{"id":744,"date":"2014-08-25T12:26:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/?p=744"},"modified":"2015-06-19T12:26:40","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T10:26:40","slug":"trading-for-injustice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/trading-for-injustice\/","title":{"rendered":"Trading for injustice"},"content":{"rendered":"

[originally published on qceablog.wordpress.com]<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0EU is working on developing free trade agreements<\/a>\u00a0with many countries of the world, from Canada\u00a0possibly to China<\/a>.\u00a0QCEA<\/a>\u00a0(and others<\/a>) have written about our concerns regarding special tribunals to protect investors whose profit expectations are undermined by legislation introduced by democratic governments. And we urge you to write to your MEP to reject the\u00a0Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA)<\/a>\u00a0between Canada and the EU.<\/p>\n

Careening on<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I have mentioned before<\/a>, the CETA must be\u00a0ratified by the European Parliament, which has a greater role than it did before the Treaty of Lisbon<\/a>. However, the\u00a0current EU Commissioner for Trade, Karel de Gucht, has also stated<\/a>\u00a0that, \u201cAccording to the Treaty [of Lisbon], the Council can sign a treaty and provisionally apply it, whereas the Parliament\u2019s consent is only needed before the conclusion (\u201cratification\u201d) of the Treaty. Provisional application is an accepted tool in international practice and is needed where quick action is imperative for both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

The need for quick action may be understood differently: many commentators have pointed out that, conversely, there is a pressing need for\u00a0action to be slowed down.\u00a0<\/a>The\u00a0final text of CETA, which has been leaked<\/a>, includes an Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism. The timing of the announcement of the finalised CETA text makes it clear that the record-breaking 150,000 responses people sent in\u00a0response to the consultation which closed in July<\/a>, cannot have been adequately considered. A public consultation in a democracy is only worth the name if the responses are taken into account: otherwise, it is a token gesture which simply wastes the time of those citizens who participated.<\/p>\n

No escape<\/strong><\/p>\n

QCEA has advocated for\u00a0a sunset clause for Free Trade Agreements<\/a>, such as CETA and the\u00a0Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated with the US<\/a>. No sunset clause (an agreed time for review and renegotiation) is included in CETA. Page 500 includes an option to give six months\u2019 notice to end the agreement (with 20 more years for ISDS). It sounds simple \u2013 but how workable is it, one wonders?<\/p>\n

And how did we find ourselves in this situation \u2013 facing a huge trade agreement which could be implemented even before Europeans have agreed to it?<\/p>\n

Like most holes in which we suddenly find ourselves, this one has been dug by not challenging our own assumptions about how the world works. Assumptions are\u00a0something we take for granted as true<\/a>: they help us by simplifying the world \u2013 and they hinder us by simplifying how we think about the world. One assumption\u00a0that many people share is that trade and economic growth are inherently good. (A wonderfully lateral challenge can be found in this policy brief on green growth.<\/a>) Another is that, if trade is good, more must be better. As\u00a0Pavan Sukhdev pointed out in a thought-provoking lecture<\/a>, no one is focussing on selling longevity, and this is one of the reasons our economic activity is sucking up natural resources.\u00a0The European Commission has found ten benefits of trade<\/a>\u00a0but this is an oversimplification. Trade has many forms, and not all bring benefits. Some good impacts said to be from trade contradict others: the Commission says\u00a0trade brings both more jobs and lower prices<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 one wonders from whence the funds come to pay workers a decent wage if the focus is on low prices.<\/p>\n

Markets and trade<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trade at its most fundamental is an exchange of goods that permits one family or person to have a greater variety of food and items than they can produce themselves. It\u2019s amazing how pervasive trade is as a concept in human societies. Even subsistence farmers who are accustomed to feeding their families from small plots of land, will trade to acquire other items, such as pencils and school uniforms for their children.\u00a0Even the fabulously inventive young man who built a windmill\u00a0<\/a>at his home in rural Malawi<\/a>because he wanted to be able to do things at night\u00a0<\/a>(rather than<\/a>\u00a0sleep because it was dark<\/a>)<\/a>, who scrounged the items from a junkyard,<\/a>\u00a0even he was benefitting from the side effects of trade, finding bolts and metal parts that eventually allowed him to construct his (first) windmill.<\/p>\n

\"marketsmile\"<\/a>Trade is a good thing, of course. I certainly wouldn\u2019t want to have to live only on what can be grown in the cool, damp northern climes of Belgium, I can tell you! But problems start when trade becomes a stimulus pushing overuse of natural resources, and when the liberalisation of trade means that, for example, the push for cheap goods means people are not being paid adequately. What do we need all these goods for? Why do we push forward to consume, when we know we are borrowing from future generations\u2019 well-being? Where else could we create subsistence for people, the ones who currently are being paid too little to manufacture items that society doesn\u2019t really need?<\/p>\n

Free trade agreements, such as the recently finalised \u2013 but not yet ratified \u2013 CETA between the EU and Canada, and the other agreements the European Commission is currently negotiating, are often justified with numbers of \u2018more\u2019. More trade, more economic benefit. But this does not seem to mesh with our knowledge that\u00a0we are overshooting the earth\u2019s resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The European Commission predicted, perhaps a tad optimistically,\u00a0that CETA would\u00a0<\/a>increase trade between Canada and the EU by more than a fifth (22%)<\/a>. Is that absolutely more trade (do we need 22% more stuff?), or is it replacing trade with existing partners, with trade with Canada? Why Canada? We know that Canada is not a trustworthy partner in preserving the planet:\u00a0it is exposing huge areas of boreal forest soil in its quest for tar sand oil<\/a>, for example.\u00a0Canada\u2019s own government website notes<\/a>\u00a0\u2018the growth of annual production of oil sands presents severe environmental challenges\u2019. Why would the EU want to facilitate trading with a country which is\u00a0said to have one of the poorest environmental records in the world<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 why direct our finances in trade to a country whose policies not only counteract the EU\u2019s stated goals, but is threatening the future livability of our entire planet?<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Update 23 September:\u00a0The European Commission spokesperson says<\/a>: \u201cISDS is no longer a sticking or stumbling block because we have an agreement here on ISDS which sets new high standards [in CETA] and addresses all concerns raised. So, also here, it is the end of the negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[originally published on qceablog.wordpress.com] The\u00a0EU is working on developing free trade agreements\u00a0with many countries of the world, from Canada\u00a0possibly to China.\u00a0QCEA\u00a0(and others) have written about our concerns regarding special tribunals to protect investors whose profit expectations are undermined by legislation introduced by democratic governments. And we urge you to write …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}