Word: ftaa
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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First, the FTAA, like NAFTA, would govern not only disputes between nations but also disputes between investors and nation-states. Corporations gained for the first time in Chapter 11 of NAFTA an institutional mechanism through which suits can be filed against foreign governments...
Second, the FTAA, like NAFTA, would expand the jurisdiction of trade agreements well beyond the traditional realm of tariffs: corporations can sue foreign governments for taking “measures tantamount to nationalization or expropriation” of an investment. Such measures can include health, safety, environmental and labor protection laws. Who gets to decide which laws and regulations are “tantamount to expropriation”? Under NAFTA and under the would-be FTAA, when an investor sues a government the case is submitted not to a national court but to an international tribunal that holds private proceedings...
...might wonder why we might want to apply such a destructive trade agreement to the entire hemisphere. According to the most recent FTAA ministerial declaration, the economic integration achieved through the FTAA would help in “strengthening democracy, creating prosperity and realizing human potential.” The evidence from NAFTA shows the emptiness of such rhetoric. But the FTAA would not stop at simply extending NAFTA to the Americas—its provisions would be much more extensive...
Take, for example, trade in services, which was not extensively covered in NAFTA. A leaked Oct. 7 1999 FTAA Negotiation Group report indicates that the U.S. is intent on liberalizing trade in services, including publicly-funded services like social security, health care and education...
...government services covered by the agreement and allow them to sue for compensation any government that denies them “market access.” To cite one implication, this would potentially spell an end to nationalized health care in Canada or any other nation signatory to the FTAA...