home > education center > environment How the FTAA could affect the Environment New corporate assault on the environment Did you know that new trade agreements, now being negotiated, could give global corporations the power to: Reduce government control over oil drilling, water extraction, waste incineration, hotel and resort development, and businesses in national parks? Weaken drinking water standards, toxic waste labeling laws, renewable energy laws, pesticide application regulations, and many other environmental laws? Take control of water supplies, water delivery systems, and other natural resources? The FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), and CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement are now being negotiated behind closed doors. But we have time to stop them, until 2005. Learn about the campaign and see what you can do by contacting the People's Consultation at 773-583-7728 or info@peoplesconsultation.org. How could global trade agreements hurt the environment? The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) already allows corporations to sue governments when environmental or public health laws threaten corporate profits. Now they are trying to incorporate even stronger rules into the GATS (the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services) and the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would expand NAFTA to cover the entire hemisphere). These new trade agreements cover "services" like toxic waste processing, mining, water diversion and extraction, oil drilling, pipeline transport, tourism operations, shipping, hotel construction, incineration of waste and natural resource management. Services rules can: Keep governments from controlling the amount of ecologically-damaging "services" that corporations provide. "Market access" rules in the GATS and the draft FTAA prohibit governments from placing limitations on the number of companies providing a particular service or on the amount of service provided. Services rules can also limit the ability of governments to control how an environmentally risky or damaging activity is conducted. This is true for two reasons. First, the "domestic regulation" rule contained in the GATS and the draft FTAA could allow corporations and governments to challenge environmental laws and regulations as "more burdensome than necessary." Who decides what's "burdensome?" Three corporate trade experts deliberating in private. Similar panels operating thus far under NAFTA and the WTO have ruled against the environment in almost all cases. Secondly, under the "national treatment" rule, laws and regulations could also be challenged if they "impact the conditions of competition" in ways that disadvantage foreign multinationals, as many environmental laws do. Drinking water standards, pesticide application regulations, laws covering the handling of toxic wastes, renewable energy laws and many other environmental laws could be subject to challenge under the domestic regulation provision, the national treatment provision, or both. Services rules could also be used to privatize natural resource management. The "national treatment" rule contained in the GATS and the FTAA could in the future entitle private foreign corporations to "equal rights" to compete against local public service providers for funds to perform public services. Privatization of water collection and water delivery are real possibilities under such a system. If such privatization occurred, profit-driven water collection could drain watersheds, river ecosystems and underground aquifers. Drinking water quality could decline under pressures to maximize profits by cutting costs. For more information see www.asje.org.