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Background Information on the FTAA

What if someone told you there was a law which could:

• Let a private company take over the city water system and triple your water bill?
• Make the minimum wage illegal, so there's no floor under wages?
• Wipe out laws protecting public health and the environment?

Would you want that law to pass?

There is such a law, and it's called the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

There's still time to stop it.
We need your help!

What is the FTAA, and how would it do all these things?

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a proposed trade agreement which would strengthen and extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and parts of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the entire Western Hemisphere, except Cuba. It poses as promoting "free trade," but it would actually hand over control to corporate elites while taking away nations' abilities to govern democratically, and people's power over their own communities and land. Congress will vote on it in 2005. It is being negotiated in secret, which is why you probably haven't heard of it.

Public Services

The FTAA would incorporate GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services being negotiated now as part of the WTO. GATS and the FTAA would:

• give corporations an absolute right to bid on running or purchasing all public services, including schools, libraries, and even the public water supply
  
• force governments to give contracts to the lowest bidder without considering fair labor practices, corporate safety records, or environmental responsibility


• let corporations challenge any laws that get in the way of their profits, like environmental, labor or consumer protection laws, including minimum wage and living wage laws; the cases would be heard by a secret tribunal, with no chance of appeal


• let corporations ignore unprofitable areas when providing a service, even if it means not delivering mail or providing water to rural or inner city areas; those areas would be served by governments on limited funds

Democracy

The FTAA would expand Chapter 11 of NAFTA. Chapter 11 allows foreign corporations to directly sue a government for laws that threaten their profits, including laws protecting workers, the environment, public health, and consumer safety. The case is heard by a secret tribunal, with no chance of appeal. Under NAFTA, Canada was forced to overturn a law protecting its citizens from MMT, a dangerous neurotoxin, and to pay the Ethyl Corporation of Virginia $13 million in damages. U.S.-based Metalclad sued when the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí blocked it from reopening a toxic waste dump, and was awarded $16 million in compensation. California is being sued by Methanex Corp. of Canada, for banning a carcinogenic gasoline additive called MTBE, which was polluting city water supplies. A secret NAFTA tribunal is deciding the case.

Health

Countries would not be able to set decent standards for agricultural products with regard to pesticides, biological contaminants, food inspection, product labeling, and genetically engineered foods. A company with a patent in one country would be able to claim the monopoly rights to market that product in any country. This means that drug companies could prevent countries from manufacturing or buying less expensive generic medications, even for diseases like AIDS.

What you can do

• Call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to vote NO on Fast Track (a law that would allow the president to push through trade agreements such as the FTAA with almost no input from Congress), and NO on the FTAA.
• Contact us to arrange a presentation on the FTAA for your organization.
• Contact us if you would like to participate in a grassroots campaign to defeat the FTAA. Call 773-583-7728 or .

For more information on the FTAA, see:

• Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the FTAA (Global Exchange) -- In HTML and PDF formats.


• Competing Visions for the Hemisphere (PDF) -- A chart by The Institute for Policy Studies comparing the official draft of the Free Trade Area of the Americas with an alternative proposal developed by a hemispheric network of activists. En español (PDF)


• NAFTA at 7 (PDF) August, 2001 update. A study by The Institute for Policy Studies detailing what we've learned about the North American Free Trade Agreement since it went into force in 1994. En español (PDF)

Backgroung information from the People's Consultation on the FTAA