Recently I sent FW an article by John Polanyi. He is a Nobel prize
winning chemist who coordinated the writing of a letter signed by 100
other Nobel prize winners. In the article I sent, Professor Polanyi
wrote:
>"The answer is that one's perception of truth comes not from
>intelligence but from a sense of values."
I see a lot of truth in what this remarkable woman writes. FW of late
reminds me of a house party where all the men end up in one room and
all the women in another. Might it have to do with our sense of
values?
Message from the Chair
Fall 1999
Who's In Charge of the Global Economy?
By Maude Barlow
The dominant development model of our time is economic
globalization, a system fuelled by the belief that a single global
economy with universal rules set by global corporations and
financial markets is inevitable. Everything is for sale, even those
areas of life once considered sacred. Increasingly, these services
and resources are controlled by a handful of transnational
corporations who shape national and international law to suit their
interests. At the heart of this transformation is an all-out assault
on virtually every public
sphere of life, including the democratic underpinning of our legal systems.
The most important tool in this assault has been the creation of
international trade agreements
whose tribunals and enforcement measures supersede the legal systems
of nation-states and
supplant their judicial processes by setting up independent dispute
resolution systems that exist
outside the confines of their courts and their laws.
For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) gave American
corporations Chapter 11, the first "investor state clause" in any
international agreement. For
the first time, a corporation can sue a foreign government if that
government enacts any law,
practice or measure that negatively affects the company's profits or
reputation, even if that law,
practice or measure has been enacted by a democratic legislature for
legitimate environmental,
social, health or safety reasons.
There are several active Chapter 11 cases now in process. The first
was lodged by Ethyl Corp.
of Virginia, when Canada legislated a ban on the cross-border sale
of MMT - which Prime
Minister Chr�tien called a dangerous neurotoxin - and Ethyl sued the
Canadian government for
$350 million in damages for lost future profit. Rather than allow
the case to go to a NAFTA
panel where it feared it would lose, the Canadian government
reversed its ban in July 1998,
paid Ethyl $20 million in compensation for its "trouble," and gave
the company a letter of
apology containing a statement that there is no scientific evidence
that MMT poses a threat to
human health or the environment.
The first NAFTA Chapter 11 case on water was filed in the fall of
1998. Sun Belt Water Inc.
of Santa Barbara, California, is suing the Canadian government
because the company lost a
contract to export water to California when the government of
British Columbia banned the
export of bulk water in 1991. Although Sun Belt's agreement was with
a Canadian company,
Snowcap, and not the B.C. government, Sun Belt alleges the ban
contravenes NAFTA and is
seeking $400 million in damages. The corporation understands NAFTA
gives it the right to
shape Canadian government policy. "Because of NAFTA, we are now
stakeholders in the
national water policy in Canada," declared Jack Lindsay, its chief executive.
The other major global institution that is swiping national legal
jurisdictions is the World Trade
Organization (WTO). The WTO enforces a number of international trade
agreements on goods,
services, intellectual property rights, food safety, animal and
plant health, financial services,
food, agriculture policy, investment, technology and telecommunications.
What makes the WTO so powerful is that it has both the legislative
and judicial authority to
challenge laws, policies and programs of countries that do not
conform to WTO rules and
strike them down if they are seen to be too "trade restrictive."
Cases are decided - in secret - by
a panel of three trade bureaucrats. Once a WTO ruling is made,
worldwide conformity is
required. A country is obligated to harmonize its laws or face the
prospect of perpetual trade
sanctions or fines.
The WTO, which contains no minimum standards to protect the
environment, labour rights,
social programs or cultural diversity, has already been used to
strike down a number of key
nation-state environmental, food safety, and human rights laws.
Recently, U.S. laws to
protect endangered Asian sea turtles from shrimp nets and dolphins
from drift nets have been
successfully challenged at the WTO. All WTO agreements set out
detailed rules intended to
constrain the extent to which governments can regulate international
trade, or otherwise
"interfere" with the activities of large corporations. WTO
agreements provide extensive lists of
things that governments can't do.
Says U.S.-based Public Citizen, "The emerging case law indicates
that the WTO keeps raising
the bar against environmental laws." Renato Ruggiero, former WTO
secretary-general, has
admitted that environmental standards in the WTO are "doomed to fail
and could only damage
the global trading system." Another WTO official was quoted in the
Financial Times in April,
1998, saying, "The WTO is the place where governments collude in
private against their
domestic pressure groups."
Democracy is a fragile creature. Through massive privatization and
deregulation, people all
over the world have already lost control over many areas of social
and environmental policy.
Now, backed by the International Chamber of Commerce that wants to
establish a binding
global legal system to protect transnational corporate interests,
citizens are losing their
democratic rights to a fair, open and just legal system as well.
The Council of Canadians
502-151 Slater Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5H3, Canada
Telephone: 613-233-2773, 1-800-387-7177 - Fax: 613-233-6776
www.canadians.org - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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* Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator *
* Faculty of Education, Queen's University *
* Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 *
* FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937*
* e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* "Education is not the filling of a pail, *
* but the lighting of a fire. *
* W.B.Yeats *
* *
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