for undocumented workers, and a still undefined system to "regularize" the three and one half million undocumented Mexican workers), Mexico was prepared to establish strict controls, including the use of the military, to limit migratory flows from the south so that they not arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border. These measures are intended to regulate the North American labor market utilizing cheap Mexican labor as a comparative advantage at the regional level (Canada, the United States and Mexico, in the latter case mainly through the maquiladora industry). It is also designed to regulate the Central American labor market utilizing the cheap labor force in southern and southeastern Mexico and Central America, which would principally be employed in maquiladora industries and other large productive projects in the so-called Plan Puebla Panama (PPP). This Plan is a neoliberal strategy to exploit natural resources and energy, as well as the region's cheap labor, and to construct a bridge between North and South America to facilitate the creation of the FTAA.
The fact that migrant workers have successfully been left out of NAFTA, under the assumption that free trade itself will permit the long-term generation of employment and improvement in living conditions of potential migrants, keeping them in their country of origin, has been the basis for the implementation of those policies. The U.S. government, while it is not obligated to negotiate any specific immigration treaties or accords with Mexico or any other nation, has enjoyed the freedom to seek the regulation of immigration flows into its territory, beginning formally with Mexico and Central America, but extending to the rest of the hemisphere through the creation of the FTAA.
This strategy, if implemented, would end the incipient efforts of some countries that have attempted to form regional blocs permitting the free movement of goods and labor. The Andean Pact, which was formalized in 1969 among Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and reactivated in 1989, was the first to explicitly include direct treatment of this issue. Two conventions have attempted to find common ground on immigration: 1) the Simón Rodríguez Convention, signed in 1973; and 2) the Andean Migration Statute, created as part of the efforts to strengthen this regional group in the Cartagena Agreements Commission of 1977.
The second agreement was presented as an effort to implement the principles postulated in the first accord. This came about as the result of efforts by employment agencies that worked to help migrants find jobs. Unfortunately, these provisions benefited skilled workers, who did not represent the majority of the immigration flow. In October 1992, in a meeting of the Governing Board of the Cartagena Agreement held in Bogota, Colombia, governments agreed to work toward the design of concrete legal measures and joint actions to give new momentum to the treatment of international labor immigration issues on a regional level. This agreement, however, has still produced no concrete results.
The other case in which immigration has been included is the Mercosur, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. According to the text of the March 1991 Treaty of Asunción, a common market was supposed to go into effect in January 1995, which would entail the free circulation of goods, services, capital and labor under a common external tariff. However, in January 1994, one year before the end of the transition period, the governments ratified the original timeframes, but only to achieve a customs union, rather than a common market. Even this objective seemed ambitious at the time, in light of the change in the international context that occurred in 1994, especially for Argentina, given the fall in capital markets.
In the 1990s, the migration process increased in these two blocs due to the economic crises that affected them and that have deepened in South America, particularly in Argentina. Countries that have traditionally received immigrants (Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela) now both receive and send them. There are more than two million Brazilians living abroad, of which half are in the United States and some 300,000 in Japan. Those migrants currently send two billion dollars a year to their communities. Thousands of Argentines are migrating to the United States, and those that have Spanish or Italian roots are migrating to Europe. According to the Peruvian government, there are more than two million Peruvians abroad, of which 75 percent are undocumented. Between 250 and 300 thousand Peruvians a year currently migrate to Argentina, Chile, Japan, Italy, Spain and the United States. The situation in Ecuador is similar; more than 290,000 Ecuadorians have left their country in 2000 and 2001, headed for Europe and the United States. There are 300,000 Ecuadorians in Spain, half of whom are undocumented.
With the plan to form the FTAA already underway, the conditions for the insertion of Latin American countries appear to be similar to the conditions imposed on Mexico when it entered NAFTA. The United States seems to want to impose on the FTAA the model followed under NAFTA, under which, as previously mentioned, labor immigration was not included under the assumption that free trade would solve the immigration problem over the long term.
As we have seen, the issue of labor migration has been either completely absent in the subregional integration efforts in the Americas, or it has been dealt with on paper agreements without developing concrete actions for implementation (as in the Andean Pact and Mercosur); and it will be included only in a very limited and tangential manner in the FTAA. Meanwhile, domestic and international migration flows continue to grow throughout the hemisphere, but under increasingly difficult circumstances for workers, especially those who seek to insert themselves into labor markets in some developed countries, where increasingly restrictive legal measures - in many cases racist and discriminatory -- are being established for foreigners.
U.S. national immigration policies, while designed to "control" immigration, are insufficient even on the regional level to confront the rapid transnational economic changes that lead to the displacement of populations and to international migration due to economic pressures and social and ethnic conflicts. Recognizing this, immigrants' rights organizations throughout the world are taking important steps to confront the international dimensions of immigration, developing diverse mechanisms to defend immigrants' full rights. These include the Canadian Open the Borders Network, the U.S. National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Enlaces Regionales (which includes U.S., Mexican and Central American members), and the Mesoamerican Social Forum against Plan Puebla Panama. In the rest of the hemisphere, the South American Network to Defend Migrants, Refugees and Displaced Peoples was created during the First South American Civil Society Meeting on Migration, held in Quito, Ecuador on 14 to 16 August 2002.
It is important to examine the immigration issue within the framework of hemispheric regionalization, as the developed countries' national immigration policies have tended to be applied unilaterally and extraterritorially throughout the hemisphere.
a) the modification of immigration, anti-terrorism and other laws (nearly all of which were approved in 1996) that criminalize the migrant labor force, limiting its access to services and submitting it to greater exploitation, discrimination and violence;
b) the repeal of "employer sanctions" such as those adopted in the 1986 U.S. Immigration Control and Reform Act (The Simpson-Rodino Law), which prohibits employers from hiring undocumented workers and requires the verification of authorization to work in the United States from those newly hired;
c) the immediate legalization (through a proclamation of Amnesty) of undocumented workers within their borders;
d) the demilitarization of borders (such as the U.S.-Mexico border) that have been reinforced under the pretext of preventing the entry of terrorists and reducing the flows of undocumented workers and drugs; and
e) the implementation of measure to limit the use of force by migration agents, border patrols and other military and political bodies.
The role of the state, in its broadest sense, is to look after the common good of its people. The democratic state should be a tool for society to use to address the economic and social problems the market cannot solve. The discussion should not be posed in terms of a polarization between the state and the market. The role of the state in leading hemispheric economic integration is irreplaceable if this process is to promote social justice, equity among regions and social groups, and sustainability.
There is no historic experience demonstrating that the market alone can achieve general economic equilibria, much less sustainability and social justice. Historical experience shows that the state is necessary to deal with the flux of the market. Furthermore, the economy is broader than the market, encompassing all production (not just what is traded), and requires the involvement of the state to establish adequate conditions for stable, sustainable growth and social welfare. Opening up economies to the dynamics of the global economy does not necessarily mean leaving them to the whims of international markets. There is no such thing as the free market, because of the large corporations that dominate and drive the market. Opening markets actually means letting these corporations drive and dominate the market to suit their own interests.
The key is for nations to open themselves to the world based on their own plans for fair and sustainable development led by democratic governments, rather than leaving the future of such development to market forces. Economies that are open are all the more reliant on regulation at the national and international levels and require a state strong enough to promote and enforce them. Under the prevailing dominant economic model, state intervention in the economy is reduced, except in the promotion of the export sector and finance capital. By favoring exports, workers and most of the population cease to be seen as valued consumers since their impoverishment no longer affects the top strata of capital. When financial capital is prioritized, the real economy is often neglected or negatively affected, diminishing its capacity to generate employment or to contribute to the population's well being.
The dominant discourse discredits the government and assumes that the market does everything better. Adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and the IMF increase this pressure, leading to a growing trend toward privatization. Governments see privatization as a short-term remedy for financial crisis and unbalanced budgets. It can also be a mechanism for the illegal transfer of wealth or favoritism toward certain economic interests.
There are four problems inherent in privatization: 1) it reduces the state's ability to lead the process of sustainable and fair development; 2) over the long term, government revenues fall, which normally results in reductions in public spending; and 3) serious injustices are created in public services, with a disproportionate burden of such cuts affecting women and people who are poor; and 4) privatization is used to lower wages and benefits for organized workers, as the sale usually results in the replacement of collective agreements by more "flexible" working conditions entailing fewer rights, less negotiating power, and lower benefits. In Argentina, for example, the number of employees in such public services as telephone, postal airlines, sanitation, electricity, rail transport and gas distribution was just under 250,000 in 1989. By 1999, after privatization, just 75,000 persons work in those industries.
We propose the establishment of a new, fully democratic state. As such, governments should ensure, by all means, the participation of its citizens, especially women and impoverished people, at the local, regional, national and international levels. Participatory democracy, which is concomitant to access to information and public education, should be understood as the most important aspect of a healthy society. This new state should be economically and socially accountable to its citizens and must radically challenge corruption at every level. It should be a state with a qualitatively new role within the economy, which should assume its irreplaceable responsibility in ensuring human rights, including the right to development, economic, cultural and social rights and those of indigenous peoples. We are not proposing an oversized state burdened by huge, inefficient enterprises. The number and size of public corporations is less important than the role they fulfill. Society, not only governments, should make decisions relating to industries in the public realm.
This would not be a traditional protectionist state, but rather a state that is accountable to society, that can implement a democratically established national development plan. This may involve the protection of certain sectors considered strategic within a country's plan, but more importantly, it means promoting forward-looking development. Regulation does not imply inhibiting private initiative. On the contrary, it means establishing clear rules balancing rights and obligations, and ensuring that both national and international capital promote a country's fair and sustainable development.
This renewed role for the state implies international regulations, which must be determined democratically and through consultation with citizens. Sovereignty belongs to the people, who may decide to submit to international regulations if it is in the collective interest. International regulations are becoming increasingly necessary in the face of the supra-national power of certain corporations operating within our economies and due to the weight and mobility of footloose capital. The necessary supranational regulations should not serve to increase the already excessive power of transnational corporations but instead should ensure nations' capacity to uphold the rights of their citizens and to ensure that corporations play a positive role in national development. This point is developed in the chapter on foreign investment, particularly in the discussion on dispute resolution between investors and the state.
This new and strategic role for the state in the economic and social spheres requires comprehensive fiscal reform capable of generating sufficient resources to ensure a social security net for all and to avoid fiscal deficits so large that they impede development. Such fiscal reform should focus both on production and on redistribution of wealth.
Nothing in an international agreement should constitute a renunciation or reduction of the state's ability to meet the economic and social demands of its citizens. This principle must take precedence if the state's capacity to meet these demands is diminished by such agreements.
1. Economic and Social Responsibilities of the State
2. Criteria for Economic Regulations:
Regulations should:
Areas for Special Regulation
Each country may establish special regulations for sectors it deems to be especially important for its national development such as the following:
3. Public Sector Corporations
Corporations known as "state-owned enterprises" in fact belong to society and are only administered by the state. These public sector corporations are not established for personal profit, but are vehicles for healthy economic development, safeguards of sovereignty, and instruments of social and environmental justice.
Nevertheless, states should ensure that public sector corporations are sound and efficient. Corruption should be avoided by legislative and societal checks. Their preservation, creation or privatization should be decided by legislatures representing the popular will. In the case of strategic enterprises, laws should require broad and direct consultation with the public.
4. Government Procurement and Public Works Contracts
Government purchasing and public works contracts have a significant influence in some productive sectors. They are carried out with taxpayers' money and should therefore continue to be instruments of economic policy for national development. They should accordingly be subject to certain criteria, as follows.
Government procurement of goods and services should be subject to open and transparent competition to avoid corrupt practices in their allocation, with specific exceptions discussed below. Criteria for competition need not be based exclusively on price and quality, but may also include the following:
Countries may establish lists of high-priority suppliers whose development they consider strategic for reasons of national development (such as the development of appropriate technology, spin-off effects on other economic sectors or the number of jobs they generate or on the achievement of gender or racial equity) and give them priority over foreign suppliers. To ensure that the priority given to nationals does not protect inefficiencies or place an excessive burden on public resources, suppliers should be required to offer bids within a certain percentage of competing foreign bids, comply with other criteria of the tendering process, and receive privileged status for a limited time. These preferential terms will be negotiated in conjunction with the supports necessary to bring the domestic suppliers up to the international competitive standard within a set timeframe.
Government procurement should also be used to protect and benefit groups affected by discrimination and marginalization, such as certain ethnic groups, cooperatives or producers in particularly depressed regions or those with high levels of extreme poverty. Disputes over government procurement should be based explicitly on the above criteria, and be dealt with first by mechanisms within a country, and proceed only to international arbitration after recourse to national processes has been exhausted.
At the Second Summit of the Americas, in Santiago, Chile in 1998, the heads of state endorsed an action plan on the measures that should be carried out to ensure increased access to education and success in school, the elimination of illiteracy and a drastic reduction in inequality. We appreciate the inclusion of this issue, as public education should be at the center of the people's development and that of their communities, but we observe that the investments actually made in education do not even fulfill the commitments agreed to at the Summit, which themselves are insufficient to resolve existing problems. We also disagree with the general orientation of the action plan.
There are nearly 50 million illiterate people in our hemisphere, the majority of whom are women. The vast majority of the indigenous population does not have access to education that respects their language and culture. Many millions of children live in poverty and misery and must work under inhumane conditions to survive. In Latin America and the Caribbean, one child in 20 does not go to school and 35 percent do not pass the fifth year of primary school. These inequalities persist and are even increasing in spite of the growth in access to education in some countries, since that growth has often not been accompanied by the needed improvements in the quality of education.
Over the past few years, neoliberal policies have had dramatic impacts on education. In many places, the application of a mercantilist model has lead to greater explicit or disguised privatization. The privatization of education has not always been explicit in the sense of canceling public education; many times it has been carried out indirectly by not increasing the supply of public education, so that, in fact, many people are compelled to seek private education or do without it. On the other hand, education has become stripped of its fundamental premises, so that such words as "clients, products, competition, and yield" become key words in a dangerous plan for the future of public education.
The ministers of education in the Americas already work within a framework of hemispheric integration. They are developing Pan-American indicators on education, tools to measure the quality of education, and mechanisms to recognize competencies in order to favor mobility throughout the hemisphere of teachers and specialized workers. There are also numerous pressures by certain groups and countries to treat education as a commodity that would then be included in agreements on the liberalization of services such as the FTAA and the WTO.
We believe that it is both possible and necessary to act in a better and different manner, and that a change of course is imperative.
Education is also a fundamental element in the formation of culture and national identity. Therefore every nation should have, without foreign interference, complete sovereignty on matters related to education.
Communications is an increasingly critical strategic issue in the struggle to democratize society. It is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy and a pillar of globalization. Information has become an important input in production, and communication is central to political, social and cultural processes. In the late nineties with the blossoming of the technological revolution, two major trends have emerged. On the one hand, the communications sector has seen a concentration and monopolization of ownership, which has resulted in the commodification of information, knowledge and culture under the control of very few transnational media giants. On the other hand, and despite the first, the community and independent media sector has continued to grow, as evidenced by the Forum on Communications at the Second Peoples' Summit of the Americas, April 17-18, 2001. While the second trend is premised on the rights of all people to have access to mass media as producers as well as receivers of information, it is in fact available to only a small percentage of the world's population.
In the realm of social communication, a profound contradiction has thus been established between the interests of those conglomerates that control world communication according to their mercantilist criteria and citizens' right to free access to information that is independent and from diverse and varied sources. This contradiction has been heightened with each trade agreement such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the pending Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which has been negotiated between governments without the participation and consideration of civil society.
The market model treats people as consumers, not as citizens who bear shared responsibility for decision-making. Conglomerate control of world communications has prevented the great majority, especially excluded social groups, from expressing themselves publicly and making their needs and demands known, which is an indispensable condition for democratic participation. The freedom of journalists to practice their profession in accordance with a criterion of public service is also undermined. Consequently, a fundamental human right, the right to communicate, has been severely constrained. Media rights concepts such as freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and the right to information are precursors to the Right to Communicate. The Right to Communicate is at the heart of the struggle for social change and is considered a building block for democracy.
The Right to Communicate is the right to produce or send information not just sit on the receiving end of the transmission. The subtext is that ordinary citizens should have access to communications technologies in order to interpret their world to their local publics with the premise of working for social and cultural benefit. It also implies the need for a public debate on the future of the "information society" and for citizen participation in decision-making regarding all spheres of communication, as expressed in the phrase: "communication for democracy, democracy in communication".
Under the prevailing tendencies, as expressed in free-trade agreements, the WTO and the draft text of the FTAA, virtually everything generated by human activity, would be subject to the rules on the liberalization of services, investment, intellectual-property rights and market access, including broadcasting and other areas of communication. Listed below are some striking implications of the draft FTAA text for communications.
However, this call for special treatment is contradicted by the services chapter which states that "Each Party shall ensure that the service supplier of any other Party is accorded access to and use of public telecommunications transport networks and services on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions".
This kind of undifferentiated treatment paves the way to a non-democratic communications infrastructure and heightens the tendency towards cultural imperialism and/or homogenization of the social and cultural landscape. The argument for technological abundance and economic growth within a broadly defined telecommunications system does not allow for the social and cultural orientation of the broadcast media.
For example, new digital broadcast systems are leading to the reallocation of broadcast frequencies and new approaches to regulation which risk further marginalization of communication services run by and for citizens, communities and social organizations. In many instances these sectors are not even being considered.
And while convergence between telecommunications, computing and broadcasting is increasing the number of potential users, the telecommunications development gap supports the division of the world into those who have and those who do not have access to electronic information.
Focusing solely on access to technology on a commercial basis and allowing corporations non-restricted access to public telecommunications systems threatens the survival of community and independent media.
Since communication is one of the central factors in the globalization process, and at the same time one of the areas where the total dominance of the market is expressed most strongly (for it is here that the direct threat to the existence of a diverse and varied world is expressed), it is essential that the struggle against this monopolizing concentration, and in favor of the democratization of communication, become one of the main focuses of social struggle.
a) an essential form of public-service broadcasting and a vital contributor to media pluralism and freedom of expression and information;
b) supporting cultural diversity by providing access to communications media for countries' diverse ethnic and cultural groups;
c) a service for social benefit that should be developed to support democratic culture and not solely commercial markets. In particular, it should promote the development of alternative media (popular, community, citizens', educations, developmental), whose objectives are guided by citizen education and formal education, under more favorable conditions than those enjoyed by exclusively commercial media;
Areas of Action
a) regulation of telecommunications that favors of the development of South-South communications infrastructure;
b) a percentage of public funds for development projects should be dedicated to the enhancement of local communications capacity;
c) measures to ensure governments respect the right to free and unhindered communications, such as revisions of national communications legislation to permit broad exercise of freedom of the press and freedom of expression, ensuring the participation of all sectors of society in the media and their property;
d) international financial institutions to dedicate a percentage of loans and bonds to support community based forms of communications;
e) considering communications media as part of the global commons, corporations should pay for the use of this public space. Funds should be used to ensure sustainable community and independent media;
f) that universal access be the standard for all new technologies and that access be maintained for mature technologies. This includes giving people the necessary training in order to create their own content free from the constraints of the market and guaranteeing affordability;
g) improve the quality of human resources in the communications infrastructure; and
h) legal guarantees that individuals and institutions are free to communicate via the Internet without the threat of surveillance and interception.
a) rules to prevent concentration of media ownership and the take-over of community broadcasting services by commercial companies;
b) reservation for community broadcasters of a portion of any new digital spectra, that is, the new digital technologies characterized by the convergence of information and communications technologies;
c) support for the development of digital systems which are appropriate to the needs of community broadcasting services;
d) require that the development of telecommunications consider countries' socioeconomic and geographic characteristics and incorporate populations that are currently excluded form the benefits of that technology;
e) preservation of existing analog frequencies used by community broadcasters until such time as a digital replacement is available;
f) allocation of part of the broadcast spectrum for self-regulated use by microbroadcasters;
g) the of transparent mechanisms by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to ensure that frequency planning, technical standards for telecommunications and radio, and development resources give a high priority to the needs of civil society;
h) ensure the participation of representative civil society organizations in the agencies responsible for global and national decisionmaking on communications, such as the
ITU and local telecommunications agencies;
i) legal and regulatory frameworks that govern the Internet should be integrated with frameworks governing other media to ensure compatibility and to secure the rights of citizens and organizations to have access to all forms of information and communication technologies (e.g. through community media); and
j) policy and regulations governing public access and dissemination of public information should discourage the use of proprietary software and systems. Incentives should be given to develop open-source software.
a) track transnational corporations (TNCs) and launch international activist efforts to raise consciousness about and develop strategies to halt the increasing control TNCs have on our communications future;
b) advocate for national and international measures to ensure that new information and communication technologies provide affordable access to citizens and communities to establish new community media services;
c) develop community media program exchanges and to build solidarity and support for community struggles for human rights and social justice;
d) promote and support the training of journalists, broadcasters, engineers, media and communication workers and professionals, especially those working in rural and marginal urban areas; and
e) educate civil society organizations, governments and regulators, and the general public on the policy issues of regulation, the importance of a sustainable and pluralist media environment, and the benefits of community media and production.
a) re-appropriate the terms of discussion in formulating communications policy and regulations;
b) call for an ongoing public discussion and debate regarding the new problems concomitant to new technologies including rights of privacy, intellectual property, and a transparent decision making process within corporations and governments;
c) promote the struggle against the monopolization of communications media and systems, as a central focus of the struggle against neoliberalism; and
d) recognize the importance of opening a public debate on the impact and consequences of monopoly concentration in the communications sector, both in the initiatives proposed or supported by civil society, and in those areas of intervention on a regional or international level (World Trade Organization, World Bank, G8, etc);
The former Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Renato Ruggiero, has compared the negotiation of international investment agreements to "writing a constitution of a single world economy." Indeed, the investment rules written into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) are similar to constitutions that determine what governments can and cannot do.
Both NAFTA and the draft MAI build on the principle of "national treatment," which requires treating foreign investors "no less favorably" than domestic firms. They would liberate nearly every regulation on the free circulation of capital, including fly-by-night capital. They prohibit performance requirements and contain mechanisms that permit corporations to sue governments over measures that undermine their profits. Although negotiations on the MAI have ended within the OECD, corporate executives participating in the Business Forum of the Americas have explicitly suggested that, "a hemispheric investment agreement draw upon the principles of the MAI." Proponents of the MAI also want to incorporate its measures into any revision of the Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) codes within the WTO.
All of these investment agreements are biased in favor of maximizing the ability of transnational investors to move freely around the globe with minimum interference from national governments or international regulatory bodies. As Roberto Bissio of the Third World Institute in Montevideo has written: "What is at stake is a struggle between the ambition of transnational corporations to be free of state controls and the capacity of ... citizens and the governments we elect to decide on our own destinies."
In this chapter, we counter with an investment code based on principles that are fundamentally different than those in the MAI and NAFTA.
Investment regulation should not mean imposing excessive controls on investors or establishing protections for inefficient industries. Rather, it should involve orienting investment and creating conditions to enable investment to serve national development goals while obtaining reasonable returns.
Governments should have the power to:
Performance Requirements
Performance requirements need not be protectionist measures. Rather, they should be a means through which host countries share the benefits of corporate investment. The prohibitions on performance requirements in NAFTA, the failed MAI and the draft text of the FTAA would prevent national and local communities from implementing economic development policies that utilize investment for the benefit of ordinary people. Prohibitions on performance requirements go beyond national treatment in that they deprive governments of important policy tools even if they are applied equally to domestic and to foreign investors. Thus they are absolute and not just relative prohibitions.
Governments should have the power to impose performance requirements on investors such as are necessary to accomplish the following goals:
Expropriation and Investor-State Disputes
Corporations have taken advantage of NAFTA's ill-defined references to "indirect" expropriation and NAFTA's investor-state dispute settlement process (Articles 1115-1138) to challenge significant government policies affecting vital areas of concern. Corporations have alleged that measures which fall under the normal regulatory sphere of government action, especially in the area of protection for the environment and human health, constitute measures "tantamount to expropriation" of their assets because they allegedly reduce their anticipated profits.
The draft text of the FTAA includes, although it is still within brackets, the same "investor-state" mechanism as that in NAFTA.
Ethyl Corporation has successfully used NAFTA to revoke a Canadian ban on a gasoline additive, MMT, a known nerve toxin. A US-based corporation, S.D. Myers Inc., which treats transformers containing toxic PCBs, has also sued the Canadian government for losses incurred due to a ban on export of wastes contaminated with toxic PCBs. Methanex, a Canadian firm, is suing the U.S. government for US$970 million because the state of California ordered a ban on the chemical MTBE in order to prevent pollution.
The Mexican government has been ordered to pay US$16.7 million in damages to Metalclad, a U.S. firm, because the municipality of Guadalcazar in the state of San Luis Potosi refused to grant a permit for a hazardous waste disposal facility. Local water reserves have been contaminated and the governor had declared the site an ecological zone.
In some cases corporations have used NAFTA to seek to reverse the results of domestic court proceedings and to circumvent normal commercial civil litigation.
Collectively, these suits demonstrate a wide range of challenges to government regulatory powers. They are particularly disturbing because of their implications for the ability of governments to safeguard human health and the environment. They also pose an enormous challenge to the democratic process by enabling corporations to veto national regulatory processes. These cases have a chilling effect on the willingness of governments at all levels, federal, provincial or state, and local to enact new regulatory measures lest they be challenged under NAFTA.
We oppose investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in the FTAA and in all other trade agreements. The existing investor-state mechanisms must be removed from NAFTA.
We oppose incorporating a broad definition of investment and inclusion of "measures tantamount to expropriation" or "equivalent to expropriation" in international investment and trade agreements. We particularly object to the inclusion of cultural funding in the definition of investment.
The expropriation of corporate assets to serve vital community needs should be permitted. Compensation for expropriated resources should be determined by national law with due regard to the value of the initial foreign investment; the valuation of properties for tax purposes and the amount of wealth taken out of the country during the duration of the investment. Investors should have the right of appeal to national courts in cases where they deem compensation to be inadequate. Appeal to international tribunals, however, should occur only after all national procedures have been exhausted.
Dispute Resolution
Disputes should be adjudicated first under the national laws and tribunals of the host country where citizens affected by decisions have opportunities for participation. Citizen groups, indigenous peoples, local community development organizations, and all levels of government should have the right to sue investors for violations of this investment code. All judicial and quasi-judicial procedures, such as arbitration, shall be fully transparent and open to public observation. Intervenor funding shall be made available to groups such as indigenous communities and environmental groups to enable their participation in legal proceedings.
The international financial system must be reformed. We cannot go on lurching from crisis to crisis with ever larger bailouts that benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
Trade and finance are closely interrelated. Countries often borrow abroad to finance their trade deficits, leading to higher external debts. Moreover, structural adjustment conditions attached to loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank often compel governments to adopt trade and investment liberalization policies and economic strategies that favor the export sector, and to abandon efforts to strengthen the domestic market.
The foreign debt burden must be lifted, as it continues to cause a perverse transfer of wealth from impoverished peoples to their creditors. As the Buenos Aires Declaration of the Latin American and Caribbean Jubilee movement states "Resolving the foreign debt problem entails seeking historic reparations that countries of the North owe to the peoples of the South as a consequence of the looting and devastation that they have carried out over 500 years."
Between 1980 and 1999, underdeveloped countries paid US$1.9 trillion more in debt service than they received in new loans. In 1999, Latin America and Caribbean countries had a total foreign debt burden of US$792 billion, three times as high as in 1982 despite having made US$1.1 trillion in debt payments between 1982 and 1999.
As the Tegucigalpa Declaration launching the Latin American and Caribbean Jubilee 2000 Platform proclaims "The debt is illegitimate because, in large measure, it was contracted by dictatorships, governments not elected by the people, as well as by governments which were formally democratic, but corrupt. Most of the money was not used to benefit the people who are now being required to pay it back. The debt is also illegitimate because it swelled as a result of interest rates and negotiating conditions imposed by creditor governments and banks."
These debt payments and the structural adjustment conditions imposed by creditors exacerbate inequalities among nations and distort or obstruct development. Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) involve a high degree of intervention into sovereign states as they are imposed without opportunities for participation or evaluation by civil society. Moreover, the austerity imposed by SAPs falls disproportionately on the poor, especially women, who have increased their hours of work at home and outside the home to compensate for the loss of public services. Studies show women bear most of the burden of unemployment and underemployment, as well as the extra burden of caring for elderly and infirm family members. SAPs often involve the inappropriate privatization of enterprises and services that should remain in the public realm. Furthermore, they also tend to undermine the ability of governments to regulate the flow of money and of goods in a manner that serves peoples' needs and ecological sustainability.
The rise in financial speculation at the expense of investment in production threatens the well-being of working people everywhere, North and South. And yet in many arenas, governments have promoted, or have been compelled to promote, measures designed to allow investors to take any kind of capital in or out of member countries in any amount at any time. At the international level, these measures are intended to legalize and lock in the financial liberalization conditions attached to the SAPs. These efforts have included the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and proposals for changing the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund to give it jurisdiction over capital account liberalization. The most advanced case to date, which is law in the North American region, is NAFTA's investment chapter. All of these measures serve to impede national controls over financial capital. Despite the criticisms and negative results (as demonstrated in the successive crises in Mexico, Asia, Brazil and now Argentina) of this total liberalization of capital flows, the draft FTAA chapter on investment goes even beyond NAFTA in obstructing governments' ability to utilize controls on capital movements to promote financial stability. The draft text of the FTAA broadens the prohibitions and extends them to more kinds of capital transfers than that found in NAFTA.
Our vision of international financial regulation has a different logic.
a) debts which cannot be serviced without placing an unsustainable burden on impoverished people;
b) debts contracted for fraudulent purposes;
c) debts from loans wasted on projects that never benefited the people; and
d) debts which grew due to the compounding of interest rates after Northern countries unilaterally raised interest rates.
Intellectual property rights (IPR) are theoretically intended to balance the interests of inventors, artists and other creators of socially useful products with those of society at large. However, the recent wave of trade agreements generally favors commercial activity over the public interest. Moreover, the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), which has become the standard for intellectual property rights provisions, is biased towards protecting and compensating private institutions, instead of society's more creative individuals.
Of special concern are the TRIPs rules that privatize, accommodate and monopolize products derived from biodiversity. Under these provisions, corporations have the right to patent products, processes and organic material such as medicines, biotechnology and seeds. These rights raise new ethical, economic and social issues because they affect the self-determination of individuals, groups and peoples, as well as their ability to meet basic human needs.
Traditionally, knowledge of biodiversity has been treated as the common property of local communities. In the FTAA and other trade negotiations, there has been a push for rules that go beyond those agreed to in the WTO, which we could call "TRIPs-plus". These rules even more rigorously facilitate private monopoly rights, despite the efforts of several regional groups to establish principles defending sovereignty and community rights to traditional knowledge and biological diversity.
a) Human rights. A United Nations Subcommittee on Human Rights has declared that "there are apparent conflicts" between TRIPS and human rights, specifically the right to food, the right to health, and the right to self-determination." Sovereign nations and intergovernmental institutions should demand that human rights have priority over trade laws, including those involving intellectual property.
b) Market competition in sectors covered by strengthened intellectual property rules. In many key markets for developing countries, particularly in agriculture and medical biotechnology, current rules are leading to reduced competition. Examples include: increasingly broad patent claims (e.g., over new crop varieties and pharmaceuticals); the acquisition and strategic use of patent portfolios to prevent competition by similar but non-infringing products; and continued blurring of the lines between invention and discovery. This consolidation of key industries into monopolies has serious implications for social welfare, including access to food, health, and nutrition for citizens in both developed and developing countries. This suggests that before countries agree to rules, they should consider the relationship between strengthened intellectual property rights, competition in these industries, and the economic and developmental interests of developing countries.
c) Investment in countries at different levels of development. The assessment should examine how strengthened intellectual property protections might affect the level and nature of investment in participating countries. In particular, attention should be given to the potential for strengthened intellectual property rights to: 1) undermine the opportunity for investment in follow-up research by permitting patents on fundamental research processes; 2) limit the extent to which local companies can invest in adapting existing technology to local conditions; and 3) otherwise limit access to fundamental products and processes.
d) Innovation in different sectors, including in the informal sector. Innovation exists in many countries with little or no enforceable intellectual property rights protection, illustrating that the existence of intellectual property rights is at best only one factor contributing to technological innovation and economic development. It is also possible, as has been observed in North American universities, that given the possibility of gaining a future patent, researchers stop sharing their results, reducing the pace of current discoveries. Countries should assess the potential implications of strengthened intellectual property rights on local innovation, particularly in the informal sector.
e) The implementation of other international agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR). Governments should ensure that any intellectual property rules are based on the CBD. In particular, governments should bear in mind Article 16.5 which calls on "Parties to co-operate, subject to national legislation and international law, to ensure that IPRs are supportive of and do not run counter to the CBD's objectives." Particularly in light of their submissions to the WTO's Council on TRIPs regarding the relationship between TRIPs and the CBD, developing countries should be careful not to adopt rules in any hemispheric agreement that would exacerbate concerns about the potential for IPRs to undermine the CBD's objectives. The ITPGR proposes the guideline that patents should not be authorized if they have the effect of limiting access to genetic resources for food and agriculture, specifically that they should not be authorized for "their parts or components, in the form received from the Multilateral System." Therefore, countries supported in the ITPGR should be careful not to create conflicts with this restriction on intellectual property rights according to this international treaty.
There are six different bracketed proposals in the draft text of the FTAA on what can be patented. None of them would prohibit patents on all life forms, although four options would definitively exclude patents on plant varieties and species, animal species and races, including explicit reference to genetic processes or to material that can replicate itself. There options also clarify the definition of an invention and include other important exceptions. However, these options do permit patents on genetically modified organisms, incorporating various aspects of the text of paragraph 27.3(b) of the TRIPS that states that a government can deny patents on plants and animals that are not microorganisms, and on fundamental biological processes to produce plants and animals that are not microorganisms. But paragraph 27.3(b) of TRIPS is itself subject to a debate within the WTO and subject to change. Currently, various governments grant patents on life forms under this article.
Compliance with this objective would require resistance to three U.S. proposals found in the draft FTAA text that would give greater protection to pharmaceutical companies than TRIPS itself and that would violate the text and the spirit of the Doha Ministerial Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health:
a) While the Doha Declaration would permit the use of compulsory licenses in order to introduce competition in the market under any circumstances, the U.S. proposal in the FTAA would limit their use "only for public non-commercial ends or in situations of a declared national emergency or other situations of extreme urgency."
b) The United States proposes the prolongation of patents beyond the 20 years granted under TRIPS in order to compensate patent holders for delays in granting a patent.
c) The United States proposes that information relative to the safety and effectiveness of a pharmaceutical or agricultural product be the exclusive property of the patent holder for five years. It will therefore be much more difficult for generic producers to produce copies because they will have to replicate all of the tests performed by the patent holder instead of demonstrating the "bioequivalency" of their product.
The HSA is a network of labor organizations and citizens' coalitions representing more than 45 million people from throughout the Americas. It was created to facilitate information exchange and joint strategies and actions towards building an alternative, democratic model of development that benefits our peoples. The HSA is an open space for organizations and movements interested in changing the policies of hemispheric integration and promoting social justice in the Americas. The initiative to create the HSA came out of a May 1997 meeting held parallel to the FTAA Trade Ministerial in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In April 1999, the Alliance was formally constituted, and a Secretariat was established at the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) in Mexico City. In March 2002, the Secretariat was transferred to the Brazil Network for a Peoples Integration (REBRIP). In addition to RMALC and REBRIP, members of the HSA Coordinating Committee include:
For more information on HSA member organizations,
objectives, and activities, contact:
web site: www.asc-hsa.org
email:
The pursuit of trade and investment liberalization within the dominant form of globalization and FTAA process will certainly cause serious social and economic problems for rural peoples engaged in agriculture and fishing. Based on painful experiences in Mexico, Canada and the United States resulting from NAFTA, the probable consequences of an FTAA accord include the abandonment of lands, acceleration of migration from rural to urban areas and to the United States, with subsequent pressures on local governments to provide basic services. This will also result in the growth of poverty and increased marginalization in both urban and rural areas. The international grain and commodity trading companies pushing for the FTAA are eager to increase their own access to large quantities of under-priced grains, which they then use to depress global market prices through the strategic "dumping" of grains at prices far below farmers' cost of production. This market manipulation undermines the ability of small-scale producers worldwide to compete against imports in their domestic markets. In many countries, huge vertically-integrated transnational corporations are building mega-barns for mass industrial style production of hogs, dairy and other livestock. This production, which is geared to export, is displacing local farmers and threatening rural environments and communities. Furthermore, in several countries, large corporations are pressing for the sale or lease of agricultural land to be converted into forestry plantations, resulting in the displacement of subsistence farmers from their lands and the permanent loss of the means of feeding their families.
Like NAFTA, the FTAA would make a country's food security increasingly uncertain and dependent on volatile international market prices. In many countries, such trade liberalization policies have gone hand in hand with increases in government spending for military and paramilitary forces, which then confront the mass movements that have emerged to regain land and the means to a decent and dignified livelihood. NAFTA and FTAA are also designed to break down barriers to the wide dissemination and cultivation of patented genetically modified food crops and pharmaceutical products which have the long-term potential of disenfranchising farmers and healers of their resources, unbalancing natural ecosystems, and destroying the genetic diversity of crops upon which farmers depend now and into the indefinite future.
In light of these threats, the principle of food sovereignty must be respected in any trade agreement. We therefore reject the liberalization of agricultural markets along the lines of NAFTA and under the parameters of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Agriculture and traditional fishing are activities which fulfill a series of essential functions for the stability and security of nations: the preservation of the cultural riches and multi-ethnicity of societies; the preservation of biodiversity; the creation of dignified employment and self-sustainable communities (in agriculture, fishing and related economic activities); the maintenance of rural populations; guarantees for basic food security; and contributions to sustainable development with economic, social and political stability. In short, agriculture, fishing and biodiversity should not be treated as mere commodities, but rather as elements of a complex social, environmental and cultural pattern which should therefore not be opened indiscriminately to trade liberalization. Only then can agriculture fulfill its complex social role and contribute to the achievement of a just and peaceful existence for all.
Therefore, as a response to the deleterious impacts of so-called "hemispheric integration" by means of trade liberalization, countries should be allowed and encouraged to develop their own sovereign long-term rural development strategies and policies and to prohibit the cross-border dumping of commodities by transnational corporations. The principle of food sovereignty implies the ability of nation states to protect their farmers and fishers from predatory trade regimes and economic exploitation and ensure food security and a decent rural life and livelihood.
a) The protection of trade union freedoms that allow for the establishment of unions in the rural areas or among fisherfolk.
b) The promotion of standards that allow the negotiation of wages and other working conditions, through an efficient system of collective bargaining.
c) The recognition of working women's needs, taking into consideration the obligations of child care, nursing and education.
d) Guarantees of specific health and safety standards linked, for instance, to the effects of chemicals on farm workers.
In those cases in which taxpayer financed subsidies are politically and economically viable, they should not benefit industrial interests in over-produced commodity crops, which are primarily produced for export and serve to further increase the concentration of land ownership and the degradation of the soil through mono-cultural systems. Subsidies should be based on the social and economic needs of the majority of a country's producers. For example, the top 10% of U.S. producers receive two-thirds of the subsidies.
In addition, in the overproducing countries some form of supply management program, including an effective system of global food reserves together with price guarantees on basic staple commodities, may both be necessary to reign in overproduction and reverse the bankruptcy of the farming economy. International agreements should both safeguard the ability of national governments to grant subsidies justified by social concerns, food security and environmental equilibrium and at the same time prevent excessive benefits through an indirect taxpayer subsidy to large companies, which lead to unfair trade when the goods they produce are exported.
The promoters of free trade have long asserted that increased market access will inevitably lead to increased growth and prosperity for the participating countries. In the final declaration of the Miami Summit of the Americas, the heads of state asserted that, "[A] key to prosperity is trade without barriers...Eliminating impediments to market access for goods and services among our countries will foster our economic growth. " The reality is that the issue of market access is much more complex than that simple formula. The Mexican experience under NAFTA clearly demonstrates that trade liberalization can have devastating impacts on local producers. The fact that Mexican exports increased at the same time that wages fell and poverty increased also calls into question the assertion that increased market access will automatically translate into increased prosperity for any of the parties involved. The goal of the recent wave of free trade agreements has been the reciprocal lifting of trade barriers among nations, regardless of the countries' level of development or particular national interests. The dominant principle of these deals has been the concept of "national treatment," which means that governments should be required to treat foreign investors, investments, and products the same as their national counterparts. While expanded trade can contribute to economic growth, trade liberalization should not be an end in itself for which everything else must be sacrificed. Instead, market access for foreign products and investments should be evaluated and defined within the framework of national development plans.
The complex process of reconciling national development plans with international trade rules should take the following matters into account:
Special, differential or preferential treatment for developing countries is vital to address the inequalities between countries in our hemisphere. Unfortunately, these issues appear to have been excluded from discussion of market access rules in the FTAA process. This is in spite of the fact that governments have supported this concept in numerous multilateral forums. For example, the GATT has allowed some degree of special and differential treatment since 1964 and heads of state at the IX Iberoamerican Summit committed to promote these criteria. Recently, the Declaration and Action Plan for the tenth session of UNCTAD, held February 12-19, 2000 in Bangkok, Thailand, dedicated an entire section to special and differential treatment. Paragraph 60 of the Bangkok Action Plan states:
"The basic principles of special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries are fully established and recognized in the various decisions of the United Nations General Assembly, UNCTAD and the WTO. Modernization and operationalization of special and differential treatment, in particular in terms of maintaining and expanding export opportunities for developing countries, may be needed to adapt it to changing international trading conditions and to make special and differential treatment a better instrument for development...Developing countries should be enabled to make full use of the SDT provisions."
The Bangkok Action Plan also calls for the provision of technical assistance and development financing to ensure that developing countries can take advantage of new trading opportunities created by improved market access.
National treatment is justified as a guarantee of non-discriminatory treatment. However, in a situation of economic relations among unequal parties, where equality is the exception, it is unfair to speak of discrimination. In reality, this approach imposes severe restrictions on industrial policies and economic development measures. NAFTA made these constraints more severe by extending national treatment obligations beyond trade in goods to also cover services, investment and intellectual property rights.
A better approach would be to establish criteria to ensure equivalent access and special, differential and preferential treatment in order to address inequalities. Therefore, we must support the demands of developing countries to adopt a rational strategy that leads to stable access to Northern markets considered key to Southern countries' development. This is especially urgent given the persistent lack of will to apply special and differential treatment and the intent to ignore the issues and sectors of interest to developing countries. Priority should be given to reducing trade barriers that irrationally differentiate between goods in their primary form and those that have been transformed.
There should be concrete proposals that would lead to changes in local structures, to stimulate access to essential goods or to establish measures to encourage trade in goods of special interest to developing countries. Trade agreements should express the commitment of industrialized countries to push their businesses and institutions to grant incentives designed to promote technology transfer to less advanced countries so that they can establish a solid and viable technological base, as well as offering appropriate flexibility that allows developing countries to open fewer sectors, liberate fewer kinds of transactions, and progressively increase access to their markets according to their particular level of development.
Fair treatment should not be provided solely among nations: it should also be given within each country. Preferential treatment should be directed to support micro, small and medium-scale businesses, particularly social and community businesses, as well as small-scale agricultural production. Beyond the privileges and profits that some transnational corporations and investors might obtain, it is unfair to submit productive and business sectors, above all micro, small and medium-scale businesses, to raw competition that will undoubtedly cause enormous destruction to all of those who lack, as a result of structural adjustment policies, any kind of minimal support. Consequently, we believe that:
a) Producers and society in general should agree on a transparent and participatory process for establishing a timetable and choosing products to be subject to lower duties and the degree of protection of domestic production necessary to support social interests.
b) Internal timetables for trade liberalization and tariff reduction, when deemed appropriate for sovereign national interests, should be accompanied by coordinated programs to ensure that national industries become competitive during the transition. These programs should include access to consultants and training, technological research and development and long-term credit. Sectoral programs should be accompanied by a national development plan including commitments from the state to create the macroeconomic conditions that enhance competitiveness. For developing countries, trade liberalization without an industrial policy is suicidal.
c) An even-handed tariff policy must be implemented to ensure linkage between productive sectors so that no sector is disadvantaged. This could occur if tariffs on an end product were eliminated without a corresponding reduction of duties on imports of its intermediate inputs.
d) The right to impose clear, transparent and agreed-upon performance requirements in conjunction with programs of tariff reduction must be preserved.
a) Non-tariff barriers increasingly take the form of standards of various kinds: quality standards, processing standards, fulfillment of phyto-sanitary specifications (relating to the absence of agents of infection or disease in plants), certificates of origin, organic product standards (e.g. certification of production without toxics or chemical fertilizers), environmental standards, and labor standards, including minimum wage, prohibition of child and forced labor.
These standards, necessary to ensure that such matters as quality, health and environmental protection and workers' rights are taken into account, have also been used as hidden obstacles to the free flow of trade from developing to developed countries. They are imposed unilaterally, and may reflect the interests of corporations and their lobbyists to pressure governments to impose protectionist sanctions on foreign goods and/or services. The challenge then is to eliminate bias and arbitrariness from the imposition of such standards to ensure they reflect legitimate interests and are not hidden protectionist measures to benefit specific companies.
b) Laws, regulations, guidelines and standards for guaranteeing the quality of goods and services for consumer and environmental protection should be arrived at through broad public consultation. They should take into account the range of conditions prevailing in different countries and include realistic timetables. They should be written into wideranging agreements on scientific and technical cooperation and industrial development. These agreements, reinforced by adequate resources and specific sectoral accords, should raise standards by international consensus, especially for developing countries and for socially owned enterprises (such as cooperatives) and micro, small, and medium enterprises.
These provisions should require multinational corporations to meet the highest standards to prevent the sale of products banned in that company's own country in countries with lower standards or lax enforcement. Only through broad and democratic processes of consultation and negotiation can consumer interests for high standards health and environmental protections be met and unilateral, illegal and covert protectionist measures avoided.
a) Customs procedures should be harmonized while they are modernized to reduce bureaucracy and simplify procedures. Assistance should be given to the social sector and micro, small and medium producers and entrepreneurs who engage in foreign trade.
b) Customs valuation procedures should be linked to and integrated with those used for evaluating dumping and subsidy cases, the suppression of fraud, information gathering systems and dispute resolution mechanisms.
Rules of Origin
Rules of origin are the criteria by which products come to be considered to be originating in a given place, which then affects their treatment in cross-border exchange under free trade agreements. The trend in such agreements is to establish regional rules of origin specifying a percentage of components or inputs to be included in order to qualify for designation of origin. While we do not exclude additional regional or sub-regional content requirements within the hemisphere, our view is that countries should be able to establish national content rules if the country feels that national economic development requires such designation. This demand or principle complements other proposals in the chapter on investment regarding the requirement for foreign companies to source a percentage of inputs in the country of production.
Countries may deem that, without national content rules, trade liberalization only benefits intra-firm integration and leads to the disintegration of national productive linkages. Lacking incentives to purchase production inputs within the country of production, large export companies revert to imports, which eliminates spin-off economic growth, despite increasing production. The neo-liberal model assumes that the export sector is the engine of economic growth. In practice, this "engine" becomes disconnected from the rest of the train. Rules of origin that only require regional content transform the productive apparatus of many Southern countries into maquiladoras or export processing zones.
In 1994, services were incorporated for the first time into a multilateral accord with the creation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in the Uruguay Round of the GATT. Various bilateral or regional negotiations have begun since then, designed to deepen the liberalization of this sector, particularly in the FTAA. The structure of the FTAA negotiation is similar to that of the GATS, but the FTAA is intended to go beyond that agreement (and beyond NAFTA), above all in issues related the manner in which services are liberalized.
Services have undergone tremendous transformation in recent decades, but this does not mean that they have lost their basic characteristics, justifying their treatment as mere commodities. The WTO has identified 160 service sectors in the following categories:
Of those services, financial activities and public services have come to play an increasingly important role in the liberalization and globalization of our economies. The Latin American experience with the liberalization of financial services dramatically demonstrates that liberalization and increases in financial flows - especially speculative flows - can generate enormous monetary and financial turbulence, which have become the cause of many economic crises. In addition, transnational corporations in the public-service sector have taken advantage of privatization to appropriate state-owned enterprises, thus managing the supply of basic services according to the logic of profits and marketing. Moreover, many investments in such sensitive sectors as energy, transportation, water, tourism and toxic waste disposal, have been made without consideration of their environmental impacts.
Hemispheric trade in services is growing rapidly, but the majority of exports come from industrialized countries. A similar phenomenon is occurring with flows of direct foreign investment in service activities, which have grown over the last few years. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of Latin American countries are "net" importers of services. Caribbean nations are the exception. Those countries are true service economies, due mainly to tourism and financial services. These differences in trade and investment flows reflect the differing capacities for service production that exist between the hemisphere's most developed countries and those that are further behind.
Furthermore, while services are important to Latin American economies - comprising nearly 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - they reflect, above all, the increase in informal or precarious services, which is the refuge of a significant portion of the population that has become marginalized from productive activities.
Services are extremely important, not only because they are inputs for the production of goods and other services but also because they satisfy consumers' needs, many of them essential for peoples' lives. Unfortunately, multilateral and hemispheric (FTAA) negotiations on the service sector tend to treat services more as industrial inputs rather than as vital products that satisfy the needs of a given population. Given their importance, the imposition of compulsory, global and irreversible rules that threaten democracy and service regulations is unacceptable.
This version of this chapter reflects significant advances in talks held within the Hemispheric Social Alliance, but it is an issue that requires further discussions to deepen and enrich our positions, which will continue to be carried out over the next few months.
The progressive principles proposed in this document present a comprehensive vision for just and sustainable development leading to a society founded on respect for human rights and recognition of the need to live in harmony with the environment. The vision presented stands in stark contrast to the reality of the social conditions created by the neoliberal model of development, with its focus on macroeconomic indicators as a proxy for quality of life.
There are many challenges on the road to implementing the vision we share for a better economic system. The preceding chapters of this document represent the accomplishment of one of the major tasks - reaching agreement on the substantive social standards among the many diverse groups from the many countries and cultures represented. These discussions began formally at the civil-society meetings held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1997 and continued to the present in a process of consensus building to reach agreement on standards. To make these standards meaningful, it is necessary to take the next major step and develop effective mechanisms for enforcement.
We must acknowledge at the outset the particular challenge of developing agreement on an enforcement process. It is relatively easy to reach agreement on a concept of substantive rights. In the abstract, people from widely divergent economic and cultural backgrounds can agree, for example, that all workers should be paid a living wage. But adding the issue of enforcement to the mix raises the important question of "enforcement at whose expense?" During the numerous group discussions that led to the creation of this document, it was the issue of enforcement that brought out sentiments of nationalism, regional factions, and concerns about protectionism. The proposal for a living wage in the context of an enforcement process can variously be interpreted to be a plan to force low-wage countries to lose their comparative advantage of cheap labor, a protectionist ploy by high wage countries to curb job losses to low wage countries, or an unrealistic economic theory that will destroy "natural" wage differentials set by the free market.
To make progress on the enforcement issue required a particularly careful process of consensus building. The proposals herein reflect an emerging consensus, and also the recognition of the need for further work in these areas. Thus, this proposal is not a detailed regulation ready to be implemented. Rather, it creates a framework of general principles that must be refined and adapted to a specific context. The assumption is that the enforcement provisions would be included in a future trade agreement, along with the proposed substantive standards.
Four bedrock principles have emerged in the discussion of enforcement provisions.
These principles stand in stark contrast to the dispute resolution proposals in the draft FTAA text. Rather than seeking to address the broad range of issues implicit in economic integration, the FTAA would include remedies only for commercial disputes. The process proposed in the new accord, like that in NAFTA, would be undemocratic and secretive. Not only are affected parties from civil society not provided standing in these disputes, the FTAA would not even require that the deliberations or decisions around trade disputes be made public.
A. Preliminary Assessment of Compliance with the Social Standard Guiding Principles
Objective information must be gathered to determine whether a specific country is in compliance with the social standard. The purpose of this assessment is not to assess penalties, but to make an appraisal of what would be needed in the way of resources, law reform and other changes to bring each country into compliance.
Specific Objectives
B. Development of a Specific Action Plan to Achieve Compliance with the Social Standard Guiding Principles
As a result of the audit process, a specific action plan will be developed that is designed to bring the subject country into compliance with the social standards within a specific time frame. This approach must emphasize that the goal is to encourage compliance and harmonize upward the social conditions in a given country.
Specific Objectives
C. Integrating Companies into the Compliance Process Guiding Principles:
A significant aspect of the enforcement process is getting private parties, particularly multinational companies, to comply with the social standards. Many of the social standards depend upon private compliance with national laws, but multinational companies often exercise undue influence at a national level based on implicit threats to relocate to avoid regulation. While a key part of achieving compliance at the national level is to have better enforcement of national laws, this process should be supplemented by creating a legal obligation for companies to comply with the social standards within the area of a trade agreement to remove the incentive to play one country off another.
Specific Objectives:
Ongoing monitoring must be done to keep information current and to verify whether the companies are honoring their commitment to comply with the social standards. This monitoring should be carried out by independent local organizations that are certified to be qualified to conduct the company audits. The monitors must not have any financial relationship with the companies being audited.
D. Penalties for Failing to Comply with the Social Standards. Guiding Principles
A critical aspect of the process of enforcement and the imposition of penalties for non-compliance is to institute a democratic and open process that yields predictable and consistent results. Use of the enforcement mechanism should be rare if the rest of the steps to facilitate compliance are utilized.
Specific Objectives
The issues of enforcement and compliance are difficult and controversial, as they involve very real differences in power among the actors involved, both among governments and between corporate actors and people affected by their actions. This chapter, as the others in this document, is a work in progress that will continue to evolve to reflect the contributions and deliberations of civil-society organizations and social movements throughout the Americas.