The FTAA is an agreement designed to help fuel capitalism. Capitalism and environmental protection are directly contradictory as capitalism must exploit and destroy to survive. Unlimited economic growth is impossible in a finite ecological system.

Summary:

• environmental regulations will be eliminated or drastically reduced if they interfere with profit under the FTAA
• the FTAA is practically being written by business
• discrimination between products based on how they are produced (environmentally friendly or not) will be illegal
• eco certification will most likely be illegal
• labeling products which are more environmentally friendly couldbecome illegal.
• environmentally friendly First Nations initiatives would be made virtually impossible

Reduction and Elimination of Environmental Regulations:

Increasingly, international trade agreements overrule domestic laws designed to protect the environment and civil society. International trade agreements also take priority over international agreements that set environmental targets such as the Convention on Biological Diversity or the Kyoto Protocol. Such agreements are bargained on good faith and not legally binding whereas the FTAA and NAFTA are.

As a result, if environmental or social regulations interfere with the ability of a transnational corporation to make a profit those regulations will most likely be eliminated. The FTAA pays lip service to the maintenance of biodiversity and a healthy environment throughout its literature. However, as they “strive to make our trade liberalization and environmental policies mutually supportive” it is clear that the environment will always take the back burner to the economy.

example: MMT is a gasoline additive which is toxic and linked to many health and environmental problems. Ethyl Corp, an American company, produces MMT which is banned in the united states. kanada banned MMT for its environmental and health consequences. Ethyl Corp. sued kanada under NAFTA, claiming that kanada had expropriated its business. kanada settled with Ethyl, issued an apology, paid Ethyl millions of dollars and liftedthe ban.

Corporate Exclusivity:

The FTAA, has a blatant bias towards industry built into it. Every time the FTAA meets to negotiate, the ABF (American Business Forum) also meets. The ABF offsets its meetings so that the FTAA begins just as the ABF is ending. By this time the ABF has complied both a review of all nation’s progress in trade liberalization as well as recommendations for the next round. The recommendations are always incorporated into the FTAA with little discussion. Essentially the ABF writes the FTAA, an agreement that will have a profound impact on every aspect of the environment and social life in the Americas.

In Toronto, where the FTAA was last negotiated, the Prime Minister of Canada. He was some what delayed by the angry protesters outside who were determined to have their opposition to the FTAA recognized. These protesters took direct action as they knew their voices would be silenced otherwise. The Hemispheric Social Alliance, which met at the same time as the ABF, also provided the FTAA negotiators with recommendations. The recommendations were received by the chief Canadian trade negotiator, Pierre Pedagru, rather than the Prime Minister, and were virtually ignored in the negotiations. This is but one of the reasons that reformism won’t work.

Corporate exclusivity in the advisory process for international trade negotiations increasingly results in agreements which are strictly profit oriented. These agreements have no concern for social justice or the environment and will work to quickly erode any environmental or social progress that has been made.

Industry, which is motivated by profit, is unable to police itself in the interest of public good. Now that industry has been given the ability to essentially write international trade agreements, which have systemically undermined existing environmental regulation, the planet is put at serious risk of extensive, irreparable environmental devastation.

Procurement:

One initiative that many communities are taking to protect the environment is by having strong procurement policies. This means that a school, city, province or state, nation or other group sets up regulations surrounding the types of products purchased. For example, many cities have policies that state they will not purchase old-growth wood unless it is ecologically certified. This is because only 1/5 of the world’s ancient forests remain.

Big-business considers this to be an unfair barrier to trade or a non-tariff trade measure (NTM). Many trade agreements argue that there is no difference between products if their final purpose is the same. This means that if something is produced in an ecologically friendly manner or by clearcutting or other devastating ways, there is no difference. Governments cannot discriminate between the two products under the FTAA.

Also, under the FTAA, other NTMs will be illegal. This could include eco-certification, or labeling a product to identify that it was produced in an environmentally friendly manner. It may be illegal to identify products that are more environmentally friendly (such as if something is recycled, if it is second growth, if it is not genetically engineered, etc.) under the FTAA.

National/Favorable Treatment:

The FTAA includes provisions for national treatment. Some governments favor companies which are ‘domestic’ with lower taxes, less rigorous contract selection, etc. This is also done for companies owned by marginalized groups. Favorable treatment will be made illegal under the FTAA unless it is applied to all of the signatory nations in the FTAA.

On the West Coast of kanada, there is a movement for First Nations to gain favorable treatment so they can manage their ancestral land. Many of the First Nations initiatives involve non-timber resource extraction and ecologically friendly logging practices. This is being done to both sustain the people in their communities and their ancestral land. Under the FTAA this would be illegal and any favorable treatment given to indigenous peoples to set up their own private enterprises in this way would be eliminated.

The OAS also works to destroy the environment in other ways. It fails to stop human rights abuses when those abuses are caused in protest to the treatment of the environment or to prevent its destruction (eg. the U’Wa case).

The IDB, Inter-American Development Bank, works to create environmentally destructive mega-projects, such as hydro developments which flood thousands of hectares of ancient forestland a year.