A THIRD WORLD NETWORK FEATURE

10:14 AM Jun 4, 1997

A THIRD WORLD NETWORK FEATURE
Vermont, June (TWN) -- Over the past decade, European and North American Greens have worked to create international legal mechanisms to impose sanctions on countries that destroy the environment or basic human rights.

But while green protectionists in the North applaud laws requiring US trading partners to meet particular environmental conditions (such as not killing dolphins when they fish tuna), most Third World governments, and numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in the South fear that such trade barriers threaten their economic aspirations.

In 1988, under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the US placed an embargo on tuna caught with dolphin-killing methods.

Mexico denounced the MMPA as a protectionist trade weapon designed to close markets to foreign competitors. Rather than reform its fishing practices, Mexico sued the US in the pre- Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Arguing that it couldn't afford to bend to the whims of well-to- do environmentalists from developed countries, Mexico claimed that the US was guilty of economic imperialism with a green veneer.

The GATT ruled in favour of Mexico, finding that the way a product is produced may not be used as grounds for trade discrimination. Labour, human rights and environmental activists in the North feared that the ruling would pre-empt attempts to close markets to countries that systematically abuse their workers and natural environment.

Historically, it has been the US and other developed countries that have erected trade barriers against developing countries. In 1992, the UN Development Programme, estimated that protectionist measures taken by the North's 24 industrialized nations were costing Third World countries half a trillion dollars each year - approximately 12 times the amount of annual aid they receive from the prosperous nations.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that the North's non-tariff trade barriers reduce Third World exports by 20%, and the situation is worsening.

Ironically, the US, the country with the greatest ideological commitment to free trade, is the worst offender. The Reagan administration, for example, doubled import restrictions and reduced manufactured imports by 20 percent.

With this history, it is easy to see why developing countries tend to view environmental barriers to trade not as environmental protection measures, but as a new chapter in efforts to block their economic development.

The US also has used trade barriers to destabilise countries such as Cuba, Vietnam and Iraq. In 1991, when Southern countries brought a resolution to the UN General Assembly condemning the use of economic sanctions as a weapon of coercion, developed nations - led by the US -blocked the resolution.

Radical Greens want to replace free trade with 'local production for local consumption' (also known as import substitutions) which makes perfect economic sense - especially for agriculture.

Under current conditions, however, such a change is not possible. Southern countries are compelled to export their resources to Northern markets to earn the foreign exchange to pay their crushing external debts; meanwhile many Southern countries also are undergoing structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which mandates that their economies concentrate on exports to pay international creditors.

In addition, Northern goods (such as highly subsidised agricultural products) have flooded Southern markets.

The GATT Uruguay Round worsened this situation by opening the South's service industries to competition and eventual take-over by Northern based transnational corporations.

Any attempt by the South to control its own resources to establish a competitive industrial base would require some kind of protectionism to succeed. Such a step would be so obviously GATT-illegal that it could not withstand any challenge in the World Trade Organization (WTO) which currently hears trade disputes.

The South is in a bind.

The current neo-liberal, export-oriented policies are running up against a wall of protectionist barriers in the North - to which must be added the new 'green protectionism'.

Meanwhile, any attempt to move away from these policies will bring swift punishment from Northern-controlled institutions like the IMF and the WTO.

The main problem with green protectionism is that it assumes that the problems are in the South and the solutions are in the North; that the South is responsible for the planet's social and environmental degradation; and that the North must step in to impose more discipline.

Few, if any, proponents of green protectionism have suggested that developed countries use environmental trade barriers against each other, let alone suggested that Southern countries impose trade barriers against the North.

"Unilateralism is basically an instrument of imperial power used by the powerful nations against weak ones," says Indian activist Vandana Shiva.

Critics in the North and the South fear that this new protectionism is part of a disturbing retreat to a mercantalist Fortress America and Fortress Europe -- a movement that could herd the likes of Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, agribusiness, major manufacturers, organized labour and environmentalists onto a single bandwagon.

Unable to meet the North's new socio-ecological criteria for trade, the South could lose all its industries and remain confined to the role of raw commodities exporter and Northern- made, finished products importer.

The GATT's WTO-enforced intellectual property rights provisions would protect the North's monopoly on new technologies, keeping the South permanently deindustrialized.

When one combines this vision of global economic apartheid with the xenophobic and anti-immigrant position taken by an increasing number of American and European environmentalists, the message becomes clear: Close the borders!

While such a scenario seems to be little more than a conspiracy theory, it is quite plausible that in the near future authoritarian right-wing elements and misguided progressives might join forces to take the world in this disastrous direction.

Sound unlikely?

Think about the 'Earth First!' Founder David Foreman's praise of AIDS and African famine as badly needed population controls; the late Edward Abbey's blatant immigrant bashing; the popularity of writings of neo-Malthusian catastrophist Robert Kaplan; and population control zealots ranting about overly fertile Third World women while avoiding hard questions about over-consumption in their own countries.

The basic elements of eco-fascism are already in place.

This is not to say that the principle underlying green protectionism is wrong. It is evident that the current neo- liberal, free trade orthodoxy is a one-way road to social and environmental oblivion.

We must transcend the simplistic 'free trade good, protectionism bad' dichotomy. Trade barriers of one kind or another are imperative to put a step to destructive social and environmental practices. However, these barriers must not follow the old imperialistic logic of the North imposing itself on the South.

Any way out of this no-win situation requires an enlightened dialogue among progressive and forward-looking sectors of both North and South. Such a dialogue can take place in existing democratic forums such as UNCTAD, the International Labour Organization and the non-governmental International Forum on Globalization.

Northern activists would be well advised to consider these two proposals.

First: Focus on corporations. Do not lose sight of the fact that the transnational corporations are the ultimate beneficiaries of low wages and lax environmental regulation. If Nike shoes are made by Indonsian workers who are paid $1.35 a day, sanction Nike, not just Indonesia.

Second: Propose multilateral solutions. Positive incentives, rather than unilateral punitive measures, must be offered Third World countries.

If Northern countries demand that developing countries improve their environmental performance as a condition for market access, then developing countries should have access to the North's environmentally sound technologies.

This, of course, would mean an overhaul of the GATT's provisions on trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs). If a developing country is forced to raise its labour standards, it should receive a financial aid package to help in its transition.

These proposals run counter to the trade agenda of the North and its transnational corporations. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round were designed mainly to confine the South to a permanently under-developed and subordinate state.

Embracing the cause of the poorer countries will lead to a final parting with the illusion that saving our planet will not require an unpleasant confrontation with established power.

As Tom Athanasiou put it in his book Divided Plant, "History will judge Greens by whether they stand with the world's poor."

(Carmelo Ruiz is a Puerto Rican journalist and research associate at Vermont's Institute for Social Ecology, and is collaborating on a book about social ecology and economic globalization due to be published by Zed Books late in 1997. This article first appeared in Earth Island Journal, Spring 1997)