WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE
PERU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT?
The Peru
Free Trade Agreement will:
THREATEN SMALL FARMERS. The
agreement will favor only a small sector of Peruvian farmers who export
to the US. By lowering Peru's tariffs on agricultural products, the
vast majority of farmers would be vulnerable to cheap subsidized imports
from the U.S. This would wipe out local farmers as happened
to the 1.3 million who have been displaced in Mexico since NAFTA passed
12 years ago.
THREATEN
ACCESS TO LIFE-SAVING MEDICINES. While the amended text of the Peru
FTA removes the most egregious, CAFTA-based, provisions limiting the
access to affordable medicines, it still includes NAFTA provisions that
undermine the right to affordable medicines for poorer countries.
THREATEN
WORKERS. Changes to the labor provisions are insufficient. The Peru
FTA allows discretion for FTA dispute settlement panels to interpret
and apply the terms of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles
and Rights at Work differently than the Declaration has been interpreted
and applied by the ILO itself. Enforcement of the new changes will be
dependent on the Peruvian Executive Branch that has a consistent record
of undermining domestic labor.
THREATEN THE AMAZON.
The Peruvian Amazon rainforest is already under attack by oil, gas,
timber, mining, and corporate agribusiness. Investor rules under
the free trade agreement will allow corporations to sue the Peruvian
government when enforcement of environmental laws results in lost corporate
profits. By contrast, environmental groups are not granted the
right to sue corporations in international tribunals for violating multi-lateral
environmental agreements only the anti-environmental Bush administration
will have that power. New rules
THREATEN
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES by opening the way for large pharmaceutical and
agribusiness corporations to patent traditional knowledge, seeds, and
life forms. This opens the door to bio-piracy of the Andean-Amazon region
and threatens the ecological, medicinal and cultural heritage of indigenous
peoples. Oil corporations like Occidental Petroleum have a devastating
history of polluting the lands of indigenous communities and will be
able to use the new investor rights provisions of the agreement to continue
their practices with impunity.
THREATEN
WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND THE POOR. Provisions promoting the privatization
and deregulation of essential services such as water, healthcare and
education are written into this trade agreement. As these services become
less accessible, women and the poor would have to make up for increases
in prices of these services.
THREATEN FARM
ANIMAL WELFARE, FOOD SAFETY, AND DRINKING WATER. As family
farms are displaced, the US will flood the Peruvian market with animal
products produced in inhumane, polluting, unsanitary factory farms.
Factory farming is also likely to increase in Peru with contamination
of drinking water a likely outcome. Under the free trade agreement,
Peru will be forced to lift its ban on the import of US poultry products
suspected of spreading avian influenza.
THREATEN
U.S. AND PERUVIAN SOVEREIGNTY. The Peru FTA contains a NAFTA-style
foreign investor chapter that allows corporations to bring actions against
governments that pass environmental and public health laws that might
reduce corporate profits
THREATEN WILDLIFE.
Rainforest logging in Peru is associated with mass scale hunting of
rainforest wildlife by logging personnel, causing the extermination
of entire populations of large mammals. New logging projects encouraged
by the agreement's investment rules will exacerbate this problem.
The investment rules will also encourage by increased development along
coastlines, threatening sea turles.
TAKE ACTION TO REPEAL
THIS DISASTROUS TRADE AGREEMENT! |