Fwd: Why Does the WTO Want My Water?

[Guest guest]

<misty3 wrote:Mon, 10 Mar 2003 23:51:56 +1300 (NZDT)

Why Does the WTO Want My Water?

 

 

 

> Why Does the WTO Want My Water?

>

>

> Published on Wednesday, March 5, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

> Why Does the WTO Want My Water?

> by Lori Wallach

>

> When most people think about trade, they conjure up images of ships

> laden with sacks of coffee and steel beams ferrying between nations, and

> trade agreements focusing on cutting tariffs and quotas on trade in

> goods. In reality however, today's " trade agreements, " such as the 1994

> North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 1995 World Trade

> Organization (WTO), have little to do with trade. Instead they focus on

> granting foreign companies new rights and privileges within the

> boundaries of other countries, on constraining federal, state and local

> regulatory policies and on commodifying public services and common

> resources, such as water, into new tradable units for profit.

>

> A leak this week of European negotiating demands in WTO service sector

> negotiations that have been quietly underway since 2000 in Geneva

> provided a harsh wake-up call to the world about what is really at stake

> in these global " commercial " negotiations.

>

> Up for grabs at the negotiating table is worldwide privatization and

> deregulation of public energy and water utilities, postal services,

> higher education and state alcohol distribution controls; a new right

> for foreign firms to obtain U.S. Small Business Administration loans;

> elimination of a list of specific U.S. state laws about land use,

> professional licensing and consumer protections, and extreme

> deregulation of private-sector service industries such as insurance,

> banking, mutual funds and securities.

>

> The national consumer group Public Citizen joined the Polaris Institute

> of Canada and civil society groups around the globe in a coordinated

> release of the secret documents. Europe's demands of the United States

> and 108 other WTO signatories provide the " smoking gun " evidence, after

> months of speculation and concern, about how these secretive WTO

> negotiations threaten essential public services upon which people

> worldwide rely daily.

>

> The negotiations are to expand the scope of General Agreement on Trade

> in Services (GATS,) one of the 21 pacts enforced by the WTO. The

> " GATS-2000 " talks are promoted by the United States and European nations

> on behalf of multinational service sector conglomerates.

>

> Think of GATS as a Trojan Horse - appealingly dubbed a " trade

> agreement " - which in reality contains a massive attack on the most

> basic functions of local and state government. You might ask what the

> GATS provision creating a new right for corporations to establish a

> " commercial presence " within another country has to do with cross-border

> trade. The answer: nothing. Actually, the terms create a right for a

> foreign firm to set up subsidiaries in other countries or acquire local

> companies under terms more favorable than provided domestic competitors.

> For instance, once a service sector is covered under GATS, governments

> may not limit the number or size of service providers, meaning that

> applying zoning rules on beach front development or limits on

> concessions in national parks to foreign firms would be forbidden. This

> is why many people consider GATS to be a backdoor attempt to revive the

> Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), a radical investment pact

> that was killed by public opposition in 1998.

>

> The GATS not only promotes privatization of public services, but it

> makes it extremely difficult for countries, states and local governments

> to reverse privatization experiments that fail. Under GATS, if cities

> seek to bring a privately operated utility back into the public realm,

> they only can do so if the U.S. government agrees to compensate all WTO

> countries for lost business opportunities of their companies. Thus, if

> the United States agrees to Europe's GATS-2000 demands to subject water

> to GATS disciplines, then Atlanta, for instance, which just reversed a

> disastrous water privatization involving a French company, could do so

> only if compensation was offered not just to that company but to all WTO

> signatory countries. Another GATS threat revealed in the secret European

> document is a demand to include retail electricity services under GATS,

> which would mean that privatization nightmares like California's energy

> deregulation would be nearly impossible to fix.

>

> GATS also sets strict constraints on government regulation in the

> services sector - even when those policies treat domestic and foreign

> services the same. GATS allows federal, state and local regulations to

> be challenged as barriers to trade if they are not designed in the least

> trade restrictive manner. For instance, Europe has charged that the

> rather modest Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability legislation

> inspired by the recent corporate crime wave violates these GATS limits

> on domestic service sector regulations. Also, because GATS is geared

> toward market access for foreign competitors, the agreement is hostile

> to regulation in general and in particular to the diversity of domestic

> regulations in the U.S. that vary from state to state, yet state and

> municipal officials are excluded from these closed-door negotiations.

>

> The leaked EU documents have prompted civil society groups worldwide to

> call for a moratorium on the " GATS-2000 " talks and for a public process

> involving state and local officials. The clock is ticking as all WTO

> member nations, including the United States, are expected to respond to

> the European demands within weeks, starting March 31, 2003. At a

> congressional hearing this week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert

> Zoellick dodged congressional inquiries about when or if the public and

> Congress would have an opportunity to vet the U.S. " GATS-2000 "

> commitments. Zoellick recently submitted similar service sector

> commitments without public consultation in the regional NAFTA-expansion

> talks known as the Free Trade Area of the America (FTAA). Only growing

> public and congressional pressure is likely to stop the Bush

> administration from trading away our basic public services and

> governments' basic public interest regulatory powers.

>

> Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

>

> ###

>

> Wall Street Journal - Feb. 25, 2003

>

> Leading the News: EU Asks U.S. to Revise Rules for Service Sector

> Host of Regulations at Issue As Bush Seeks Freer Trade; Alarm Likely at

> Local Level

> By Neil King Jr.

>

> WASHINGTON -- As the Bush administration seeks freer global trade in

> services, the European Union is taking aim at the sector and requesting

> changes in how U.S. state and federal authorities regulate everything

> from liquor sales to accounting.

>

> The EU requests, included in a confidential document put forward as

> part of continuing global trade talks, are likely to raise alarm among

> state and local authorities, who would be required to alter rules

> governing businesses ranging from land ownership to insurance. The

> 34-page paper was leaked to Ralph Nader's group Public Citizen.

>

> The Bush administration is set to respond by the end of March with a

> list of changes it is willing to make to service-sector regulations.

>

> Some of the EU positions have been known for months, but the final list

> includes new language regarding accounting standards, cross-border

> insurance and the retail sale of electricity, all highly controversial

> topics. Consumer groups, as well as a growing number of state officials,

> contend that the secretive talks within the World Trade Organization

> could undermine the ability of local authorities to oversee vital

> economic services.

>

> " What we hear is going on in these WTO talks will run smack up against

> laws in states like mine, but for now it's behind closed doors, " said

> Mark Pocan, a Democrat in the Wisconsin State Assembly. The big issues

> in his state, he said, are privatization of public water supplies and

> rules governing electricity distribution.

>

> The EU push coincides with new scrutiny in Washington of the role that

> government, and particularly state and local governments, play in

> limiting competition. The Federal Trade Commission, under Bush appointee

> Timothy Muris, is seeking to open regulated markets across the economy,

> from prescription drugs to caskets makers, and has created a task force

> to examine anticompetitive restrictions on Internet commerce, such as

> state rules limiting auto sales or interstate shipment of wine. The

> agency also is preparing to charge that Unocal Corp. used state

> regulation and its patents on a clean-fuel formula to lock up a monopoly

> in the West Coast gasoline market.

>

> And the wisdom of state regulation in telecommunications was a major

> issue last week at the Federal Communications Commission, where Chairman

> Michael Powell was outvoted in his effort to largely eliminate the role

> states play in overseeing wholesale rates that the four big regional

> Bell telephone companies charge competitors for using their lines.

>

> U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has made opening up global

> trade in services a central plank of his strategy in the Doha round of

> WTO trade talks, which are meant to wrap up at the end of next year.

> Persuading the rest of the world to accept U.S. banks, insurers and

> overnight-delivery companies would be a boon to U.S. business, but

> promises to reciprocate in the U.S. are already raising the ire of

> environmental and labor groups.

>

> The EU demands mirror those that the U.S. regularly makes on its

> trading partners to lift government rules that tend to favor domestic

> companies over U.S. competitors.

>

> An area of chief concern to labor is the push by the EU and other

> countries to open the U.S. market to contract workers offering services

> ranging from computer software to equipment maintenance and landscape

> architecture. Environmental groups, meanwhile, oppose efforts to open

> all water and sewage services to foreign competition. Such a move, they

> contend, would allow other countries to overturn local water regulations

> and break up public utilities if they posed a " barrier to trade " within

> the world trade system.

>

> " What is startling is how much of the U.S. economy is up for grabs here

> and how broad the impact might be, " said Lori Wallach, head of Public

> Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Ms. Wallach obtained the EU document last

> week. It wasn't clear when it was submitted to U.S. trade negotiators.

>

> The EU document also indicates that European officials may be ready to

> further challenge the requirement that businesses operating in the U.S.

> abide by U.S. accounting standards, as opposed to international

> standards used in Europe. The Securities and Exchange Commission has

> rebuffed several recent requests to allow the domestic use of

> international accounting standards, which critics say are overly

> subjective and lack clear rules. The EU, in its request to the U.S.,

> calls this practice " a regulatory trade barrier " that must be resolved.

>

>

> The EU also is requesting that the U.S. expand the cross-border sale of

> " large-risk " insurance services, a proposal that some experts say could

> weaken controls over insurers offering services to businesses or even

> individuals. The EU's earlier requests sought to open the U.S. market to

> foreign sales of mutual funds; the new document seeks to expand that to

> the sale of financial derivatives, especially futures.

>

> Some of the previously known EU objectives could have a bigger effect

> on individual states. For instance, the EU wants to eliminate rules in

> 16 states that give state authorities the sole right to sell packaged

> liquor. The document also seeks to lift restrictions in nine states on

> foreign ownership of land and to remove certain residency and

> citizenship requirements for practicing law.

>

> Some of the requests aren't likely to go far. For instance, the EU

> wants the U.S. drop its centuries-old prohibition on foreign ships

> moving cargo between U.S. ports, an unlikely move in these times of

> heightened security. The document also includes a request that the U.S.

> allow foreign companies and governments to acquire 100% ownership of

> U.S. radio stations. The EU also wants the U.S. Postal Service to cede

> its monopoly over bulk, first-class letter delivery.

>

> Both U.S. and EU trade officials declined to comment on the EU

> requests.

>

> The service negotiations are part of a long effort to deepen provisions

> within the General Agreement of Trade in Services, which was part of the

> sweeping 1994 Uruguay Round of global trade talks. The U.S. made its

> formal request of the EU and other countries last summer in documents

> that remain undisclosed.

>

> Copyright 2003 The Wall Street Journal

>

> ###

>

>

>

>

> FAIR USE NOTICE

> This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always

> been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such

> material available in our efforts to advance understanding of

> environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific,

> and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'

> of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the

> US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the

> material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have

> expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for

> research and educational purposes. For more information go to:

> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use

> copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go

> beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

>

>

> Common Dreams NewsCenter

> A non-profit news service providing breaking news & views for the

> progressive community.

> Home | Newswire | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up | Archives

>

>

> © Copyrighted 1997-2003

> www.commondreams.org

>

>

 

 

 

§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§*§

 

§ - PULSE ON WORLD HEALTH CONSPIRACIES! §

 

Subscribe:......... -

 

 

Gettingwell- / Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc.

 

To , e-mail to: Gettingwell-

Or, go to our group site: Gettingwell

 

 

 

 

Web Hosting - establish your business online