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FTAA Cooking Up without 'Green' Ingredient |
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By Diego Cevallos*
Experts
warn that issues like labor rights and environmental protection
are absent from the bi-continental trade accord, the first draft
of which is to be unveiled at the Summit of the Americas in April.
MEXICO CITY - The Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) is being prepared without any ''green'' seasoning or citizen
input. But it comes as no surprise, say experts, because the recipe
emphasizes other ingredients.
At the Summit of the Americas, to be held in
Quebec, Canada, in late April, the presidents of the western hemisphere
will receive a draft text of what will be a trade accord extending
from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, implemented in 2005 - if not earlier.
The authors of the document, which tops off the process begun in
1994, are largely government officials and business executives.
The FTAA ''silently advances without any debate
or consideration of public opinions,'' warns Otto Boye, permanent
secretary of the Latin American Economic System (SELA), an organization
that promotes cooperation and coordination in the region's economic
matters.
''If we do nothing to correct this, we will
wake up one fine day from our nap and we will find that the FTAA
is already a fact, one that will deeply affect our lives in the
not-so-distant future,'' he pointed out.
The accord, conceived and promoted by the United
States in the early 1990s, is to create an enormous free trade zone
that covers 34 countries in North and South America, with the sole
exception being Cuba.
As the FTAA's lift-off date approaches, experts
and environmentalists are growing more and more concerned as they
find great holes in the negotiations underway and little real debate.
It must be acknowledged that the proponents
of issues such as labor and the environment have not been successful
in making themselves heard in the FTAA process, asserts a SELA study
published in October 2000.
According to Germán de la Reza, an expert in
integration and an academic at Mexico's National Autonomous and
Metropolitan universities, the lack of debate on the two matters
in the FTAA talks should come as no surprise.
Labor and environmental demands are legitimate,
he says, but it must be made clear ''that the model chosen by FTAA
is purely trade-related,'' and other matters are left in the periphery,
they are subordinate.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the Business
Forum of the Americas has achieved more of a leadership role in
the talks than the Committee on Civil Society, though both were
created within the framework of the FTAA.
'Important sectors of the citizenry feel that
(in the FTAA process) they have not been given the same treatment
and equality of opportunities as the business community to express
their points of view on the matters… of labor and the environment,''
states SELA.
Before it is too late, we must think about
signing an environmental accord in parallel with the FTAA, recommends
Marie Claire Segger, of the International Institute for Sustainable
Development.
''The FTAA negotiations should be considered
an opportunity to establish clear, appropriate and pertinent rules''
with respect to the repercussions of trade on the environment, maintains
Ana Karina González of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law.
Both experts participated in an international
conference on trade and the environment held in Mexico in February
under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP),
the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the UN Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as well as other organizations.
At the forum, one of the few of its kind ever
held in the western hemisphere, the participants overwhelmingly
expressed concern about the fact that no major discussions on the
environment have taken place in the FTAA negotiating process.
In Latin America and the Caribbean there are
approximately 270 treaties, declarations, initiatives and programs
related to sustainable development. Nevertheless, many have no direct
relationship with trade.
And the vast majority of Latin American FTAA
negotiators agree that discussions on the environment should remain
separate from the trade debate.
The economic liberalization process is complicated
enough without adding in environmental questions, they point out.
The idea persists in the region that environmental
and labor issues translate into a sort of ''neo-protectionism''
for the nations of the industrialized North, according to SELA.
In the FTAA, where issues related to investment,
market access and services are negotiated without most of society
being aware of it, wealthy countries like Canada and the United
States coexist with nations of mid-level or limited economic development.
If the quality standards of the North were
applied to the exporting countries of the South, many businesses
would simply have to close their doors, emphasizes De la Reza.
But the absence of environmental matters in
the FTAA talks is not attributable only to the integration model
chosen by the region, but also to the lack of interest and of organization
among environmental groups and society.
In October 1998, the FTAA Committee on Civil
Society announced ''an open invitation'' to social sectors to make
themselves heard on questions related to the talks, with a deadline
of March 1999.
Though the Committee did not indicate the number
of petitions received in that period, it admitted that individuals
and organizations from just 16 countries had participated. More
than half of the contributions came from Canada and the United States.
Broken down by sector, 32 percent came from
business and professional associations, 15 percent from labor organizations,
another 15 from environmental groups, 13 percent from academics
and the rest from other types of organizations.
If the countries enter the FTAA negotiations
on a separate, unorganized basis, says the permanent secretary of
SELA, ''we will have a global and hemispheric legislation and an
international environment that has nothing to do with us or our
reality.''
* Diego Cevallos is an IPS correspondent.
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