John Jay, one of our Founding Fathers, said that "the people who own the country ought to govern it."  Applying this philosophy globally, the world's owners are quietly rewriting the rules, calling them friendly names like the "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" (GATT) or the "North American Free Trade Agreement" (NAFTA).  Renato Ruggerio, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said in 1996 that "we are writing the constitution of a single global economy."
         Large corporations are increasingly "multi-national" and less bound to their
countries of origin.  Political boundaries and local or national laws can hinder their ability to maximize profits, so they want a "level playing field"--one set of rules that applies worldwide.  Sounds reasonable enough, until you consider the implications...  As they complete their agreements, world trade leaders are using their substantial political influence to ensure that governments quickly adopt them into law.  One World Government may be emerging, but we're not voting on it, and our own elected officials have already lost much power to this international consortium of business interests.  A recent study by Ralph Nader's group "Public Citizen" calls it "a slow-motion coup d'etat over democratic governance  worldwide."
          An example:  cigarette sales in the U.S. plummeted through the 70s and 80s.
Tobacco companies responded by pushing their drug overseas.  Previously  declining smoking rates in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan began rising again after Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man muscled into those markets.  Thailand, however, maintained its long-held ban on imported cigarettes.  In 1990, the Cigarette Exporters Association appealed to the U.S. Trade Representative.  Our government filed a complaint under GATT, which ruled that Thailand's ban on imported cigarettes was an unfair barrier to trade, and that Thailand had to either let in U.S. cigarettes or face "economic sanctions."  According to the World Health Organization, smoking has increased in the Asia/Pacific region throughout the 1990s.
           GATT was initiated after World War II.  Its "Uruguay Round" of negotiations created the WTO in 1995, dramatically increasing its power.  WTO bylaws state that "each member shall ensure the conformity of it's laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations as provided in the annexed Agreements."  Member nations (such as the U.S.) must "harmonize" their laws with WTO requirements or else face large fines and trade sanctions.  Our congress accepted this and in 1994 wrote it into law.  Furthermore, it has the status of a treaty with other nations and thus supercedes any local, state, or federal law except for the Constitution itself.
         "Dolphin Safe Tuna" requirements and labeling have enabled a huge decrease in the murder of these noble creatures.  Mexico, however, complained under GATT that our ban on tuna caught using nets that drown dolphins was an "unfair barrier to trade."  Last April, U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley severely weakened the definition of "dolphin safe," issuing a "finding" that chasing and netting dolphins (who swim with schools of tuna) does not cause "significant adverse impacts," as long as an on-board observer doesn't actually see dolphins killed or seriously injured.  Earth Island Institute and other groups have filed suit to overturn this decision, claiming it intentionally ignores the research of the Commerce Department's own biologists.  The major U.S. tuna companies have vowed to retain their policy of "non-encirclement" of dolphins, but they may not always be able to tell how the fish were caught, and will have financial incentives not to ask.  We could now again be eating tuna caught with cheaper techniques that kill dolphins.  The WTO may avoid pushing too hard on this particular case, since it has
tremendous potential for generating "bad publicity."
         In a similar case, the WTO ruled against a U.S. ban on shrimp imports from
nations that do not use devices to keep endangered sea turtles out of their nets.  The Clinton administration is weakening its implementation of the Endanged Species Act to comply with the WTO.
         Venezuela complained that our clean air standards "discriminated" against their gasoline.  In 1997 the EPA weakened its Clean Air Act regulations to comply with a WTO ruling; otherwise we would have been billed $150 million annually in fines.
         WTO rules prohibit a country from banning products based on the way they're produced.  Thus, even if we have laws prohibiting child or sweatshop labor, we can not ban imported items made in such ways.  We can't even ban things made using slaves.
         The "playing field" is being "leveled" by a process of nations filing complaints
against each other before the WTO:  the European Community complains that Chile taxes local liquor less than imported booze, Canada complains that France bans Canadian products with asbestos, our government complains that South Korean laws discourage U.S. beef sales to Koreans...the list goes on.  Canada, Peru, and Chile have filed complaints against France for requiring that only French scallops can be called "Coquille Saint-Jacques."  Companies operating in these other countries want to profit by selling their scallops in France under the same elegant name.
         Such disputes are decided in secret by a WTO panel of 3 to 5 trade experts chosen in consultation with the governments involved, or appointed by the WTO Director-General if the countries can't agree.  Labor leaders, environmentalists, or world health leaders aren't usually invited.  The panel's final report becomes the WTO ruling, and is practically written in stone:  winning an "appeal" requires a unanimous vote of all member nations, including the nation that won the ruling--an unlikely event.
         Just as the WTO multiplies the previous force of GATT, additional rules being proposed--known as the "Multilateral Agreement on Investment" (MAI)--would further magnify business power.  Among other features, the MAI would apply globally a component of NAFTA that allows a corporation to directly sue foreign governments for having laws that hinder the company's profits.  Under NAFTA, the U.S. based Ethyl Corporation sued Canada for having a ban on the toxic gasoline additive MMT which Ethyl produces.  The Canadian government coughed up $13 million to Ethyl and weakened their laws to avoid a costly ruling under NAFTA.  A similar case caused Canada to revoke its ban on the import of PCB-contaminated waste.
         If approved, the MAI would require governments to treat foreign and domestic investors equally.  We couldn't restrict overseas interests from buying up our real estate, media outlets, or anything else.  Wanting to keep timber processing jobs local, Oregon prohibits the foreign export of raw logs from state-owned lands.  Such laws could easily be challenged under the MAI.
         The MAI is on the agenda for the upcoming WTO Conference in Seattle.  Public protests are planned.  Earlier this year, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution rejecting any international investment agreement that presumed to supercede the city's authority.  Other "MAI-Free" cities include Geneva Switzerland, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Boulder Colorado.
         "Stealth" is the key strategy by which global business interests are making the new rules.  Good public relations (PR) comes first:  "free trade," "trade liberalization," or "creating a level playing field" all sound a lot nicer than proposing a "global government run by a hidden corporate oligarchy."
         Another part of the strategy is to make the issues seem so complex that people (including legislators) will either accept the sanitized PR or will just give up, believing they can't understand what's happening.  Prior to the vote on approving the Uruguay Round of GATT and thereby creating the WTO, Ralph Nader offered $10,000 to the favorite charity of any U.S. congressperson who would sign a statement that she or he had read the 500 page agreement and could successfully answer 10 simple questions about it.  He had only one taker--Colorado Republican Senator Hank Brown.  Brown had thought he supported GATT, but after reading it and correctly answering all 10 questions, he held a press conference to announce he was voting against it because it denied so many basic elements of democracy.  Like NAFTA however, GATT was being railroaded through on a "fast track":  Congress approved it in 1994 without knowing what it meant, and this scenario was repeated in parliaments throughout the world.
         While the details may indeed be complex, the overall picture is within the grasp of just about everyone:  the tired old story of money, power, and domination.
         Some may hope that corporate globalization will improve economic opportunities in poor countries and thereby help the struggling masses attain a reasonable living standard, but it's far more likely that these agreements will continue being used to reduce health, environmental, wage and labor safety standards worldwide in a "race to the bottom," with capital flowing to where business costs are lowest and other areas reducing their standards to "compete"--until our "global village" looks more like a big "company town."  Without a major and sustained public outcry, we can expect that the rich will
continue getting richer and the poor poorer, until either the economic bubble bursts or our earth's biological support systems begin collapsing more dramatically under the strain.
         If the trend toward a powerful, hidden, and unelected world government
continues, we may become frustrated enough to throw off the economic chains of "free trade."  We may reclaim our Independence, recalling what Jefferson wrote in our famous July 4 Declaration:  that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" and that "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
         Don't be fooled by hidden PR masquerading as "news" or by the supposed
complexity of the issues; study what's happening, and make your voice heard!
 
 
 

            The International Forum on Globalization has alot of information.  On their site, they say that "The WTO's primary mandate is to diminish the regulatory
powers of nation-states and local communities - particularly our rights to make laws about public health, food safety, environment, labor, culture, democracy and sovereignty - while increasing the powers and freedoms of global corporations to act without any controls."
         Here is the Global Trade Watch section within the larger website (citizen.org) of Ralph Nader's group "Public Citizen."
         There's an awful lot of information on the website of the World Trade Organization itself.
         There are some more relevant links at the bottom of my earlier article, Taking Responsibility.