TRADE-AMERICAS: Civil Society Leery of FTAA’s New Path

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Rogelio Santo Domingo

MIAMI, Nov 21 2003 (IPS) - Ministers from 34 countries of the Americas have stated their support for a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement that allows each nation to make commitments “a la carte”, an approach that civil society groups say veils the deep differences that remain and sidesteps the urgency of fighting poverty in the region.

The conference of trade ministers from North and South America and the Caribbean -all countries except Cuba – unexpectedly ended a day early on Thursday, as consensus on the draft of the meeting’s final declaration made further deliberations unnecessary.

The United States and Brazil, co-chairs of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, won consensus for the watered-down document they proposed at the start of the week, allowing the two to move beyond their differences on farm subsidies, government procurement, investment and intellectual property rights.

These thorny issues are to remain confined to the sphere of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

But representatives of labour unions, non-governmental organisations, student groups and farmers – many of whom participated in a sustainable development forum in parallel to the official negotiations this week – said they are sceptical about the new direction the FTAA has taken.

“The FTAA might have a new vision, but it is blind to the needs of poor people,” said Phil Bloomer, director of trade issues for the Britain-based humanitarian organisation Oxfam International.

The final declaration of the trade ministers in Miami hides the irreconcilable differences between individual interests on the one hand, and the urgent need to reduce poverty on the other, added Bloomer.

“We are marching with the workers because we want to say ‘no’ to this FTAA in which the biggest impose their rules on the smallest,” Fernanda Castejón, also with Oxfam, told IPS. She took part in the protest march organised in downtown Miami by U.S. labour unions on Thursday.

She condemned the sporadic violence of a handful of radical activists during the protest, saying it detracted from the very serious issues at stake in the creation of the hemisphere-wide trade agreement.

“Free trade is useful for fighting poverty if it includes measures to compensate the weakest, those who are not considered competitive. Otherwise, they will simply end up like Mexico did in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),” said Castejón, in reference to the treaty that also involves Canada and the United States.

She referred to the report by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, which states that instead of enjoying the fruits of economic growth as a result of NAFTA, the Mexicans lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, while newly created jobs exposed workers to unacceptable conditions of exploitation.

The Health Gap Coalition (HGC), along with other organisations, called attention to the chapter on intellectual property rights that the United States proposed for the ministerial declaration.

The U.S. protections for its pharmaceutical industry prevent the neediest in Latin America from gaining access to essential medications, says Paul Davies, HGC spokesman.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières), the U.S. proposal contradicts the multilateral agreement reached in the World Trade Organisation, which recognises the right of poor countries to import or manufacture less costly generic drugs in cases of public health emergencies or epidemics.

Davies pointed out that nearly two million people in Latin America and the Caribbean live with HIV/AIDS. Generic drug production has reduced the prices of the much-needed antiretrovirals by almost 98 percent, from 20,000 to 140 dollars per person per year.

A treaty that does not take this fact into account is condemning people with HIV/AIDS to death, he added.

The FTAA would cover a potential market of 800 million people, with a gross domestic product of 11 trillion dollars, but in which more than a quarter of the population is not able to meet basic needs and great social disparities persist within and amongst countries.

The talks are to end in January 2005, when the final agreement will go to the national legislatures for ratification. The accord is to enter into effect by late 2005 or early 2006 at the latest.