|
Alternative approach to globalisation calls for enforceable
social, labour, environmental, and human rights protections
By Bill Blaikie, MP - NDP Critic for International Trade
At the end of August, 1999, the New Democratic Party of Canada held its biennial convention in Ottawa. This
year`s convention saw New Democrats debating and adopting major policy papers on the economy, health
care and national unity. In one of the convention’s most important debates, delegates adopted a
comprehensive trade policy to guide the NDP into the new millennium. This report provides an overview of
that trade policy, a policy that lays the foundation for an alternative, social democratic approach to
globalisation.
The comprehensive trade policy adopted at the 1999 NDP convention not only reaffirms the Party’s
longstanding opposition to unbalanced trade agreements that expand the rights of investors and
corporations at the expense of citizens and democratic governments, but also sets out fundamental
principles for any future international trade negotiations.
These principles assert, first and foremost, that new and existing international trade agreements and
institutions must incorporate enforceable provisions to protect core labour and social, environmental
and human rights standards. Simply paying lip service to such standards in cynical and toothless sidebar
agreements, as in the case of the NAFTA, is unacceptable. Canada’s experience shows that social
protections are meaningless if they are not backed with tough sanctions. The absence of binding social
rights is particularly outrageous when contrasted with the enforceable investor protections enshrined in
the investor-state dispute mechanism that was included in the NAFTA and proposed in the MAI. New Democrats have therefore renewed their call for the removal of the investor-
state mechanism from the NAFTA, and have committed to fight the inclusion of similar provisions in the
WTO, the FTAA, or any other global trading regime.
In order to address the elitist and uncritical commercial orientation of our international institutions, the
new NDP trade policy also calls for measures to enhance the democratic accountability of the global
trading system. In addition to the trade bureaucrats and business interests that are responsible for
today’s fundamentally imbalanced and anti-social web of trade agreements, democratically elected
leaders, trade unions and NGOs from the broader civil society must also be involved in regional
parliaments and other innovative forums to ensure that a broader, more balanced set of perspectives is
brought to bear on future trade negotiations.
As the successful campaign against the MAI showed, challenging the current direction of globalisation
requires an international movement involving the cooperation of a diverse range of progressive
organisations and political parties. Nowhere has the importance and effectiveness of such cooperative
action been more evident than in Canada. The NDP’s new trade policy therefore calls on New Democrats to
continue working with progressive citizens and groups across Canada, and around the world, to build a
movement capable of bringing about an alternative, progressive approach to globalisation, “by which the
world might achieve a stable, rules-based global economy that protects the rights of workers and the environment,
provides for cultural diversity and ensures the ability of governments to act in the public interest.
The NDP’s new trade policy also sets the stage for New Democrats to hold the Liberal government
accountable in the upcoming negotiations on the WTO, and at the ongoing FTAA talks. The NDP opposes any
further trade or investment liberalisation at the WTO until the WTO meaningfully addresses the need for
social, labour, environmental and human rights protections. New Democrats have therefore joined more
than 1100 organisations from 87 countries in a joint statement opposing further liberalisation
negotiations at the WTO, and calling for reform of the WTO to address its obvious deficiencies with respect
to democracy, human rights and social development.
Trade policy resolution as adopted
by the 1999 Federal NDP Convention:
BE IT RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Canada:
1) build on the successful campaign against the MAI by working with Canadians to
oppose the Liberal government’s attempts to introduce MAI-type rules at the next
round of talks on the WTO, which begin in the fall of 1999, at ongoing talks toward a
FTAA, and at other international forums, such as the International Monetary Fund;
2) continue to expose the Liberal government’s pursuit of international agreements
like the MAI and NAFTA which pose a threat to democratic governance and the health and
well-being of working people and the environment around the world;
3) fight for major changes to the NAFTA, including the removal of investor-state
dispute mechanism, which allows foreign corporations to sue and intimidate
democratic governments and a total overhaul of the ineffective side accords on labour
standards and the environment in order to make them binding and enforceable
protections;
4) demand that the Government make binding and enforceable protections of core
labour rights an integral feature of all international agreements on trade and
investment to which Canada is a party; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party:
1) insist that before there is any further trade and/or investment liberalisation at the
WTO, the WTO itself must deal with social, environmental, labour and human rights
issues in an enforceable way, or, that other international agreements and institutions
which concern themselves with issues like labour and environment be given “teeth” i.e. -
the power to sanction behaviour which violates agreed-upon statements;
2) oppose the incorporation of the MAI-type investor-state dispute mechanism at the
WTO, FTAA or any other international body and call for the elimination of the mechanism
from the NAFTA;
3) explore with our political and social counterparts in other countries how more
democratic accountability can be brought to bear on regional trade agreements and
institutions, through regional parliaments and/or other ways of bringing together more
than just trade bureaucrats and business people, so that the leadership of the political
community, the trade union community, and the NGO community will have more effective
forums and mechanisms by which to challenge and counterbalance the uncritical
commercial orientation of trade liberalisation;
4) continue to work with progressive groups and citizens across Canada, and around
the world to build an international movement that seeks to establish an alternative to
the current model of globalisation by which the world might achieve a stable, rules-
based global economy that protects the rights of workers and the environment, provides
for cultural diversity and ensures the ability of governments to act in the public interest;
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Canada demand that a social
clause, forbidding sweatshops and all forms of exploitation of child labour, be included
in all international trade agreements.
|
