Demystifying the Trade Barons
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Demystifying the Trade Barons
Roy Whyte
CDM
June 18 2003
When looking over the multitude of trade deals, including their names, their content and end conclusions one thing becomes evident – they are confusing until you do your homework. Some would even suggest the confusion is part and parcel of the deals – done on purpose to keep the sheeple from catching on to the destruction of their and other nations sovereignty and the betrayal of the natural environment.
Staying with North America and the other large trade deals – here are the controls of power and greed:
WTO
Otherwise known as The World Trade Organization – this organization was formed in 1995 after the Uruguay round of GATT (explained later) negotiations. The WTO did not replace GATT; rather it began to enforce the deal.
From Geneva Switzerland, the WTO looks over and enforces over twenty separate international agreements. To do that the WTO uses international trade tribunals that decide any dispute.
Those that back the WTO will try to tell you that each country has an equal part and say in the organization. This is far from the truth in practice. The large dominant countries of the G8 can withstand and weather any trade sanctions, where as the small less developed nations are at a real disadvantage under any sanctions.
Some of the agreements that the WTO oversees and enforces include:
· GATT – The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Simply the purpose of GATT is to eliminate all remaining tariffs and non-tariff barriers to the free movement of capital and manufactured goods across nation-state borders. Within GATT are the main WTO articles – National Treatment and Most Favoured Nation Status. National Treatment is an article that states all goods and services must be treated equally. In essence they trump any legislated laws in the host country. Most Favoured Nation Status – is an article where each member country must treat the imports of all member countries equally. It matters not if the host country has a poor human rights record, poor environmental standards or bad workplace standards.
· GATS – The General Agreement on Trade in Services. This is the first multilateral agreement that is legally enforceable. It covers a plethora of services including banking, data, insurance, communications and most financial services. At this time negotiations are taking place to expand GATS to cover health care, education, culture, social security, environmental services – including water delivery.
· TRIMS – Trade Related Investment Measures. These measure set out elements that dictate what governments can and cannot do in regulating foreign investment. In junction with National Treatment, multinational corporations are salivating at the idea of introducing elements of the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) into the WTO so the may sue foreign governments for any legislation that may cause them future profit loss.
· TRIPS – Trade Related Intellectual Property Measures. These measures set out enforceable global rules on patents, copyrights, and trademarks. As well, it permits the patenting of many plant and animal forms – including seeds. As of late, transnational pharmaceutical corporations have invoked TRIPS to crush any third world country from providing generic drugs such as aids medications.
· SPS – The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards. This agreement established constraints on government policies relating to food safety, animal and plant health – including those governing pesticide use and biological contaminants related to food inspection, product labeling, and genetically engineered foods. On top of all that the SPS covers the Codex Alimentarius – an agreement mandated to bring together worldwide food quality standards – this would be covered by big food and agribusiness corporations.
· FSA – The Financial Services Agreement. This was established to remove barriers to the free movement of financial services corporations, including banks and insurance companies. Already we are seeing mega mergers in the financial sector and with the recently announced re-looking at foreign ownership levels in Canada – ours may be next in line.
· AOA – The Agreement on Agriculture. This agreement sets out all the rules and policies on the international food trade. It also restricts domestic agriculture policies. These restrictions extend to governments providing support for their own farmers, emergency food stocks, setting food safety rules, and even to ensuring that their own citizens have an adequate food supply. This set of agreements is roundly criticized for speeding up resource exploitation, the expansion of corporate farming and the degradation of environmental protections around the agribusiness.
· ASCM – The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. This agreement sets limits on what governments can do with subsidies. As well this agreement is full of loopholes either intentional or not these loopholes favour the wealthy nations and agribusinesses.
· TBT – The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. This was set up to ensure in essence that member nations do not have regulations such as environmental laws that may interfere with increased trade liberalization.
· AGP – The Agreement on Government Procurement. This agreement set all the limits and guidelines including restrictions on governments are permitted to use when purchasing goods. This also extends to domestic content or community reinvestment rules.
With these agreements and deals the WTO is quite unlike any other international agency. The WTO after the Uruguay round of negotiations now not only has the rules that govern the global economy, but also all the power and resources necessary to act as a global government. The WTO has powers of adjudication and enforcement processes through its acquired judicial, legislative and executive powers.
Through the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO, member countries on behalf of their own corporate clients can challenge any law, policy, and program of any other country they believe to be in violation of the WTO rules or regulations. Once that is done – un-elected ‘experts’ then have the power to adjudicate claims of alleged violations, and then dole out the decided punishment.
The losing country then is left with one of three choices: change their laws to conform to the rulings, face the crippling economic sanctions, or pay permanent compensation to the winning country. In doling out the punishment, the judgment does not take into account anything other than if that countries policy is a ‘barrier to trade’. The panels need not to consider any other ramification or factor such as public health or welfare, economic justice, or even democratic sovereignty. There are no nongovernmental or noncommercial interests involved with the decisions. All of these panels operate in secret behind closed doors with all documents used, hearings and briefs kept strictly confidential.
The legislative powers of the WTO extend to having the authority to strike down domestic laws, policies, and programs of all the member-states who may be judged to be in violation of the WTO rules. As well this requires countries to establish new laws, policies, or programs that conform to the WTO rules.
As a result of these legislative powers we have seen the WTO rule in favour of corporations over the wishes and sovereign rights of nations. Panel decisions once made can be appealed, but the appeal process requires that all 134 nations agree to overturn the WTO ruling. This sets up the wealthy nations to overpower the weaker less developed nations. This is because the rich nations can withstand the decisions and pay the compensation where as the poor nations cannot. To date, 117 WTO challenges have been brought forward with 50 coming from the U.S. – the nation most able to withstand any challenge.
No other international agreement except NAFTA through chapter 5 has the same legal and enforcement policy powers of the WTO. These decisions take precedence over Multilateral Environmental Agreements or WEAs like the Convention on Biological Diversity. They also trump human rights agreements like the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and most international labour codes.
WTO rulings apply to laws at every single level of governance including federal, provincial, state, regional, municipal or local. If any law is challenged and found to be ‘trade illegal’ – it must be tossed aside, no matter who passed it or why. The most famous of cases in Canada was over the gasoline additive MMT which was banned by the Federal Government because it was found to react with the human nervous system. The feds had to overturn the ruling and allow the Ethyl Corporation of the US to continue to pollute and kill Canadians.
Roy Whyte is the Director of WhiteBark Innovations
and edits Canadian Business News
@ June 18, 2003