[wordup] NAFTA blows

[Adam Shand]

And remember, the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the America's) is just a
bigger and badder NAFTA for all of North and South America (minus of
course lucky old Cuba).

Via: rebecca <rebecca at wetafx.co.nz>
From: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/013102.html

The Giant Sucking Sound Of The Other Chapter 11
Filed January 31, 2002

Chapter 11 is all the rage right now. And many of the biggest, the best
and the brightest corporations are doing it. But while the
multibillion-dollar bankruptcies of Enron and Global Crossing are
grabbing all the headlines, there is another Chapter 11, one you most
likely haven't heard of, that poses an equally great danger to our
democracy.

The "other" Chapter 11 is an obscure clause buried within the 555-page
NAFTA document. It's being used by multinational corporations "to
challenge the powers of government to protect its citizens, to undermine
environmental and health laws, even to attack our system of justice."

So reports Bill Moyers in a disturbing new documentary, "Trading
Democracy," airing Tuesday, Feb. 5 on PBS. According to Moyers, the
fourth estate's preeminent defender of democracy, this outrageous
end-run around the Constitution could end up costing us billions of
dollars. But, as they say, at least we've got our health, right? Not
with this Chapter 11 that jeopardizes both our health and the safety of
the communities we live in.

"This story," Moyers told me, "reflects what Enron is all about -- that
corporations have the power to trump the public interest at will these
days. It's not just one corruption in a small corner of the picture. It
represents the systemic corruption that money has brought to American
politics."

In theory, Chapter 11 is designed to compensate companies if foreign
governments seize their property. But the lawyers who helped draft NAFTA
inserted language making it possible for companies to also seek
compensation when government regulations cause a dip in their future
bottom line. Many of these same lawyers are now selling their services
to the very corporations using their legal handiwork to sue for
millions.

Just how business-friendly is the provision? "They could be putting
liquid plutonium in children's food," says Moyers, quoting a trade
lawyer's advice to the Canadian government. "If you ban it and the
company making it is an American company, you have to pay compensation."

About two dozen companies have cashed in, or are in the process of
trying to cash in, on Chapter 11. Among the outrages Moyers exposes is
the case of Methanex, a Canadian corporation that is suing the U.S.
government for $970 million because California decided to phase out a
cancer-causing gasoline additive the company produced.

But even more egregious than the notion that taxpayers should have to
pay off polluters is the fact that the cases are ruled on behind closed
doors, by a secret NAFTA tribunal whose decisions are not subject to
appeal in U.S. courts. That's right, if Methanex wins, we'll have to
foot the bill, but we'll never know exactly why because we don't have
the right to hear the facts.

That giant sucking sound you hear is the public good being slurped up by
voracious corporate interests.

But it's not just foreign companies suing Uncle Sam. Moyers shows us
what happened in Mexico when a U.S. firm's efforts to reopen a toxic
waste dump south of the border were thwarted by local citizens convinced
that the noxious landfill had led to a boom in cancer cases in the
region. The company, Metalclad, invoked Chapter 11 and was awarded $16
million in compensation.

The mere threat of these mega-buck claims is now being used to
intimidate government officials considering new regulations. In "Trading
Democracy," Moyers reveals how big tobacco used their high-powered
lobbyists and the threat of a massive Chapter 11 lawsuit to bully the
Canadian government into backing off on its plans to regulate cigarette
packaging.

As William Greider, author of "Who Will Tell The People," puts it to
Moyers: "If you're a civil servant, or even a political leader, you've
gotta think twice when a corporate lawyer comes to you and says, quite
forcefully, we're gonna hit you for half a billion dollars if you do
this."

In an interesting wrinkle, the tobacco companies' arm-twister-in-chief
was Carla Hills, who, before starting her own consulting firm, led --
surprise, surprise -- the U.S. negotiation of NAFTA, and whose firm was
among 29 corporate heavyweights that signed a letter last year to U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick demanding that the Chapter 11
provision be included as the administration seeks to expand NAFTA to 31
additional countries.

And round and round it goes. Where it stops, we don't know exactly --
what with the tribunals being secret, and all. But we have a pretty good
idea: more carcinogens in your water, more toxic chemicals in your air,
and more misbegotten profits for unscrupulous corporations with deep
pockets and teams of well-connected lawyers.