Public Citizen: NAFTA’s 20-Year Legacy and the Fate of the TPP

[Faryn Balyncd]

Assessing the actual effects of "Free Trade Agreements", including the effects "investor-state tribunals", on Public Interest law (including environmental protection, labor law, safety, food labeling) takes on increasing relevance when we hear supporters of TPP claim that the agreement, to which U. S. Senators, Representatives, & other citizens have been denied access, will include provisions to "protect the environment".


On January 12, a CBC.ca report on a valiant attempt by Canadian environmental activists to initiate an investigation by the North American "Commission on Environmental Co-operation" into Canada's non-enforcement of its own its own Federal Fisheries Act pertaining to tar sands tailing ponds.





Despite the well-documented history of consistent attacks upon, and weakening of environmental protection under NAFTA, this valiant attempt by Canadian environmentalists was hailed by some as an example of how NAFTA, and by extension the proposed TPP, "protects" the environment.






Before one accepts such claims (especially in regards to an agreement the details of which have been denied to U. S. Senators), perhaps we should examine the differences between the manner in which complaints by citizens and environmental groups are handled, compared to the way complaints by corporations are handled:


(1.) Corporations who feel that their projected profits are negatively impacted by pesky environmental (or labor, safety, or food labeling) regulations are empowered by NAFTA to file suit in a sovereign "investor-state tribunal" which is exempt from normal judicial appeal.


(2.) In contrast, environmental groups and other citizens are not empowered to file suit in such tribunals. Instead, the process set up by NAFTA involves an entity entitled the "Commission on Environmental Co-operation" (CEC), set up with an explicit mission to "to provide the public an outlet for environmental concerns", and which "can recommend an in-depth investigation, called a factual record, if they find there are grounds. But it has no power to compel the countries to do anything."






So before we accept promises that the secretive provisions of the TPP will "protect the environment", wouldn't it be wise to look at the actual effects of NAFTA?


This question increases the relevance of Public Citizen's meticulously documented "NAFTA’s 20-Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans Pacific Partnership":

NAFTA’s 20-Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans Pacific Partnership



The data compiled in this report on the outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provide an answer: 20 years of living with NAFTA has created deep default skepticism among Americans about trade agreements. Even before many Americans hear details of how the TPP would expand on the NAFTA model, NAFTA’s two-decade legacy has primed them to oppose the deal.

This is not a story about protectionism, but about lived experience. The data show that NAFTA proponents’ projections of broad economic benefits from the deal have failed to materialize. Instead,millions have suffered job loss, wage stagnation, and economic instability from NAFTA. Scores of environmental, health and other public interest policies have been challenged. Consumer safeguards, including key food safety protections, have been rolled back. And NAFTA supporters’ warnings about thechaos that would engulf Mexico and a new wave of migration from Mexico, if NAFTA was not implemented have indeed come to pass, but ironically because of the devastation of many Mexicans’ livelihoods occurring, in part, because NAFTA was implemented. NAFTA was an experiment, establishing a radically new “trade” agreement model.

NAFTA was fundamentally different than past trade agreements in that it was only partially about trade. Indeed, it shattered the boundaries of past U.S.trade pacts, which had focused narrowly on cutting tariffs and easing quotas. In contrast, NAFTA created new privileges and protections for foreign investors that incentivized the offshoring of investment and jobs by eliminating many of the risks normally associated with moving production to low-wage countries. NAFTA allowed foreign investors to directly challenge before foreign tribunals domestic policies and actions, demanding government compensation for policies that they claimed undermined their expected future profits.......


https://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf


(documentation of skyrocketing corporate demands for taxpayer compensation begins on page 19, and specific documentation of attacks on environmental protections in investor-state tribunals begins on pages 21.)

The sad reality is that NAFTA set up a system in which corporations who feel that their profits are threatened by pesky environmental or labor regulations may sue in a special tribunal exempt from judicial appeal, while environmental groups and citizens may only complain to a commission set up to give an "outlet" to such citizens, but which is given no enforcement powers.


What can we realistically expect from the TPP, negotiated behind closed doors, the details of which are known to corporations but not United States Senators and Representatives?

[lonestarnot]

1. Should be a pretty blood curdling issue for anyone called a working American.

[Jim Beard]

2. I hate to admit it but I was for NAFTA, when it passed

and I would do it again but there would be more and much larger teeth for human fairness.

It was in the very late 1980's and the end of the Cold War. Many people were trying to figure out what to do with the savings from the end of the cold war.

I have lived in Texas all my life (born 1947) and have had experiences with the Mexican people since I was a farm kid all my young life. As I got older and was able to got to Mexico, I was shocked by the poverty and poor living conditions and the separation of the rich and poor. This was when I was still in grade school. As I got older I began recalling how poverty can cause unstable governments along with other problems and realized Mexico was in a very poor situation.

Naturally I saw way back in the 1980's when this was being discussed, the perils of a long border with a dangerous enemy would be a disaster to our security.


I still think a GOOD trade agreement with Mexico would be beneficial to both but don't let the dam corporations decided how it will be done. Make them ask for permission on everything.

I am not against agreements that help the citizens on both sides, its the corporations I hate. They screw up everything.

[RiverLover]

3. Good info. Thanks!! We have to spread the word on this. Not bury our heads in the sand. RnK!! nt

[pa28]

4. NAFTA was subject of intense national discussion and news coverage at the time of it's passage.

Remember that?

It's disastrous legacy should be weighed against the upcoming TPP and yet nobody seems to know about the TPP. We should be having a vigorous national debate about this agreement. Instead, it's being rammed through secretly.

The corporate backers of the agreement and the Obama administration seem to think this way; if the public finds out what they are up to before it's too late they've found out a day too early.

[amborin]

5. kicking