Think of Sherlock Holmes and the case of the dogs that didn't bark. That is the easiest way to understand how environmental protection fits into Quebec City's Summit of the Americas. It doesn't.
Demonstrators will be marching at Quebec because, as negotiations move forward on a free-trade area of the Americas, the environment is not really on the agenda. In other words, no official plans exist for an agreement on environmental protection to be woven into a trade agreement.
Hemispheric trade ministers who met earlier this month in Buenos Aires stated: "Most ministers recognize that the issues on environment and labour should not be . . . subject to disciplines, the non-compliance of which can be subject to trade restrictions or sanctions." Latin American governments, in fact, have made clear they want no environmental standards agreement as part of the FTAA. The government of Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, has said bluntly that an environmental standards agreement as part of the FTAA would be unacceptable.
A study published last October by the Latin American Economic System (SELA), which promotes regional economic co-operation and co-ordination, said proponents of environmental and labour standards have been unsuccessful in making themselves heard by their governments. "Important sectors of the citizenry," the SELA report says, "feel that [in the FTAA process] they have not been given the same treatment and equality of opportunities as the business community to express their points of view on the matters of labour and the environment."
Professor German de la Reza, an expert on economic integration at Mexico's National Autonomous University, has been quoted as saying: "The model chosen by FTAA negotiators is purely trade-related."
He said if the quality standards of the North are applied to the exporting countries of the South, many businesses will be left out of the trade game and will simply have to close up shop.
The flip side of the coin is that environmental-protection advocates in the U.S. and Canada -- the North -- are not going to accept their national standards being reduced to harmonize with those of the South.
Congressional Democrats have said their support for the FTAA will depend upon inclusion of stringent environmental and labour rules.
Canada's Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew has said: "In our free-trade agreements we have been promoting progress on environmental standards and on the environment as well."
But the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development points out that environmental issues are scarcely mentioned in the Canadian government's published FTAA position papers. For that matter, environmental-protection advocates have argued that provisions relating to environmental and health standards are frequently seen as non-tariff barriers to trade by both the World Trade Organization and the North American free-trade agreement.
On the one hand, corporate compliance with the international protection standards recognized by the WTO and NAFTA is largely voluntary and unmonitored.
On the other hand, the international standards recognized by WTO and NAFTA trade rules constrain national governments from passing regulations that apply to unique ecological characteristics, environmental public-policy objectives desired by their citizens or preventive measures sought by governments until scientific data can be analyzed.
Indeed, most of these regulations -- whether they apply to gasoline emission standards, export limitations on fish to preserve stocks, beef hormones or environmental fishing standards to protect turtles and dolphins -- have been rejected by trade tribunals.
At this week's People's Summit, leading up to the weekend official summit, international environmental groups will be making the dogs bark. They will be making public their proposals for environmental and conservation protection language in the FTAA.
Copyright © 2001 Globe Interactive
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