Globalization vs. Nature

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been granted spectacular powers to

challenge every nation's environmental laws. So far, its victims include

dolphins, sea turtles, clean water, clean air, safe food, family farms and

democracy itself. But it's just getting started.

In a democratic society, we presume the right to make laws that reflect the

deepest values of citizens. But this is no longer the case. With the emergence

of the World Trade Organization (WTO), democracy has moved to the back burner.

It no longer matters what democratic societies want; what matters is what global

corporations want, as expressed and enforced by global trade bureaucracies in

Geneva.

Created in 1994, the WTO is already among the most powerful, secretive,

undemocratic and unelected bodies on Earth. It has been granted unprecedented

powers that include the right to rule on whether laws of nations - concerning

public health, food safety, small business, labor standards, culture, human

rights, or anything - are "barriers to trade" by WTO standards. If so, the WTO

can demand their abrogation, or enforce very harsh sanctions.

Here's the tradeoff: Nation-states and their citizens sacrifice their democratic

rights. Corporate interests gain them. Commercial values are the only ones that

count.

I. Against the environment

The very first ruling of the WTO held that regulations under the U.S. Clean Air

Act, which set high standards against polluting gasolines, was non-compliant

with WTO rules. It was ruled unfair to foreign oil companies that produce dirty

oil. As a result, the U.S. government rewrote our regulations so that autos can

emit dirtier exhaust. Because of this ruling thousands of people may become

sick; some may die.

The very popular Marine Mammal Protection Act - specifically the provision that

protects dolphins from being slaughtered by tuna fishermen - was found non-

compliant (under a GATT rule; now part of the WTO). And the sea turtle

protections under the Endangered Species Act were found "WTO illegal." The U.S.

may have to rewrite those protections too. Millions more animals may die.

Soon, we can expect challenges to American laws controlling pesticide use,

protecting community water rights, and banning raw log exports, by which both

forests and processing jobs are saved. (See photo caption.)

Is this a conspiracy against American laws? No. The WTO has made similar rulings

against Japan for refusing imports of fruit products that carry dangerous

invasive species. And the European Union (EU) was told it could not forbid

imports of beef from animals fed potentially carcinogenic hormones. (In its

entire history, no WTO ruling has ever favored the environment.)

Examples abound. Laws in all countries are being homogenized to the lowest

common denominator, penalizing countries with higher health and environmental

standards.

Such rulings also have secondary, "chilling" effects. Nation-states are

increasingly frightened to stand-up to corporations. Guatemala recently

cancelled a health law that forbade baby food/infant formula companies from

advertising their products as healthier than breast milk. And Canada cancelled

its ban on the gasoline additive MMT, a well-known potential neurotoxin. (This

was under a NAFTA rule now proposed for the WTO.) Canada and Guatemala hoped

that by canceling their public health laws, they would save their taxpayers the

costs of a legal battle. But whatever is saved may later be spent on medical

treatments.

It's no conspiracy against the U.S.; it's a conspiracy against the environment.

And it's a conspiracy in favor of freeing corporations from democratic laws that

regulate their excesses.

II. The deeper problem

These attacks on environmental laws are symptoms of a larger environmental

problem: globalization itself. Under globalized free trade, countries as diverse

as Sweden and India, Canada and Thailand, Bolivia and Russia are meant to merge

their economies, and homogenize their values toward maximum commodity

accumulation. This puts the whole planet in a single giant economic (and

political) structure, with global corporations in charge.

Such corporations depend on never-ending resource supplies, never-ending growth,

ever-expanding markets, and constant supplies of cheap labor. So, WTO rules give

top priority to such goals. Older values like preserving nature, or protecting

workers, or public health, or communities, or democracy are viewed as

impediments to global corporate growth.

But how long can this go on? Already we see serious ozone depletion, global

warming, habitat and species destruction, epidemic pollution; we are on the

brink of a global environmental collapse. How long can we keep growing on a

finite earth? This system is unsustainable. And one of its most unsustainable

aspects is the emphasis on export production, as the following case shows.

III. The case of globalized food

Any nation's people are most secure when they can produce their own food, using

local resources and local labor. This creates livelihoods, minimizes costly

transport and waste, and solidifies communities. It also helps make countries

more self-reliant.

Until recently, most people in the world were fed by small farmers, producing

diverse staple food crops to serve local communities and local markets. But

under WTO rules small farmers are disappearing. In much of the world (including

the U.S.) global corporations have taken over most aspects of farming, using

chemical-intensive methods, and now biotechnology. Small farmers have given way

to miles of single crop luxury monocultures, for export to foreign markets.

Today the average meal Europeans and Americans eat travels about 1,500 miles

from source to plate. Instead of eating food grown ten miles away, we eat food

from overseas. And every mile the food travels causes environmental havoc. The

increase in ocean, road, and air transport to ship food back and forth across

the planet massively increases energy use, ocean and air pollution, and climate

change. It also increases refrigeration, with negative effects on the ozone

layer. And it requires far more packaging, putting added pressure on forests. It

also requires new infrastructures: roads, ports, airports, and canals, often

built in pristine places. Anyway, industrial food is less healthy; heavy with

chemicals that pollute soil and water and cause public health problems.

Self-sufficiency is giving way to dependency. The situation is already bad, but

the proposed new expanded agriculture rules of the WTO will make it far worse,

codifying globally the export-oriented agriculture model.

SEE YOU IN SEATTLE?

So much for the bad news. The good news is that hundreds of groups are now

protesting what's going on. This year, many will be focused on the World Trade

Organization's Ministerial meeting in Seattle, November 30-December 3. They are

demanding an immediate halt to WTO expansion and a total reassessment of its

performance. For information about public events these groups are sponsoring

(from Friday Nov. 26th to Dec. 3rd), and new publications, please contact us.

Sierra Club

Greenpeace U.S.

Friends of the Earth

Food First / Institute for Food & Development Policy

Defenders of Wildlife

David Suzuki Foundation

International Forum on Globalization

Rainforest Action Network

The Humane Society of the United States

Institute for Policy Studies-Global Economy Project

50 Years Is Enough: US Network for Global Economic Justice

Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund

Native Forest Council

People Centered Development Forum

YES! A Journal of Positive Futures

Pacific Environment & Resource Council

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Global Exchange

Heartwood

Sea Turtle Restoration Project

Signers are all part of a coalition of more than 60 non-profit organizations

that favor democratic, localized, ecologically sound alternatives to current

practices and policies. This advertisement is #2 in the Economic Globalization

series. Other ad series discuss the extinction crisis, genetic engineering,

industrial agriculture and megatechnology. For more information, please contact:

Turning Point Project, 310 D St. NE, Washington, DC 20002

1-800-249-8712 ̣ www.turnpoint.org ̣ email: info@turnpoint.org