It looks like to me that it cleans up some sharp corners, but effective protection of the right of environmental laws and regulations to be consider in terms of their effectiveness as environmental policy seems to be mostly limited to Multi-lateral Environmental Agreements.

And the basic question of whether its a free trade agreement or an unfettered capital flows agreement seems to be untouched.

Doesn't explain the whole weirdness of the secret pact - but Matt came through with the goods, which is more than can be said for anyone else.

So - yay, Matt!

As for grokking - not my bailiwick...

they say that labor enforcement will be subject to the same mechanism as all other FTA obligations.  And I like that they text says that the agreements won't give foreign investors greater rights than US investors, but I have a hard time believing that's going to be the way it acutally is going to turn out.

At a first glance it seems that the only mechanism for enforcing the ILO standards would be one party declaring the other to be in violation and ending the FTA (or maybe going to WTO to ask for punitive sanctions?). Can anyone see the USTR under the current (or any corporate) administration doing this?

Shouldn't there be a third party enforcement mechanism?

I'm just reading the summary so far (and thus parsing it very carefully). The environmental section looks rather weak. For example, the list of seven multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) looks rather meaningless, because all of them are already in force and operating well. This looks like the old political trick of restating what already occurred -- an external event that just happened without your involvement which you now wish to claim as your own victory.

For example, is Peru really going to be whaling any time soon? Will whale ceviche be on the menu? And who the heck still produces CFCs banned under the Montreal Protocol? Even the Chinese don't. Where's the Kyoto Protocol (on carbon emissions) if this agreement framework is serious about the environment? Or is that not a "common" MEA because the U.S. hasn't signed yet?

And that's really the dirty little secret: a free trade agreement should challenge the U.S. to improve in the areas where the U.S. doesn't meet world best practices, but I don't see anything in the summary that does.

In fact, there's that bold bullet about a "groundbreaking 'conflict of laws' provision" which, in fact, looks rather meaningless or even damaging. It says that a "covered" MEA obligation trumps a free trade obligation. Covered, meaning, one of the 7. However, if Panama has a Kyoto obligation (if Panama is a Kyoto signatory), that's not good enough: the free trade obligation could trump Kyoto since Kyoto is not "covered." Which means, for example, that Panama could not ban or tax imports of inefficient American-built SUVs in order to meet their Kyoto targets, according to the plain meaning of this summary. But Panama can ban imports of whale tusks!

There's also the last section, dealing with SWAT (Strategic Worker Assistance and Training). While the rest of the document is peppered with words like "enforceable" and "binding," this section is not. Thus if there's a community or group of employees hurt by trade, they cannot (for example) win a lawsuit against the U.S. Government for failing to provide adequate retraining benefits or healthcare transition benefits.

The investment section is puzzling. Foreign investors in the U.S. cannot receive "greater substantive rights with respect to investment protections" than U.S. investors in the U.S. I think this means that foreign governments cannot provide, for example, special loan guarantees to their companies investing in the U.S. But this language is way too broad, in my opinion. If a foreign country has more aggressive financial disclosure laws than the U.S., for example, would this language prevent the application of that pro-investor/pro-consumer disclosure? Or, for another hypothetical, suppose Peru had a law which required that its companies investing abroad (including the U.S.) had to pay a minimum of 30% of in-country profits to U.S. investors in the form of dividends. The U.S. has no such law. Would the free trade agreement ban that seemingly pro-investor/pro-consumer law? The same could be true for laws about corporate governance, CEO pay, etc.

The government procurement section should sounds meaningless, even though it's called "groundbreaking." It merely "allows" federal and state -- where's local? -- governments to condition contract awards on "five basic" labor standards. Isn't this already the case, that U.S. government organizations have broad latitude in awarding contracts -- including outright discrimination in favor of domestic suppliers? If they can only consider five basic labor standards, what can they not consider? This would be groundbreaking, certainly, if now government organizations have new restrictions on how they award contracts.

I'm getting very suspicious that this is just "fig leaf" language -- and not very much leaf or fig.

... than it would seem:

The environmental section looks rather weak. For example, the list of seven multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) looks rather meaningless, because all of them are already in force and operating well.

But there is certainly not much there, since the key issue is whether an individual nation can have its environmental regulations assessed in terms of their efficacy as environmental regulations first, and then for trade impacts when there are multiple equally efficacious instruments available.

The opposite ... first getting cleared as not affecting trade, and then you get to choose the residue, no matter how practically inefficient or ineffective, for your environmental policy instrument ... is the standard approach in the WTO.

If the Chamber of Commerce is saying that worker and environmental safeguards are unenforceable then you know that's true.

This clears up a lot of grey area.  Most of this was covered in the NYT article a few days ago, but this is obvious much more specific.

I think this is a good deal.  I don't know why they didn't consult labor, but to be honest, I don't much care.  Legislators have a job to do on their own and if we are going to decry Republicans for listening to special interests, we should not get upset when congressional Democrats don't get permission slips from labor.

Much of the environmental section is, as was mentioned above, a restatement.  Not much there dealing with greenhouse gases, but I think in order to ask other countries to deal with greenhouse gases, we need to start doing so ourselves.  Since the Bush administration has no intention of doing so and the Congress cannot execute the laws or direct the EPA how to implement policies, addressing greenhouse gases was likely left out as part of the compromise.  I think if Nancy Pelosi had her way, we would have started regulating greenhouse gases yesterday and would have had such regulations in this agreement.  

I think there are some good labor protections in this agreement and that it was really a step in the right direction.  I think it gives the proper framework for how we need to be trading with the world, exporting our goods as well as our ideals.  My hope is that this will be properly implemented and that a Democratic president in 2009 and beyond will make sure it is such.  In the meantime however, if it is not implemented, I hope folks will pin the blame where it belongs: on Bush, not Pelosi, for she can't implement anything.

Heinlein is the greatest. author. ever!

It seems to me, a person not familiar with the details of trade agreements, that this whole ediface is built on faith that the executive branch of each government will actually do something to protect labor rights and environmental protection.  As mentioned above, if the non-US party ignores these areas, and Bush and successors can ignore the violations and nothing gets redressed.  

I guess I'm saying that persons (including membership or advocacy groups) affected by these agreements should have legal standing to bring suits to enforce the agreements (including the ability to bring class action suits).  I don't think US citizens have standing now to bring suit, and that is just an invitation to say stuff in agreements (with a wink) and then do nothing.

Why on earth should we fall for anything like this? I am against anyone who wants loyalty without accountability. That combination has not exactly been working too well for us lately, has it?

once again are selling out workers.  

These kinds of deals with the folks who put Bush in will risk a Democratic defeat in 2008.

Is this a joke? The administration will be responsible? That doesn't sound right?Why would trading partners enforce their laws for workers? Most of these countries don't care about workers rights anyway. This is almost like trusting someone on the street not to steal your wallet if you leave it.

"Trading partners will be required to enforce their own environmental laws. The administration will be responsible for monitoring compliance".

index1 index2 index3 index4 index5 index6 index7 index8 index9 index10 index11 index12 index13 index14 index15 index16 index17 index18 index19 index20 index21 index22 index23 index24 index25 index26 index27 index28 index29 index30 index31 index32 index33 index34 index35 index36 index37 index38 index39 index40 index41 index42 index43 index44 index45 index46 index47 index48 index49 index50 index51 index52 index53 index54 index55 index56 index57 index58 index59 index60 index61 index62 index63 index64 index65 index66 index67 index68 index69 index70 index71 index72 index73 index74 index75 index76 index77 index78 index79 index80 index81 index82 index83 index84 index85 index86 index87 index88 index89 index90 index91 index92 index93 index94 index95