Tuesday, 18 Nov 2003

MIAMI, Fla.

I’ve spent the last day in the blocks around the FTAA trade meeting, while inside negotiations appear to be getting down to business (at least according to the reports we’re getting in dribs and drabs). Now it’s a matter of trying to get as much information as possible to the public outside and to the negotiators inside. (My refrain for the day, and probably for every day: inside, outside, inside, outside …)

Last night, I put the finishing touches on a statement signed by more than 30 groups from throughout the Western Hemisphere opposing investor-suit rules in the FTAA (everyone from environmental to labor to development-assistance to human-rights groups signed on). As soon as I’ve finished up today’s diary, I plan to distribute the statement to the media and to colleagues from developing countries who have ties with their governments’ negotiators.

Earlier this morning, I made my way from “outside” (the security perimeter surrounding the hotel zone where negotiations are happening) to “inside” and back again to “outside.” Inside, I spoke at a closed forum, the Americas Trade and Sustainable Development Forum, that was allowed to meet near the negotiations — not that there is much chance of actually talking with or lobbying negotiators.

That forum has been criticized — rightly — for being exclusive and accessible only to those pre-registered for access inside the security zone. But some groups are participating, if only to make sure that voices critical of the FTAA, and its potential impacts on people and the environment, are heard. The voice that struck me most today asked whether “free trade” rules are a good idea when it comes to tobacco products, especially when investment rules can be used to challenge policies like plain packaging for cigarettes.

I then went “outside” again to talk at a teach-in workshop with those (the vast majority) who can’t get inside. I focused on the way in which investor-suit rules give extensive rights to multinational corporations — but without any corresponding obligations to the countries where they’re operating. To do something about that lack of accountability for corporations, Friends of the Earth is working with a number of environmental, labor, and human-rights groups on a campaign to require U.S. companies to disclose their impacts abroad (such as toxic releases, use of child labor, payments to militaries). But here in Miami, negotiators are only discussing investor rights.

Meanwhile, what we’re hearing about the negotiations is that under intense pressure, the Bush administration — which probably can’t afford a collapse like the ones when WTO talks in Seattle and Cancun fell apart — seems to be backing down a bit. The U.S. has agreed that countries can decide individually whether or not to sign on to the investment rules in an FTAA (and similarly for services, intellectual property, and government purchasing).

But the U.S. (already 85 percent of the hemisphere’s economy) also wants to keep a stick in its pocket — the right to deny market access for products from countries that don’t sign the investment rules.

Outside, preparations for peaceful and legal citizen protests continue. Sitting in the storefront Citizens Trade Campaign office last night, I listened to colleagues frantically searching for housing space for the large (unexpected) numbers of people coming to town for teach-ins and the major march. In another corner, some colleagues are off to a press event outside a local Office Depot to criticize the company’s refusal to sell paper that meets key sustainable forestry standards.

Inside, outside.