Trading Authority
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group.
Here are some more jobswe should outsource"federal judges, the Supreme Court and members of Congress. After all, it has been made crystal clear in the past few weeks that thanks to so-called "free trade" laws, no law passed by Congress"or any ruling by a U.S. court, including the Supreme Court"is safe from challenge by the secretive tribunals set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the more sweeping global trade pacts known as GATT. Why spend money on elected representatives or judges"not to mention lawyers and juries"if we can just shorten the process and throw it over to, say, a panel of arbitrators who are picked from various countries around the world, and make decisions unaccountable to the American people?
In a moment, you will read cries of anguish, surprise and indignation about this terrible development. But everyone who could have known should have known"or did know, and simply chose to ignore what was written in black and white. During every debate on the "free trade" deals, opponents (painted by Republicans and Democrats alike as "protectionists" or people afraid to face the future) repeatedly pointed out that NAFTA and GATT would cede substantial legal authority to international tribunals.
Better yet, you get to pay for the unraveling of American law. The way the system works is that a corporate investor, feeling that an American law bars it from engaging in "free trade," brings a claim against the U.S. government before one of these tribunals. If the corporate investor wins, the U.S. government has to pony up the money for damages"essentially, money you paid as taxes.
Here are three cases that have recently bubbled up. At the end of March, a panel of the World Trade Organization (the body that policies GATT) ruled that U.S. law prohibiting online gambling violated international trade law. "It's appalling," complained Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. "It cannot be allowed to stand that another nation can impose its values on the U.S. and make it a trade issue." Surprise, surprise, I could not find another similar incensed quote by Goodlatte decrying the imposition of substandard labor or environmental conditions through so-called "free trade" agreements. Goodlatte voted for NAFTA in 1993 and GATT in 1994. I doubt he, like many other members of Congress, either read or understood the provisions of GATT or NAFTA that took away U.S. sovereignty. It was much easier to simply show ideological fervor in defense of "free trade" pacts.
On April 18, The New York Times, which has been one of the strongest editorial supporters of NAFTA and "free trade" agreements, ran a story headlined "NAFTA Tribunals Stir U.S. Worries." In the story, reporter Adam Liptak discovers a couple of cases, one still pending, where decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and a Mississippi court are attacked by the NAFTA tribunals. He quotes a law professor who says "it's basically been under the radar screen... but it points to a fundamental reorientation of our constitutional system. You have an international tribunal essentially reviewing American court judgments." Or as Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court tells Liptak, "It's rather shocking that the highest courts of the state and federal governments could have their judgments circumvented by these tribunals."
No one should have expressed surprise. Had the press bothered to look, it would have found ample evidence that corporate investors were making liberal use of NAFTA to undermine U.S. law. In September 2001, Public Citizen released a report on so-called Chapter 11 cases (named for the NAFTA provision). In just 15 cases, corporate investors were seeking more than $15 billion from the U.S. government (i.e., you and me as taxpayers), as well as the Mexican and Canadian governments. As Public Citizen notes now, but repeatedly warned years ago, "NAFTA required limits on the safety and inspection of meat sold in our grocery stores; new patent rules that raised medicine prices; constraints on your local government's ability to zone against sprawl or toxic industries; and elimination of preferences for spending your tax dollars on U.S.-made products or locally grown food."
And April 21, the Bush administration argued before the Supreme Court that it would order U.S. highways open to Mexican trucks without proceeding with an environmental study aimed at examining the effects on air quality. NAFTA required that the United States open its roads to Mexican trucks, and it's just a matter of time before a corporation sues the U.S. government if it balks at the provision, no matter the effect on people's health and safety.
Let's face it, eyes glaze over when you start to mumble about international tribunals and legal authority. Maybe a better lead sentence for this column would have been "Nicole Kidman's secret lover is delirious that he and his other boy-toy pals will be able to place their bets online." But, as the praying before the altar of so-called "free trade" continues, the inexorable undermining of American laws"passed by the elected representatives of the people"is underway.
Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never distribute your information to any other entity.
Published: Apr 27 2004
