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Chile Eludes Environmental Clauses |
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By Gustavo González*
The Chilean government is attempting to avoid environmental stipulations in its trade accords with the European Union and the United States, saying they are a source of arbitrary interpretation, potential disputes and penalties for non-compliance.
SANTIAGO - The controversy over the environmental question in international trade talks is heating up in this South American nation, where the government signed a free trade treaty with the European Union (EU) and is seeking a similar accord with the United States this year.
Included in the central text of a trade agreement, environmental clauses create obligations for the signatories to heed international environmental conventions and slaps trade sanctions on any party that fails to comply with those conventions.
For the Chilean government, the most appropriate solution was the approach it took in the free trade treaty signed with Canada in 1996, which does not contain environmental or labor clauses, matters that were relegated to annex protocols that were signed at that time by the two countries.
The Chilean authorities believe this formula is a model of how negotiations should be conducted by a developing country with an industrialized country, and they are attempting to repeat it in talks with the United States. However, environmental organizations in Chile and the United States are incensed at such maneuvering.
The environmental aspects related to trade are one of the pending issues of the new round of multilateral trade talks begun last November under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), but it is a difficult matter that could explode at the body's next ministerial conference, slated for 2003 in Mexico.
In the absence of a global standard, the trade-environmental equation is left open to the lobbying capacity of the parties involved in bilateral or multilateral negotiations.
The conflicts are most evident in asymmetric talks, when powerful countries attempt to subject their potential developing country trade partners to submit to the former's environmental legislation, which tends to be stricter.
Although the final text of the Chile-EU agreement is still being drafted, the preliminary protocol upholds a widespread trend: linking trade to internationally recognized environmental treaties, such as the conventions on climate change, ozone layer protection and biological diversity.
The information released by the Chilean Foreign Ministry, in charge of the talks, does not include mention of environmental clauses, though it underscores the EU's willingness to provide broad cooperation with Chile in this area.
The matter becomes more complicated in the context of the talks with the United States, where there is heavy pressure from ecological organizations, unions and some farmers that are in favor of introducing environmental and labor clauses.
The Chilean Alliance for Fair and Responsible Trade is also inclined towards such clauses, arguing that the transnational corporations keep their eyes on such trade treaties and accords in order to transfer their investments to countries whose fragile legislation allows them to exploit their natural resources.
Rodrigo Pizarro, an economist for the independent Terram Foundation, objects to the Chilean accord with the EU, saying he believes it will only make Chile more dependent on primary commodity exports and open up its fishing wealth to the European bloc.
But the government is of a different opinion. The environmental clauses distort the trade aspects of the treaties and open the door to arbitrary decisions and possible sanctions for non-compliance, said the head of the Trade Policy Department at the Chilean foreign ministry, Ricardo Lagos Weber.
The official admitted that the problem lies in the fact that while the WTO serves as a sort of supra-organization dictating trade norms, there is not an equivalent global authority on the environment for agreements on obligatory procedures for the entire international community.
In this context, environmental organizations in the developing South, like the Third World Network, warn that the inclusion of social and environmental clauses could turn out to be a mechanism that reverses the deregulatory nature of free trade, but also serve as a barrier imposed by the industrialized North for exports coming from developing countries.
* Gustavo González is an IPS correspondent.
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