By Peter Boyle
Should an environmental and social impact study be carried out before Australia signs any treaty coming out of the Uruguay Round of the GATT "free trade" agreements? This idea was raised by Greenpeace Australia spokesperson Noni Keys at the annual Fenner Conference on International Trade, Investment and the Environment, held in Canberra in July, and repeated by WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts in parliament on September 2.
In a letter to the September 22 Australian, Margetts explained that she opposed the new GATT proposals because they would work to eliminate environmental and health regulations as trade barriers.
"It would undermine virtually every national and international regulation aimed at protecting workers, the environment and public health, replacing it with least-common-denominator standards."
Environmentalists are concerned that GATT will act against the environment in many ways:
- Signatory states will have their right to apply environmental measures limited if they can affect trade.
- GATT already prohibits excluding or imposing a duty on an import because it was produced or harvested in an environmentally unsound way. In 1991 a GATT panel found that the US was in breach of GATT rules by blocking imports of tuna from Mexico because the tuna were caught without adequate provision for dolphin protection. Australia's opposition to food irradiation will also be GATT-illegal.
- GATT prevents a signatory state from subsidising local producers to apply higher environmental standards than their international competitors.
- GATT already outlaws export bans — for instance on certain timbers so that local forests may be protected, or that rare species may be preserved. This rule also prohibits banning the export of pesticides prohibited in the US but sold to Third World countries.
- GATT discourages states from using trade measures to influence environmental or social policy of other countries.
- If the new GATT proposals are adopted, countries with higher environmental standards for products may be forced to lower them in the name of "harmonisation of product standards".
- New proposals may undermine international environmental agreements. Some environmentalists fear that GATT could prevent implementation of the Montreal Protocol on the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
- New GATT proposals on the recognition of trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) will give more power and profit to the transnational corporations dominating agribusiness and discourage agricultural bio-diversity.
Another major concern is the proposal to establish a Multilateral Trade Organisation which is not committed to the sustainable development agreed to in last year's Earth Summit. GATT secretary-general Arthur Dunkel claims that the MTO can be "greened" later, in a new round of negotiations.
Environmentalists have protested that the MTO will not be open or transparent nor accountable to those who live under its rules. It would not give an equal voice to developing countries and its narrow commercial approach excludes consideration of developmental needs of the South and environmental concerns.
The MTO would be able to impose policies on weaker countries using the threat of "cross-sectional retaliation" to enforce GATT rules — a power that does not exist under current GATT rules. Countries that do not follow these rules could have high duties or bans imposed on their exports.
Interestingly, the MTO proposal was never covered in the years of negotiations under the Uruguay Round, but suddenly appeared in the Dunkel draft issued last year.
Environmentalists here calling for an environmental and social impact study before signing any new GATT treaty have been inspired by a successful challenge to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before a US District Court. This court decided on June 30 that the US National Environmental Policy Act required that a federal agency prepare an environmental impact statement on any proposed legislation significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.
This case was initiated by several non-government organisations, including Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and Friends of the Earth USA. However, on September 25, the Clinton Administration persuaded the Federal Court of Appeal to overturn this decision.