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NAFTA, made up of Canada, the United States and Mexico, allows foreign investors to claim damages from a member country if they can show that new laws or regulations reduce the value of their investments or give favourable treatment to local firms.

For example, if Ottawa were to decree that only provincial health plans could provide insurance for home care or pharmacare, a foreign company that offers such coverage could claim compensation for lost profits.

Also, any decision to allow expansion of profit-driven, user-pay medicine might be irrevocable under NAFTA's rules -- even if a future government were to judge the move a failure and want to reverse it.

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NAFTA ties our hands.

Edit:

It's not about the US vs. Canada. It's about who is actually controlling the agenda when these agreements are drafted.

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Slim ]

A protectionist.
A Luddite.
A wacko like Ross Perot
A tool of the unions
Racist
A paleo-leftist.
A member of the flat earth society.

I'm sure they're others. And you get that response not even from the Republicans, but from the media, which has swallowed globalization hook, line, and sinker. Not one candidate who is being mentioned for the Democratic nomination, with the exception from Dennis Kucinich, who may or may not run, deviates from that line. After all, who was it that pushed NAFTA through in the U.S.? Clinton and Gore.

Fighting chapter 11 of NAFTA is the most important fight available to the Left.
No.

It's the most important fight available for democracy worldwide.
Why? Because the battle lines and what's at stake are clearly drawn.

On one side, we have Capital and the right of corporations to make a profit without regard for any limitations on this right that may be a function of particular local laws or standards. Implicit in this right is the right to move large amounts of capital from place to place without penalty or hindrance, reagrdless of the effects that this may have on a local or national economy.

On the other side, we have the right of people to hold corporations responsible for maintaining standards of workplace safety, fair remuneration and labour practices vis-a-vis their employees. On this side is also the idea that corporations have a responsibility to abide by local environmental regulations, and to respect regulations concerning misrepresentation of one's activities to the public.

Also on this side is the idea that the authority of a government and its laws that have been put into place through the operation of a democratic electoral system represents the will of a sovereign people.
This authority is not arbitrary and has been paid for by the blood of soldiers, reformers, demonstrators and political prisoners all over the globe.

As such, it is only through the operation of the particular democratic bodies that created legislation that this legislation ought to be overturned.

No other nation or international body ought to be able to arbitratily rule on the legitimacy of another's democratically-determined laws.

Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows the WTO to rule that a particular situation (framed by a country's laws that allow it to exist) is "tantamount to nationalization or expropriation" if it deems that a corporation will unfairly lose profits when trying to compete.

They can sue the government for damages.

True, they can't repeal the legislation, but they can make it too costly for a government to maintain its enforcement.

For those to whom this is news, there are many references online about some of these cases.

Here's one of many..

See, the problem is that there is a GATT being negotiatated for the EU, and investment agreements and trade deals also being negotiated in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Chapter 11, in this case only applies to Canada, the US and Mexico and only applies to corporations whose legal team can show that they are not of the nation against which the challenge is being lost so that homegrown businesses have less profit-making leverage than foreign ones.

Bill Moyers did a great show on this called Trading Democracy, I think.

Paul Martin is the Canadian poster child (along with John Manley.

Problem is, as josh said, you tell people this in Canada or the US and they make with the aluminum-foil hat cracks.
But even if chapter 11 itself isn't the death-knell for democracy, if it is globalized it can begin to wipe out any progressive developments in many countries at one fell swoop.

People like minigun, living in their fools' paradise are drunk with the military power of the US. But Uncle Sam has to play by the rules of the WTO, too. Methanex and Loewen Group are two names to look up.

I wish I knew what could be done to wake people up in time to stop this, 'cause at stake is our healthcare, our environment, our economy, our educational system, our prison system, our drinking water and who knows what else.

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I'm surprised Americans aren't up in arms about it. It puts the rights of governments - which are elected by the people - below those of corporations, which are definitely not elected by the people. It makes the wishes of the people all but irrelevant.

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And gosh, aren't these the same Americans that rant that the ICC can't be signed by the USA because such a treaty violates the US constitution by putting an authority ABOVE the United States government?