EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Six, Number Six
September/October 1997

Call to Action:

MAIDAY! MAIDAY!
Challenge the Divine Right of Money

Since 1995 secret 1 negotiations have been under way within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). MAI is an international pact designed to ease the movement of money and production facilities across international borders by restricting, in participating countries, laws that are viewed as obstacles to capital flows. The proposed agreement's primary proponents are the United States and the European Union. The most prominent non-governmental backers are business groups, including the US Council for International Business, the National Association of Manufacturers and the European-American Chamber of Commerce. The 29 high-income countries in OECD would join first; then participation in the MAI would be offered to poorer nations. Countries that sign the MAI would be required (for 20 years) to:

  1. Open all economic sectors, including real estate, broadcasting and natural resources, to foreign ownership.
  2. Treat foreign investors no less favorably than domestic firms.
  3. Remove performance requirements ö laws that require investors to behave in a certain way in exchange for market access. (The requirement of using a certain percentage of nationals in the workforce could be prohibited. All proposals for public health and environmental protection standards would be non-binding.)
  4. Remove restrictions on the movement of capital. (Corporations could move their assets and profits out of the country without penalty.)
  5. Compensate investors in full when their assets are expropriated, either through seizure or "unreasonable" regulation. (MAI participants could follow the example of the Ethyl Corporation which, under the NAFTA agreement, has sued the Canadian government for $251 million in damages, for banning the import and transport within Canada of the toxic gasoline additive MMT.)
  6. Accept a dispute-resolution process allowing investors to sue governments for damages before international panels of "experts," when they believe a country's laws are in violation of MAI rules.
  7. Ensure that state and local governments comply with the MAI. (MAI regulations would overrule state and local statutes that interfere with corporate operations.)

Proponents of the MAI claim that the agreement will provide needed protection for US international investors against discrimination and expropriation, and help business by increasing competition and efficiency in the global economy. They claim it will contribute to worldwide economic growth without unfavorable side effects.

Opponents of the MAI claim it to be a tyranny of the monetary system that will increase the income gap between the rich and the poor, and weaken environmental protection and labor standards. Laws on the books that protect the environment and public health could be ruled to be discriminatory, or to constitute expropriation of investor assets, or to be illegal performance requirements.

Democracy itself is undermined when the real power to make crucial economic decisions in the national interest is increasingly removed from elected officials. By conferring benefits and protection on transnational investors while demanding no obligations of them, MAI offers them absolute power that leads to absolute corruption.

Social justice and environmental NGOs are lobbying for immediate public release of MAI negotiating texts and calling for widespread public consultation.

Send your letters now (before the President can fast-track the MAI) to your local media, congressperson, senator, President Clinton and to Charlene Barschevsky, US Trade Representative, 600 17th Street NW, Washington DC 20508.

Information from Preamble Collaborative (202/265-3263) web site www.rtk.net/preamble; and from Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 2105 First Ave. S., Minneapolis MN 55404; 612/870-3400; email: klehman@iatp.org.

1. secret until they were leaked on the internet.

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