Private greed - paid for by us all
Robert Allen on a report which warns of the malignant power of
global corporations
Over the past few years the European Union and the United States
have been attempting to set a free trade agenda for the rest of
the world - on their terms. But the impact of such an agenda
would be to give global corporations the freedom to control the
market economy with little regulatory interference from
governments - in other words a global carpetbagger's charter.
It's called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and
before you know it that global club called the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will have it
implemented, the idea being that this agenda will establish
international rules for foreign direct investment by private
capital in countries that agree to the MAI. The MAI is presently
being negotiated by the OECD, a Paris-based international policy
organisation comprising 29 counties and 447 of the world's
largest corporations.
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) would allow
corporations the freedom to exploit markets without restriction
of any kind, including legislation that would seek to protect the
environment and the health of communities. The OECD has been
negotiating the MAI in secret since 1995 and it was only the leak
of a draft that exposed it in February this year
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Earthwatch's Sadhbh O'Neill was a member of the Irish delegation
which represented the Network of Irish Environment and
Development Organisations (NIEDO) at the Second Earth Summit in
New York in late June. Globalisation featured prominently at the
Summit but according to O'Neill, who has just prepared a report
on the follow-up to the first summit at Rio in 1992, communities
and the environment did not. ``The Multi-lateral Agreement on
Investment will,'' she stated in her report ``reduce the power of
national governments to stipulate conditions under which
transnational corporations and investors operate within their
countries. So far the MAI has not included any reference to
environmental protection or sustainable development, but there is
approximately another few months to influence the draft
agreement, which was deliberately introduced by the US through
the OECD to avoid both organisations [the United Nations and the
World Trade Organisation].'' The MAI seeks to protect and expand
the power of corporations and wealthy individuals by guaranteeing
them:
a stable investment climate;
easy repatriation of profits;
open-market access by establishing National Treatment and Most
Favoured Nation designations;
freedom from complying with regulations and legislation
pertaining to environmental, social and health safeguards and
freedom from any obligation to serve local needs.
If implemented the MAI would allow private investors and
corporations to sue governments and seek compensation at
international tribunals for failure to protect these benefits. In
other words the MAI would allow corporations the freedom to
exploit markets without restriction of any kind, including
legislation that would seek to protect the environment and the
health of communities. The OECD has been negotiating the MAI in
secret since 1995 and it was only the leak of a draft that
exposed it in February this year.
O'Neill quotes Dr Vandana Shiva, the physicist, philosopher and
ecofeminist. According to Shiva the process of globalisation is a
``rewriting of the social contract, or the contract between
governments and people. What we're getting is a whole series of
new policies that is turning the government from being an
instrument that people can use, into being an instrument that
only foreign corporations can use against the people. Behind this
restructuring of the social contract is a rewriting of the rights
of people''.
If O'Neill's analysis of this cosy summit tells us anything it is
the horrible fact that the majority of the people on this planet
have no say or control over their lives. People like Shiva are
lone voices on the subject of globalisation and while
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Earthwatch and
Greenpeace are well meaning in their concerns their ability to
influence the Summit was negligible. ``NGO concerns about
globalisation and the rise of corporate power never made their
way onto the agenda proper,'' O'Neill laments in her report,
noting that delegates concerned about the globalisation of
private capital had their arguments quashed by a combined assault
from the delegates representing the more powerful developing
nations and the US - largely on behalf of the global
corporations. The developing world wants finance, development aid
and technology while the developed world (aka the corporations)
wants carte blanche to do what it likes.
O'Neill notes dryly that the prognosis for the world's
environment does not look good. ``Since 1992 new issues and
concerns [have] reared their heads; concerns about globalisation,
climate change, forest depletion, financial crises for developing
countries and ubiquitous environmental degradation.'' From the
beginning, she adds, there was little chance of progress in New
York. ``At the 5th session of the UN's Commission on Sustainable
Development, established in 1992 to oversee the implementation
Agenda 21, it became evident that developing countries
represented by G-77 were unwilling to sign up to any new
commitments on sustainability without the resources promised five
years earlier at Rio. For their part, industrialised countries
simply wanted to `re-confirm' Agenda 21 without shifting their
positions on financial, trade and investment issues.''
So we continue to hurtle towards the inevitable. ``Corporations
now control more of the Earth's resources than public bodies or
governments,'' says O'Neill ``and the incessant demands of their
shareholders to increase profits can only be met by capturing an
even greater share of the world's gains while passing on to
others the costs - Noam Chomsky calls this `privatising gains and
socialising costs'. Added to this is the fact that global
institutions that have taken unto themselves the responsibility
for managing the global economy - the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the
OECD, the International Standards Organisation, G-7 and others -
are wholly undemocratic, secretive and dominated by corporate
interests.''
O'Neill, however, is optimistic. ``As the environmental crisis
gets worse, people are also getting more assertive and active,
and new relationships are being forged between environmental
activists and trade unions, fishermen, farmers and indigenous
peoples.'' And she quotes Shiva who says ``that's precisely because
it is a crisis for survival''.
The 32 Counties are part of the OECD yet despite the pathetic
roars of the Celtic Tiger the people of Ireland are dominated by
corporate capitalism. The news this week that over one in four
children in the 26 Counties lives in poverty should be an
indication that the policies of successive Dublin governments
have failed - and that's because we handed the state over to the
corporations four decades ago.
The full text of Sadhbh O'Neill's report is available as a
supplement to Pobal an Dulrá #10, available from Pobal an Dulrá,
10 Upper Camden Street, Dublin 1 or by e-mailing atglas@tinet.ie.
Robert Allen adds: Sadhbh O'Neill is to be congratulated for
writing this report and making it available to individuals who
are not part of the NIEDO.
Robert Allen is the co-author (with Tara Jones) of Guests of the
Nation - about the impact of global capitalism on Irish
communities, published by Earthscan, 1990.
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