September 13, 2003by Martin Wagner
With terrorism, the war in Iraq, and economic troubles at home to worry about, Americans may wonder, "Why should we care about a WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico?"
We should care deeply, because our health and environmental standards are at risk.
In Cancún, trade ministers from more than 140 nations are negotiating new rules that undermine the ability of local, state, and federal governments throughout the United States to protect the public interest. It's a bold attempt to increase trade no matter what the social and environmental costs.
As a committee headed by California State Senator Liz Figueroa has recognized, trade rules being discussed in Cancún could jeopardize a state's right to protect our environment, human health, civil and labor rights, and a host of other laws.
In Santa Monica, the city water supply was poisoned by MTBE, a chemical in gasoline that seeped into city wells and made the water undrinkable. Governor Davis ordered MTBE removed from gasoline by next year, but that may be thwarted. The Canadian-based Methanex Corporation, producer of one component of MTBE, is using international trade rules to demand the U.S. government pay one billion dollars - potential lost profits - if California bans the chemical.
Methanex based its challenge on a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement that allows foreign corporations to use secretive international tribunals to challenge federal, state, or local measures that might interfere with potential corporate profits. Will Methanex win this case? Maybe. The U.S.-based company Metalclad recently won a $16 million NAFTA tribunal decision against the government of Mexico when local officials refused to allow the company to operate a toxic waste facility in their community. And that is just the beginning.
Recently, California implemented one of the world's best regimes to regulate open-pit mining by requiring mining companies to refill the pits rather than piling mine tailings in the open where they pollute our environment. But Glamis Gold Ltd., a Canadian mining company, is already challenging these measures under the NAFTA investment rules.
Should the United States, Mexico, or any other country have to pay foreign corporations to prevent harm to the environment and human health? Isn't that legalized extortion? Well, yes, and it's one of many stranger-than-fiction trade rules being promoted in Cancún this week.
The NAFTA provision used by Methanex and Metalclad is a model corporations in the United States and other countries want to apply throughout the world, increasing corporate power to challenge meddlesome health and environmental standards enacted democratically by regional governments around the world.
Already, threatened trade challenges have persuaded the United States to allow pesticide residues on food that do not meet U.S. standards and Minnesota to waive its purchasing preference for recycled paper in the face of Canadian claims that it would disadvantage paper produced from logging native forests.
The United States has long been a global leader in environmental and health protection. Our organic food laws and toxics regulations provide high levels of safety for our children and environment. Under the proposed WTO rules, we would be pressured to forego such measures and adopt lowest-common-denominator international standards. Stronger protections would be open to challenge by foreign corporations eventually forcing the United States to weaken standards. This is already happening. Under already existing WTO rules, Europe was forced to pay huge tariffs to retain laws against chemicals in U.S. meat suspected of causing cancer.
Amazingly, trade negotiators still insist trade has nothing to do with the environment or public health.
The proposed WTO rules would also limit the US ability to guarantee essential public services, like providing clean drinking water, sanitation, and responsible forest management. Under these rules, any state regulation of service providers to protect human and environmental health could be challenged by corporations as being "more burdensome [to trade] than necessary." This 'trade at all costs' agenda is the basis for the protests in Cancún, as it was at the WTO meeting in 1999 in Seattle. Not much has changed in the last four years.
If you haven't heard about these plans, it's no surprise. The United States keeps the public in the dark while giving special briefings to industry representatives and making documents available to foreign negotiators. Although recent lawsuits have forced the government to disclose some of what it has proposed in certain trade negotiations, the US Trade Representative's office has sworn to continue hiding such documents in the future.
Democracy requires informed public participation. If these trade agreements are really for our benefit, one has to wonder why all the secrecy?
Most people throughout the world demand that their leaders give priority to openness and to protecting our children and environment -- not just increasing corporate profits.
Martin Wagner is managing attorney of international programs for Earthjustice. He has successfully sued the US Trade Representative for public access to the US negotiating position on free trade agreements and is pursuing legal channels for a public role in the Methanex case.
