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NAFTA
MUST BE RENEGOTIATED
A proposal from North American civil society networks
Politicians
throughout North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States)
are beginning to recognize what the majority of citizens already
know - the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) promises
have not been fulfilled and new policies are urgently needed.
As a result
of widespread public concern, various candidates for the Presidency
of the United States recognize the necessity for major changes to
NAFTA. Recently, several members of the House of Representatives
have introduced a bill requiring an assessment of NAFTA, renegotiation
of some provisions and providing for US withdrawal unless certain
conditions are met.
The Permanent
Commission of the Mexican Congress, as well as several State Governors,
echoing the wide-spread demand of well-organized campesino organizations,
is demanding a revision of NAFTA given the devastation it has caused
for agriculture and its harmful effects on the rural population.
Similarly, a
Canadian Parliamentary Sub-Committee on International Trade recommended
that the Permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Trade undertake a comprehensive review of NAFTA Chapter 11 on Investment
and Chapter 19 on trade disputes.
We four civil
society networks from Canada, Mexico, Quebec and the United States
believe that it is absolutely necessary to profoundly revise NAFTA
beginning with those aspects that have proven most damaging for
the human rights of our peoples and for the environment.
At the same
time we reject the deepening of neoliberal continental integration
as promoted by the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
Any just trade
agreement among our countries must consider the enormous economic
inequalities that exist between Mexico, the United States and Canada.
This is not the case with NAFTA.
The revision
of the terms of this treaty must have as its objective the establishment
of economic relations based on social justice and sovereignty within
a paradigm of sustainable development. In this brief declaration
we cannot mention all the necessary revisions. Here we only point
to ten priorities for the required renegotiation of NAFTA.
1. Agriculture
- Exclude
basic foods from the agreement.
- Recognize
and guarantee the right to maintain food security and food sovereignty.
- Promote
environmentally sustainable production and rural development,
eliminating dumping, one of the principal causes of massive migration.
2. Energy
- Safeguard
sovereignty over natural resources, especially energy and its
use for just and sustainable national development.
Respect the Mexican Constitution which establishes that energy
resources are the social property of all Mexicans.
- Eliminate
Article 605 that obligates Canada to continue exporting non-renewable
resources, such as petroleum and natural gas, to the United States
even if these exports cause a domestic shortage.
- 3. Foreign
Investment
Regulation of foreign investment is indispensable so that it may
play a role in sustainable national development and so that each
country achieves its own kind of development.
- Establish,
among others the following minimum performance requirements: transfer
of technology; give preference to national inputs, employment
generation and environmental protection.
- Eliminate
the “investor-state” clauses that give investors the
right to sue governments to obtain compensation for measures taken
in the public interest that might impair their profits.
4. Role of the
State
- Renegotiate
Chapters 10 and 15 to lift restrictions now imposed on national
states that prevent them from fulfilling their responsibilities
to guarantee the full economic, social and political rights of
their peoples.
5. Employment
- Demand that
the rules of origin include a percentage of national content within
the regional content rules to achieve higher growth and more jobs.
- Technology
transfers, use of national inputs and employment generation must
be the criteria for choosing suppliers for government procurement
contracts.
Recourse to emergency measures and safeguards are important for
maintaining national control over economic development.
- Guarantee
the fundamental rights of workers, which calls for the inclusion
of concrete labour rights measures in all chapters of the accord.
NAFTA´s labor side agreement has failed to resolve the violations
of workers rights.
6. Migration
- National
development plans must provide well paying jobs so that no one
is obliged to migrate in order to find work. International treaties
should protect this right, unlike NAFTA which has not been able
to generate more and better jobs as were promised.
- Achieve
a global agreement on migration that doesn’t focus solely
on business people or certain professions. The focus should be
on holistic accords regarding a migratory workers and the full
satisfaction of their rights.
7. Environment
- Explicitly
recognize the priority of Multilateral Environmental Agreements
signed by each country and guarantee their fulfillment.
- Include
measures to “internalize” environmental costs in order
to stop the irrational overuse of resources and pollution from
economic activities. Trade incentives must be changed in order
to make sustainable development viable.
- Explicitly
prohibit the production and import of insecticides, fungicides
and toxic substances that are prohibited in their country of origin.
- Explicitly
prohibits the exports of fresh water by whatever means and the
privatization of water as a public service.
8. Financial
Services
- Restore
the ability of nation states to direct financial resources to
national priorities.
- Regulate
and introduce disincentives for speculative investments.
- 9. Intellectual
Property Rights
Negotiate genuine agreements for the transfer of technology and
knowledge.
- Allow the
production of generic medicines in each country in order to guarantee
the right to health care.
- Introduce
specific measures for alternative medicines and traditional knowledge,
in particular on the part of indigenous communities, in order
to limit their exploitation and their appropriation by large transnational
corporations.
10. Dispute
Settlement Provisions
- A new impartial,
just and compulsory mechanism for dispute settlement is needed
that is available to all the member countries.
NAFTA was imposed
undemocratically on our peoples. Civil society in all three countries
demands its renegotiation as reflected in the US election campaign,
in strong mobilizations within Mexico and in protests at the most
recent Security and Prosperity Partnership summit at Montebello,
Quebec. It will be one of the focal points for the Global Week of
Action throughout the region, as called by the World Social Forum
(WSF). We four networks from North America renew our commitment
to a struggle that began with the negotiation of the Canada-US Free
Trade Agreement twenty years ago. We demand that the executive branches
of our governments listen to their peoples and their Parliamentarians.
We shall watch vigilantly how US Presidential candidates fulfill
their campaign promises.
Another world
is possible and necessary: a world in which peoples’ rights
prevail over corporate profits.
Quixote Center
(USA)
Common Frontiers-Canada
Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC)
Réseau québécois sur l’Intégration
continentale (RQIC)
January 2008
Common Frontiers,
le Réseau québécois sur l’Intégration
continentale (RQIC), the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC),
and the Quixote Center (USA) are all members of the Hemispheric
Social Alliance, a network that has played a central role in opposing
‘free trade’ negotiations throughout the Americas. The
four North American coalitions are representative of a range of
organizations including church groups, labour, student unions, women’s
groups, environmental organizations, international development agencies,
human rights and other social justice advocates.
For more information:
In Quebec and Canada:
Normand Pépin
Réseau québécois sur l’Intégration
continentale (RQIC)
Tél. (514) 899-1070 poste 228 / (514) 217-6529; pepinn@csd.qc.ca
/ rqic@ciso.qc.ca
John Dillon
Common Frontiers-Canada
Tel. (416) 463-5312 ext. 231; jdillon@kairoscanada.org
In Mexico:
Alberto Arroyo Picard (Spanish) / Alejandro Villamar (English)
Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC)
Tel. (52) (55) 5356-0599; rmalc@prodigy.net.mx
Alberto Arroyo
Picard
Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC)
Tel. (52) (55) 5356-0599; <alberto.arroyo@prodigy.net.mx>
In the United
States:
Tom Loudon
Quixote Center
Tel. (301) 699-0024 toml@quixote.org
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