http://www.focusweb.org/content/view/890/36/
STOP CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!
Monday, 15 May 2006
[Espanõl ]
A Statement of Unity from the OUR WORLD IS NOT FOR SALE
Network:(www.ourworldisnotforsale.org)
INTRODUCTION: OUR CHALLENGE
Our World Is Not for Sale is a worldwide network of organizations;
activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment
agreements that advance the interests of the worlds most powerful corporations
at the expense of people and the environment.
Against this process of corporate-led globalization, we pose the vision of a
global economy that is built on principles of economic justice, ecological
sustainability, and democratic accountability, one that asserts the interests
of people over corporations. This is an economy built around the interests of
the real producers and consumers, such as workers, peasants, family farmers,
fishers, small and medium sized producers, and around the needs of those
marginalized by the current system, such as women and indigenous people.
We believe that a just system must protect, not undermine, cultural,
biological, economic and social diversity; put the emphasis on the development
of healthy local economies and trade; secure internationally recognized
environmental, cultural, social and labour rights; support the sovereignty and
self-determination of peoples; and protect national and sub-national democratic
decision-making processes.
Democracy is not simply a matter of holding elections. Democracy means not
being on the receiving end of a top-down, one-size-fits-all set of values,
priorities, and policies that are imposed through multilateral bodies, such as
the World Trade Organization (WTO). Democracy means not being subjected to
non-transparent and non-accountable decision-making, such as the WTOs dispute
settlement processes. Democracy means people taking control over forces
directly impacting their lives.
When the WTO was established in 1995, its preamble stated that its purpose was
to bring about greater prosperity, increase employment, reduce poverty,
diminish inequality, and promote sustainable development around the world
through greater free trade. Ten years later it is clear that the WTO has not
delivered on these goals and has had exactly the opposite results.
The WTO trade regime has counteracted measures that would promote development,
alleviate poverty, and help ensure human and ecological survival, both locally
and globally. Under the guise of free trade, WTO rules are used to force open
new markets and bring them under the control of transnational corporations.
Furthermore, the big trading powers have used the WTO to advance and
consolidate transnational corporate control of economic and social activities
in areas beyond trade, including development, investment, competition,
intellectual property rights, the provision of social services, environmental
protection and government procurement.
Large-scale liberalization in these areas will force developing countries to
relinquish many of the economic development tools that industrialized countries
used to build their economies and create jobs. Furthermore, existing provisions
of the WTO, as well as ones currently being negotiated, would effectively lock
in the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund.
Moreover, in advancing the interests of the big trading powers, the methods of
governance and decision-making that are used in the WTO are notorious for their
reliance on threat, deception, manipulation and lack of transparency in an
undemocratic and non-inclusive process.
It is the destructive social, political, and environmental consequences of the
pro-corporate, neo-liberal model of globalization that has elicited rising
resistance from a broad range of civil society organizations and social
movements around the world, including at WTO summits in Seattle, Doha, Cancun
and Hong Kong.
Our World is not for Sale is part of this global resistance.
Ten years after the founding of the WTO, it has become clear to us that the
possibilities of the WTO moving in the direction of positive reforms are
minimal, if not absent. Change is absolutely necessary. At the moment we have
a system where:
livelihoods are being destroyed, human rights ignored, public health
endangered, the environment plundered and democratic systems eroded;
local economies are being undermined, with workers, peasants, family farmers,
fishers, consumers, women and indigenous peoples being especially disadvantaged
and exploited;
governments ability to guarantee access to the essentials of life, promote
health, safety and food sovereignty, and protect cultural and biological
diversity is being undermined and sometimes eliminated.
Around the world, the negative results of the current global economic system
are propelling democratic movements - acting via the ballot box and in the
streets - to demand change. Elected officials in many countries have lost faith
in the current system of global economic governance. Increasingly, a number of
economists and technocrats who created and espoused this system are beginning
to question it, as its results prove quite the opposite of those promised. All
this is taking place in the context of growing inequality both between and
within nations and a resurgence of militarism.
The efforts of the WTO to forcibly liberalize global trade in a manner that
harms economic justice, social well-being, gender equity and ecological
sustainability, must be resisted. Its power and authority must be rolled back
from many areas where it has been imposed, including agriculture, services, and
intellectual property rights.
At the same time, we must devise new institutions to facilitate trade,
production and distribution for the common good if we are to avoid the growing
prospect of social and ecological catastrophe.
The current trade regime, which includes the WTO, as well as regional and
bilateral trade and investment agreements, must give way to a new, socially
just and ecologically sustainable trading framework for the 21st Century.
OUR GOALS
Since 1998, members of the OWINFS network have combined to share analysis,
develop strategies and coordinate actions internationally in order to promote
the development of alternative, just and sustainable economies.
We are committed to developing a new, democratically accountable trading system
that advances economic justice, social well-being, gender equity and ecological
sustainability, and that provides decent jobs and necessary goods and services
for all people.
We support the development of vibrant local economies and the rights of
workers, peasants, migrants, family farmers, consumers, women, and indigenous
people. We believe that the self-determination of people must not be
subordinated to international commercial commitments. Among other things, this
requires that decision-making processes and enforcement at all levels of
governance are democratic, transparent and inclusive.
We recognize that a socially just international trading system must give
priority to the rights and welfare of the workers, peasants, migrants, fishers,
and family farmers who produce our goods, services, and food.
We call on governments and multilateral agencies to halt their attacks on basic
workers rights, the reversal of the gains of workers struggles, the
undermining of job security and the race-to-the-bottom in wages and to
strengthen workers rights worldwide.
We oppose trade liberalisation agreements and negotiations that encourage
taking away access to natural resources from those indigenous and local
communities that depend on them for their livelihoods and giving such access
instead to corporations.
Other fundamental human rights must also be respected, promoted and realized,
starting with the self-determination of indigenous peoples and the provision of
basic social needs and services, including education, food security and
sovereignty, universal access to clean water for human use and public health.
Likewise, ecological integrity must be a goal of a transformed global trading
system. This means, among other things, that corporate trade and investment
must be regulated to reverse global warming; multilateral environmental accords
must have precedence over trade agreements; environmental standards must not be
pulled downward by trade accords; and the right of people to reject genetically
modified organisms, to preserve old growth forests and farmers diverse seed
stocks, and promote animal welfare, must be respected.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Asserting Peoples Right to Choose: Self-determination, Democracy and
Development
We reassert the fundamental right of countries to develop economic and
industrial policies that foster genuine economic development, create decent
jobs and protect livelihoods, and enhance the environment. All countries, and
especially poorer countries, must have the right to use policy options (such as
local content policies) to increase the capacity of their own productive
sectors, particularly small and medium enterprises. Countries must also
preserve their ability (policy space) to shape economic social and
environmental development strategies that serve the most vulnerable of their
people. The drive for coherence among the international institutions has
become a means to deny that policy space: the International Monetary Fund,
World Bank and some individual donor countries force governments to implement
neo-liberal policies and the WTO and other trade and investment agreements lock
these policies in. Therefore:
Our World Is Not For Sale demands an end to the secretive and coercive
practices that have become the hallmark of trade negotiations, especially at
the WTO, where a few powerful governments, often acting on behalf of their
corporate elites, are able to coerce weaker governments to achieve their goals.
The dismantling of tariffs and other trade measures must not be allowed to
put local economies, especially those of poorer countries and/or poor economic
sectors, at the mercy of transnational corporations, and threaten local
economic development, labour laws and standards, public and consumer health and
safety, and the environment.
Free trade negotiations in the WTO and elsewhere cannot be allowed to
continue operating as a Trojan Horse to secure pro-corporate rules on
investment, competition, government procurement, market access, agricultural
production, domestic regulation of services and intellectual property rights.
Neither can the current power dynamics, in which the rich industrialised
countries force their economic agenda on poorer countries, be allowed to
continue.
The use of structural adjustment and debt conditionality to force trade
liberalization in third world countries and elsewhere must end. The
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the regional development banks
need to write off all the debts owed to them by developing/transition countries
so those countries can reallocate these funds to meet the urgent needs of
their people.
Advancing the Primacy of Social Rights and the Environment
We believe that protecting and advancing social rights, meeting basic
needs, and protecting our environment are essential to life. It is unacceptable
that these can be undermined by WTO and other trade agreement rules.
Therefore:
Any trade and investment agreements must not have primacy over, or undermine,
international agreements which promote social, economic and environmental
justice, including but not limited to:
o the International Labor Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work (covering the four core labour standards);
o the Convention on Biodiversity and its Biosafety Protocol, and other
multilateral environmental agreements;
o the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and its associated
conventions: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
o the anticipated United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples;
o the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW); and
o the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families
Governments must retain the sovereign right to determine how to regulate
services in ways that meet the needs of their people, economy and society, and
that honour their other international and constitutional obligations, including
to women, indigenous peoples, the young, the elderly and the poor.
The right of governments to adopt the precautionary principle to protect
public health, the environment, and agriculture from unknown risks must take
precedence over any trade agreements and provisions.
Tariff reductions that harm the environment or sustainable development by
increasing inappropriate trade in natural resources and other environmentally
sensitive goods should not be undertaken.
The undermining of the United Nations by the pro-corporate Bretton Woods
institutions, the WTO, and the big powers must be stopped, and the UN system of
agreements and agencies must be strengthened
Protecting Essential Services
We endorse the fundamental principle that no trade or investment agreement
should infringe on the sovereignty of governments to guarantee access to the
essentials of life, to promote the health and well being of their people, and
to protect the environment. Therefore:
Countries should not be pressured to accede to trade rules that diminish this
ability, whether through the WTOs General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) or through regional or bilateral agreements.
Sectors directly relating to such essentials, including health, education,
cultural/audio-visual, social assistance, water and energy services, must be
explicitly excluded from all trade and investment agreements.
Rules concerning Domestic Regulation, Subsidies and Government Procurement of
services by their very nature impinge on this ability and should not be
included in trade and investment agreements.
Countries are facing enormous pressure to subject their essential services to
GATS rules which have the effect of promoting privatization. Further, when
commitments made under these rules are adopted by countries that have been or
are being subjected to deregulation and privatization of their essential
services through "structural adjustment" requirements, the GATS rules serve to
lock in privatization. In this way GATS promotes the opening up of local
markets to transnational corporations and the advancement of the neo-liberal
economic model. Therefore:
These structural adjustment requirements must be rolled back, not locked
in, and must not be a condition for countries receiving new loans or grants,
nor should countries be pressured to subject their essential services to GATS
rules.
Defending Knowledge, Culture and Life Forms as the Essence of Civilization
We see knowledge, culture and education as the driving forces of civilization.
These forces cannot be reduced to tradeable commodities or private property.
There is no basis for inclusion of such intellectual property claims in a trade
agreement. Moreover, all nations have the responsibility and obligation to
protect the public health and wellbeing of their people. Current intellectual
property rules in trade pacts, such as the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), obstruct peoples access to
essential medicines, seeds and vital necessities, while leading to private
appropriation of life forms and traditional knowledge and the destruction of
biodiversity. Furthermore, they keep poorer countries from increasing their
levels of social and economic welfare and defending their unique identity and
heritage. Therefore,
Governments must retain their unfettered right to limit patent protection in
order to protect the public interest in these areas, especially in relation to
medicines, seeds and life forms.
The patenting of life forms, including microorganisms, must be prohibited in
all national and international regimes.
Genuine cultural diversity must be defended against the homogenizing impact
of global markets and monopolies over knowledge, technology and
telecommunications.
Preserving and Advancing Food Sovereignty and Food Security
We affirm that the right to food is a basic human right. The WTO Agreement
on Agriculture (AOA) subordinates this right to corporate profitability. The
food system promoted by the WTO is built on industrialized and
capital-intensive, export-driven agriculture that is furthering corporate
concentration along the food chain and undermining the livelihoods, rights,
health and living and working conditions of agricultural and food workers and
thus further undermining food security.
Moreover, it fails to recognize that farming is a way of life and an important
basis of community and culture. Thus, its policies and those of other trade
agreements foster further concentration and increase of power of transnational
corporations and cause the expulsion of millions of peasants and family farmers
from the land and production, in Northern and Southern countries. Since the
introduction of structural adjustment programs and the establishment of the
WTO, many peasants, family farmers, and agricultural workers have been
displaced from the land and experienced hunger, with many driven into suicide,
owing to import liberalization via tariff reductions, the abolition of
quantitative restrictions and inequitable national agricultural policies .At
the same time many subsidies going to agribusiness, including export-oriented
industrial farming, have been increased rather than reduced.
While these rules allow increasingly powerful agribusiness trading companies to
push down the commodity prices paid to farmers worldwide, the concentration of
food distribution and processing under the WTOs agriculture and service sector
rules has led to increased food prices for consumers. Therefore:
To avoid further escalation in hunger, displacement and death, action must be
taken immediately to curtail agricultural, trade and investment policies that
encourage chronic overproduction and to ban the dumping of agricultural
commodities onto world markets below the cost of production by global food
corporations and others involved in global agricultural trade. Direct and
indirect export subsidies that lead to dumping must be banned. Countries
should retain and reassert their sovereign rights to protect their agricultural
markets and sectors from dumping in order to implement measures that can
effectively and actively support peasant- and family farmer-based sustainable
production.
Measures must be taken to promote and protect peoples´ food sovereignty (the
right of peoples and communities to define their own food and agricultural
policies, as well as the right to produce their basic foods in a manner that
respects cultural and productive diversity and supports peasant- and family
farmer-based sustainable production) and food safety and security (both for
consumers and producers).
Measures that only concern production for domestic consumption and do not
contribute to increased exports to international markets should be exempted
from any international trade agreement. The trading system must not undermine
the livelihood of peasants, family farmers, agricultural workers, artisan
fishers, and indigenous peoples.
We believe that the development of food sovereignty, food security and
peasant- and family farmer-based sustainable agriculture requires governments
to acknowledge the flaws in the free market principles that underpin
perceived comparative advantage, export-led agricultural development and
structural adjustment policies; and replace those policies with ones that
prioritize and protect local, subsistence and sustainable production, including
use of import controls and regulation that ensure more equitable sustainable
production methods.
Various agreements will be required to ensure these objectives. These could
include a convention on food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture, and a
declaration on the rights of peasants and family farmers. Ultimately, the WTO
and other "free trade agreements, with their current focus on trade
liberalization at all costs, are not appropriate places for such rules;
therefore, alternative spaces to discuss these rules have to be strengthened.
Stopping Corporate Globalization and Promoting Trade Justice
The WTOs trade rules, and those of many other regional trade agreements
now in existence and being negotiated, promote the power of corporations in the
global economy by providing new investor, intellectual property and other
rights. At the same time, they lock in neo-liberal policies of privatization
and deregulation. All this is done under the guise of free trade. This
imbalance in power promotes the economic self-interest of a few global economic
giants, often with devastating effects on local economies, particularly in
developing countries.
Such corporate power is being ratcheted up through regional and bilateral trade
and investment agreements. Their powerful rules promote corporate rights and
pose a serious threat to local democratic authority. Under some accords, in
fact, foreign corporations can now sue national governments for "lost profits"
if any law or regulation in the country reduces their present or future
profitability. Environmental, labour, and social rights all become secondary to
the right to corporate profits. This trend must be reversed.
Having successfully thwarted the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which
would have enshrined such corporate rights, we call for an end to the corporate
strategy of promoting the rapid and reckless expansion of regional and
bilateral trade and investment agreements that attempt to reinforce the
faltering WTO. We also call for an end to trade rules that guarantee a foreign
investor's right to profit by exposing domestic regulatory policies to investor
challenges and demands for compensation from public funds.
To begin moving toward a just trading system, we call on governments to
negotiate a legally binding agreement to ensure that corporations are held
democratically accountable for their conduct with regard to their social,
economic and environmental impacts, including the role that some play in
supporting repressive political regimes and marketing of weapons. This should
be done through the UN and other appropriate bodies, with full participation of
civil society.
Further we call on civil society organizations and movements to initiate a
global civil society dialogue on developing an alternative, just and
sustainable trading framework to replace the neo-liberal model, one that
genuinely promotes pro-people and rights-based sustainable development and that
puts communities first.
We are committed to an ecologically sustainable, socially just and
democratically accountable trade system. Thus, as a first step, we demand that
our governments implement the changes listed in this document in order to
constrain and roll back the power and authority of the WTO, and to turn trade
around and create a just system. We commit ourselves to mobilize people within
our home countries, regionally, and globally to fight for these demands and to
defy the unjust policies of the WTO and the broader multilateral trading system.
The choice before us is stark: either we accept the current corporate-centered
global order and forfeit the welfare of succeeding generations and the future
of the planet itself, or we take up the difficult challenge of moving toward a
new system that puts at its heart the interests of people, communities, and the
environment.
To view the organsiations who have signed on to the statements click here
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