About Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
Global Trade Watch's
mission is to ensure that in this era of globalization, a majority have the
opportunity to enjoy economic security, a clean environment, safe food,
medicines and products, access to quality affordable services such as health
care and the exercise of democratic decision-making about the matters that
affect their lives.
Who are we?
Visit Global Trade Watch's Staff Bios. Interested in working with us? Apply now for spring, summer or fall internships!.
WHAT IS
GLOBAL TRADE WATCH?
Global
Trade Watch (GTW) is a division of Public Citizen, the national, nonprofit
consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971. Public Citizen has over 225,000
due-paying members mainly in the United States. Global Trade
Watch was created in 1995 to promote government and corporate accountability in
the globalization and trade arena Public Citizen did not get into “trade.” Rather, we
recognized early on that the interests we had long battled domestically in
promoting our agenda of democratically accountable governance, economic
justice, public health and environmental wellbeing were advocating for new
international institutions where decisions could be made behind closed doors
and without the participation of those who would live with the results. We
learned how “trade” pacts such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) impose expansive constraints on
federal, state and local governments with respect to many non-trade policies,
from food and product safety to financial regulation to local development and
access to essential services to climate change and the environment and more.
The pacts also establish new rights for foreign investors to operate under
deregulated terms in financial services, natural resource extraction, and other
sensitive sectors. Effectively, these "trade"
agreements shift an ever-increasing number of issues away from local
decision-making bodies and into inaccessible foreign venues where few citizens
or elected officials can follow. Thus, merely to remain effective in
achieving our goals, Public Citizen had to design strategies to effectively
engage in this new context.
Having built unique
substantive capacity and diverse contacts with other public interest
organizations, the press and policy-makers, GTW's work makes Public Citizen one
of the few U.S.
progressive organizations focused full-time on globalization issues. Our work
seeks to make the measurable outcomes of this model accessible to the public,
press and policy-makers, while emphasizing that if the results are not
acceptable, then the model can and must be changed or replaced. We have become
a leader in promoting a public interest perspective on an array of
globalization issues, including implications for our jobs and wages; food,
health and safety; environmental protection, economic justice, and democratic,
accountable governance. GTW has a proven ability to make
complicated, seemingly arcane, intractable issues accessible and relevant to
the press, policy-makers, and the public – building bottom-up pressure for
change. GTW has a record of designing strategies and
campaigns that operate on the local, state, national and international levels
to affect the outcomes of policymaking.
Representatives of
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division serve on the Executive Board of
the Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition of labor,
environmental, religious, family farm and consumer organizations united in the
pursuit of socially and environmentally just trade policy.
GTW also represents
Public Citizen as a member of the Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), a
network of organizations, activists and social movements worldwide fighting
against the current model of corporate globalization embodied in global trading
systems. OWINFS is committed to a sustainable, socially just, democratic and
accountable multilateral trading system.
HOW DOES GTW
AFFECT PUBLIC POLICY?
GTW combines substantive
and analytical capacity with extensive grassroots, press, and policy-maker
relationships to develop public policy debates on vital trade and globalization
issues. We design multifaceted national and international campaigns that focus
on the current mechanisms of globalization, such as the WTO its General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and other WTO pacts; NAFTA and its
expansions including the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and various
bilateral U.S. Free Trade Agreements (FTA); and the procedures by which such
policies are designed and implemented. We also carefully track ongoing
negotiations, including with respect to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership
FTA and Doha Round WTO expansion. We conduct research and monitor trade pact
outcomes; publish books, reports and a wide range of other materials; maintain
our online Trade Data Center
of publicly accessible, localized information; educate the public through an
extensive grassroots program; maintain relations with press and policy-makers;
and coordinate closely with an array of domestic and international allies and
partners.
WHAT IS GTW’S
PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH?
Animating many facets of
our work is the concept of the “public citizen” - a person who, once empowered
with information and tools to effect change, makes being an activist part of
her or his daily life. Thus, a GTW goal is clarifying for people that the current
globalization model is neither a random inevitability nor “free trade.” We have
worked in many venues to demonstrate for the public, press and policy-makers
that our current system is merely one version of rules, which includes a
“corporate-managed trade” system, removal of government safeguards policies on
investment and finance, commodification of environmental commons and public
services, deregulation and international harmonization of domestic regulatory
standards and new protections and rights for investors and foreign
corporations. GTW has engaged many new constituencies by showing
how “trade” affects their interests. All of our work seeks to make the measurable
outcomes of this model accessible to people, while reiterating that if the
results are not acceptable, then the model can and must be changed or replaced. We focus most of our resources on U.S.
domestic work because, despite the real achievements of our counterparts in
many nations, transformational change to the terms of globalization will be
thwarted unless we can change the U.S. approach.
WHAT ARE
GTW'S MAJOR ISSUES?
The World Trade Organization (WTO): Just over ten
years ago, citizen activists shut down the WTO ministerial in Seattle to protest the devastating impact of
the WTO's corporate globalization agenda on our jobs, wages and the
environment. Now, big corporations are back at it, again pushing an expansion
of the WTO's power. The 2001 “Doha Round” WTO expansion, the same retrograde
agenda that would expand the WTO’s powers that was rejected in Seattle in 1999,
was launched over the objection of many countries shortly after the 9-11 terrorist
attack. GTW works with a global network of civil society groups to stop the
Doha Round and replace that agenda with negotiations to replace the existing
WTO rules. GTW prioritizes work on the WTO because it is a primary delivery
mechanism implementing the corporate-led model of globalization. Indeed, in a
moment of candor, the WTO’s first Director General, Renato Ruggiero, announced: "We are writing the constitution for a single global economy."
The WTO enforces 17 agreements, most of which have little to do with trade
per se. Effectively, it is an enforceable system of global governance that
imposes broad constraints on its signatory governments’ domestic policies on
any non-trade matters. The WTO requires that countries “ensure the conformity
of their laws, regulations and administrative procedures” with the 900-plus
pages of the WTO’s non-tariff rules. Countries whose laws extend beyond the WTO’s
constraints on food safety, financial regulation, affordable generic medicine,
and more can be challenged within the WTO’s binding dispute resolution
tribunals. There, countries are ordered to conform their laws to the WTO rules
and trade sanctions can be imposed until they do so. Our book “Whose Trade
Organization” provides a comprehensive record of the WTO’s damaging outcomes.
NAFTA Expansion and the FTAs with Korea,
Colombia and Panama: Given the damaging outcomes
of NAFTA and its existing expansions, GTW is working to stop three more such
deals. Negotiated by the Bush administration, all three pacts have now been
adopted by the Obama administration. These pacts pose significant policy and
political peril. Passing the Korea deal would kill tens of thousands more U.S.
jobs. Even official government studies show it will increase the U.S. trade
deficit. Passing the deal with Colombia, the world’s unionist assassination
capital, would kill any leverage Colombian union, Afro-Colombian and other
community leaders and their U.S. union and civil society friends and allies
have to stop the murders, forced displacements and other acts of political
violence that dominate life in Colombia. And passing the Panama deal would kill our ability to fight tax havens and
try to extract the millions in unpaid corporate taxes we need to balance the U.S. budget
without risking attack by corporations under new privileges established in the
pact. President Obama campaigned and won on his
promises to deliver a fundamental change of course on our trade policy.
Instead, we face a situation - an Obama Colombia-Korea-Panama NAFTA expansion -
that is equal parts damaging, heartbreaking, infuriating and disgusting. But,
these pacts will only go into effect if Congress approves them, so contact your
member of the House of Representatives today.
Trade Agreements
and Financial Deregulation: Foreclosed homes. Lost jobs. Collapsing banks. The
greatest government involvement in the economy in generations. While these
headlines dominated the news, one of the root causes of the global financial
crisis has largely been ignored: over the last several decades, the U.S.
government and corporations have pushed extreme financial deregulation
worldwide using "trade" agreements and international agencies like
the WTO, FTAs and Bilateral Investment Treaties. Deregulation of the financial
sector from banking and insurance to asset-management, pension-funds and
securities, is among the most consequential but least discussed aspects of WTO
and other trade pacts. Indeed, until recently, few were even aware that the WTO
and FTAs covered financial policies, much less that they locked countries into
deregulation they undertook in the 1990s. The new global consensus for reregulation
conflicts with the trade pact bans on many common forms of financial
regulation. And, unimaginably, the proposed Trans-Pacific FTA, the three
pending FTAs with Korea, Panama and Colombia and the WTO Doha Round
would impose further financial deregulation.
GTW has created a new body of research and analysis that unpacks this
issue and proposes solutions to the existing rules’ problems. We are working
with civil society organizations, scholars and government officials in numerous
countries to try to fix the existing rules and ensure no further deregulation
is imposed in future pacts.
Trans-Pacific
Partnership FTA: These negotiations with Asian and Latin American nations were
originally initiated by the Bush Administration in 2008, with a focus on financial
deregulation and new foreign investor rights. The Obama Administration decided
to continue with this process in 2010, promising it would create a
new “high-standard 21st Century” agreement. However, as talks have
proceeded, the administration has in fact begun to replicate the old model,
heading the process towards becoming a NAFTA with Australia, Brunei, Chile,
New Zealand, Peru, Singapore,
Malaysia and Vietnam. As the first trade agreement negotiations
entered into by the Obama administration, this is a critical venue in which the
administration could create a new U.S. trade agreement model to
replace the failed NAFTA model. Activists and policymakers in the countries involved
in these talks have become increasing concerned about their direction and have
intensified efforts to ensure either these talks result in a new deal or no
deal. The target date for completion of the Trans-Pacific FTA is the end of
2011, but talks are expected to continue into 2012.
The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment (TRADE) Act: The TRADE Act outlines a way
forward to a new American trade and globalization agenda that could benefit
more people. This legislation lays out what we are FOR as a model for trade
expansion that can harvest the benefits of trade without the damage of the
NAFTA model. This alternative trade agreement and negotiating model is
supported by a broad array of labor, consumer, environmental, family farm and
faith groups. It requires a review of existing trade pacts, including NAFTA and
the WTO and sets forth what must and must not be included in future trade
agreements. It also provides for the renegotiation of existing trade agreements
and describes the key elements of a new trade negotiating and approval
mechanism to replace Fast Track that would enhance Congress' role in the
formative aspects of agreements and promote future deals that could enjoy broad
support among the American public. By the end of the 111th Congress, 152 members
of the House of Representatives had cosponsored this legislation. This included
more than two-thirds of House Democrats from conservative New Democrats and
Blue Dogs to Progressive to Black and Hispanic caucus members and two-thirds of
the full committee chairs and 55 subcommittee chairs – plus GOP. I
International Investment Rules That Erode Governments’
Authority: Under these rules, foreign corporations are empowered to sue
governments in closed foreign tribunals outside of domestic courts directly for
cash compensation. If a corporation wins, the taxpayers of the
"losing" NAFTA nation must foot the bill. NAFTA's investment chapter
(Chapter 11) contains a variety of new rights and protections for investors and
investments in NAFTA countries. If a company believes that a NAFTA government
has violated these new investor rights and protections, it can initiate a
binding dispute resolution process for monetary damages before a trade
tribunal, offering none of the basic due process or openness guarantees
afforded in national courts. These so-called "investor-to-state"
cases are litigated in the special international arbitration bodies of the
World Bank and the United Nations, which are closed to public participation,
observation and input. A three-person panel composed of professional
arbitrators listens to arguments in the case, with powers to award an unlimited
amount of taxpayer dollars to corporations whose NAFTA investor privileges and
rights they judge to have been impacted. This extraordinary attack on
governments' ability to regulate in the public interest is a key element of
recent and proposed NAFTA expansions. Almost any government action, including
non-discriminatory regulatory measures – local zoning laws, state court
rulings, forestry laws, toxics bans have and can be challenged before trade
tribunals bereft of due process guarantees or sovereign immunity shields. GTW
was a global leader in exposing the dangers of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) proposal that was
derailed through an international civil society campaign, and currently is
raising awareness about similar extreme investor rights and their private
enforcement included in the three Bush-era FTAs and now being promoted by the United States
in the Trans-Pacific FTA. We have
tracked all of the NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTA “investor-to-state” cases which provide evidence of the threats poses by
this model of extraordinary investor privileges and rights. To
date, $350 million has been paid out in NAFTA cases. Here is our comprehensive
table of all NAFTA, CAFTA and FTA cases.
Replacing Fast Track
With an Inclusive, Democratic Trade Negotiating and Approval Process: Fast Track was a U.S.
procedure established in the 1970s by President Nixon for negotiating trade
agreements that concentrated power in the president’s hands. It delegated to
the executive branch Congress’ exclusive constitutional authority to “regulate
Commerce with foreign nations.” In particular, Fast Track allowed the executive
branch to select countries for, set the substance of, and then negotiate and
sign trade agreements — all before Congress had a vote on the matter. Under
Fast Track, normal congressional committee processes were circumvented and the
executive branch was empowered to write lengthy implementing legislation for
each pact on its own. These executive-authored bills altered wide swaths of U.S. law to
conform domestic policy to each agreement’s requirements. Moreover, Fast Track
was unique in that it empowered the executive branch to force a congressional
vote on such implementing legislation and the related agreement within a set
amount of time. This system has been used to ram through Congress trade pacts
that do not enjoy public support. Fast Track renewal was last slipped through
Congress at midnight in 2002 by only two votes. On June 30, 2007, the
current grant of Fast Track, now called “Trade Promotion Authority” by its
supporters, expired. Fast Track is not needed to approve trade
agreements, a fact proven by the dozens of trade agreements that have been
passed without its use. Fast Track unnecessarily creates a situation where
negotiators cannot be held accountable by the public, and legislators are
denied their constitutional authority to set the terms of trade agreements. A
longtime priority of GTW is to replace this mechanism with a new process that
provides a meaningful role throughout for Congress and state legislatures and
that provides the openness and opportunities for public participation that
could result in trade pacts that enjoy broad support. A Fast Track replacement that
enjoys broad support is included in the TRADE Act.
Trade
Pact Invasion of State and Local Policy Space: Starting with NAFTA and the
WTO in the mid-90s, international "trade" agreement provisions began
invading traditional state policy space - delving deeply into matters of state
law from bans on state-level Buy-Local procurement policy to rules limiting land
use policy to constraints on energy, health and other service sector
regulation. Indeed, today, U.S.
trade agreements contain numerous non-trade policy obligations and regulatory
constraints to which state, and local governments are bound to conform their
domestic policies – even though these rules cover matters otherwise under state
authority. GTW has worked to help build awareness among state and local officials
about this pernicious form of international preemption and helps officials
engage in the process to try to safeguard state and local policy space.
WHAT ARE
SOME OF OUR PUBLICATIONS?
GTW serves as researcher
and translator of an array of globalization issues for other NGOs, the press,
policy-makers and the public. We continually create, update and distribute
materials ranging from lengthy, footnoted books and reports to fact sheets and
talking points on a multiplicity of topics. In each section of our website, you
will find a diverse set of materials that provide information for different audiences.
This includes fact sheets and talking points on current campaigns, charts of
how each member of Congress voted on each major trade vote since 1991, tables
summarizing the outcomes of NAFTA, CAFTA, FTA and WTO cases, lengthy footnoted
memos so you can dig deeper, copies of actual trade pact texts with annotation
to make them user friendly and guides, such as our Pocket Trade Lawyer
(available in numerous languages), key to reading a GATS schedule and
more. The goal of our website if to make
accessible and understandable sometimes complicated or publicly unavailable
information about trade and globalization and how it affects each of our daily
lives. Do you need more information? Contact us on gtwinfo@citizen.org.
Contact Us
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch,
215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington DC, 20003.
gtwinfo@citizen.org / www.tradewatch.org