[PEN-L:1205] Trade Treaties Threaten Local Democracy

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trade Treaties Threaten Local Democracy
Robert Naiman

Sunday Journal (suburban DC) August 23, 1998

These days, most people are aware that many government policies are more
likely to benefit big corporations than the little guy. But convincing most
people they could do something about it is hard. Most people think that
theres not much they can do to change government policies, and their
pessimism has some basis -- its harder for ordinary people to change
government policies than it should be. The bigger the issue seems, the more
pessimistic people are, and there is arguably no concern that people are
more pessimistic about than reforming U.S. foreign policy, which most
people are aware is generally harmful to people in other countries and has
bad effects on Americans as well. After all, barely half the electorate
think the differences between the major parties Presidential candidates
justify even bothering to vote. If "you cant fight City Hall," as many
people believe, how are ordinary people going to have any impact on U.S.
foreign policy?

Still, its not as hard to have an impact on government policies as many
people believe, even U.S. foreign policy. Folks are always coming up with
ways to break through the corporate-military complex that dominates the
government.

For example, movements around the country have sprung up to penalize
corporations that prop up regimes that are gross violators of human rights.
Students around the country testified at university trustees meetings and
built shantytowns to protest the abuses of South Africas apartheid regime
and demand that universities divest themselves of holdings in corporations
which bolstered that regime. Of course it was the determined resistance of
the South African people which broke apartheid, but the campaign for
sanctions against South Africa certainly hastened apartheids demise by
convincing South African elites that they would never again have normal
economic relations with the rest of the world so long as apartheid remained
in place.

A key element of the sanctions campaign against South Africa was the
adoption by state governments of "selective purchasing" laws, barring the
states from making purchases from companies doing business in South Africa.
The prospect of losing lucrative state contracts helped convince many
companies to stop doing business with the apartheid regime. Its worth
remembering that the state and local sanctions against South Africa were
passed at a time during which the federal government -- under the Reagan
Administration -- was promoting "constructive engagement," a policy opposed
to sanctions.

It is therefore not surprising that the state sanctions that were so
effective in hastening the end of the apartheid regime are now under attack
by the Clinton Administration and the big corporations. The latest
battleground is Massachusetts, which has a law barring state contracts with
companies doing business with the ruling junta in Burma/Myanmar, generally
acknowledged to be a gross abuser of human rights. Apparently European and
Japanese corporations in particular take a dim view of state policies that
punish corporations for coddling dictators. You might wonder why the good
citizens of Massachusetts should be overly concerned about causing disquiet
in the boardrooms of greedy foreign corporations, but it turns out that the
Clinton Administration, in its ongoing campaign to appease big
corporations, negotiated a provision in the World Trade Organization
agreement which sharply restricts the ability of state governments to
implement sanctions against these companies.

As you can imagine, not too many people in Massachusetts were aware that
the Clinton Administration had given away their sovereign democratic right
to decide what sorts of corporations the state of Massachusetts should do
business with. And when they found out, many of them were more than a
little irritated.

As a result, Representative Dennis Kucinich [D-OH] recently proposed
legislation that would have barred the federal government from spending any
tax dollars to overturn state laws on the grounds that they contradict
provisions of international trade agreements.

The Administration lobbied hard against the amendment, in part because it
threatened a key goal of the Administration -- the negotiation of a new
treaty called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. This far-reaching
agreements would further undermine the democratic rights of the citizens of
Massachusetts, and every other state.

The Clinton Administration won this battle, but it is losing the war. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, its hard for people to understand why
U.S. foreign policy still has to be based on coddling bloodthirsty
dictators.

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Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center for Public Policy
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
08/25/98 23:58:01
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