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Proposal Details

Proposal ID475
ProposalPLATFORM: Foreign Policy: Trade, Plank I DC
PresenterPlatform Committee presenter, DC Statehood Greens and Green Party of California co-sponsors
Floor ManagerDavid Strand
PhaseClosed
Discussion07/05/2010 - 07/25/2010
Voting07/26/2010 - 08/01/2010
ResultFailed
Presens Quorum31 0.6666
Consens Quorum81 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

GPUS Bylaws Article IX. Platform

9-1.1 The GPUS Platform represents policies upon which most Greens would agree and serves as a basis for Green Presidential and Congressional campaigns. The Platform may only be amended as provided by this Article.

9-1.3 In even numbered years in which there is no Presidential Nominating Convention, the National Committee shall be the decision-making body responsible for amending the platform. The process shall be as established in the GPUS Rules and Procedures.

9-1.4 Amendments to the Platform may be submitted for consideration by any accredited state party or caucus, or any committee whose Mission Statement authorizes it.

Proposal

This text replaces the entire 2004 Trade Section:

Chapter 1: Grassroots Democracy

Subsection title: Fair trade, not corporate-managed trade

Our position: Greens support trade agreements that improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards.

"Free trade", as it exists today, is market capitalism for the profit of the investor. "Free trade" is not fair trade.

Historically the United States has pursued trade agreements that increased the profits of the world's largest multinational corporations at the expense of the environment, workers, consumers, family farmers, human rights and domestic sovereignty. Such trade agreements must be abolished, re-negotiated or replaced.

By contrast, Greens stand for fair trade.

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers –- especially in the Global South. Fair trade also prioritizes the needs of people and the environment over the demands of capital. Fair trade agreements are designed to primarily benefit workers, consumers, local economies and the environment, not corporate profits.

GREEN SOLUTIONS

1. Replace the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) with new institutions that are democratic, transparent and accountable to people of all nations. Ensure that their operations follow sustainability principles and all international conventions on human and labor rights, and environmental protection.

2. Until the WTO, IMF and World Bank are replaced, implement reforms such as prohibiting the use of IMF/WB loans to impose structural adjustment programs that place debt service and export-led development ahead of, and at the expense of, social and environmental needs; and installing strict standards for grants and loans to prevent fraud, misuse, subversion of funds by recipient and often dictatorial, governments. Require a sustainability impact assessment of earlier WTO negotiation rounds before any new rounds are undertaken. Separate the disputes settlement mechanism from the exclusive control of the WTO.

3. Restructure the loans made by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to cancel the debt of developing nations around the globe, where those nations cannot afford to repay without meeting their people's basic needs; and/or where those loans were made on unfair terms, including very high interest rate, payable in foreign currency; and/or where those loans went knowingly to dictatorial and/or or oppressive regimes and/or were stolen through corruption and/or were contracted illegally by evading a country's internal democratic processes; and/or where those loans were made for projects that failed because of bad advice and/or incompetence by the lenders, and/or were attempts to impose an inappropriate infrastructure upon the recipient county.

4. Re-negotiate international trade treaties and agreements that the U.S. is a signatory to, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and others, to respect, protect and improve (harmonize upward) labor, health, safety, consumer, environmental, human rights and animal welfare standards, and to support local economies and businesses, and sustainable agriculture.

5. Replace the existing anti-democratic US "fast track" trade agreement negotiation and approval process with a more transparent and inclusive process that requires far more substantive congressional involvement and oversight, and ensures the consultative involvement from state and local governments and organizations that represent labor, small business, health, safety, consumer, environmental, human rights and animal welfare.

6. Ensure that trade agreements do not infringe upon the rights of citizens to public ownership and control of their nation's resources. Ensure that basic access to food, social and public health, education, culture, and an independent media are not made 'commodities' subject to trade agreements. Ensure that trade agreements do not infringe upon native peoples' land and treaty rights, and their rights to determine the use of natural resources on their land.

7. Oppose trade agreements that infringe on the sovereignty of federal, state or local governments to make their own laws and set their own standards. Ensure that the federal government may not pre-empt the legitimate authority of the states to set higher labor, health, environmental and land use standards and regulations than the federal government, and that no trade agreements signed by the U.S. may circumvent this right.

8. Repeal Chapter 11 in NAFTA that allow foreign-investors to challenge domestic public health, environmental and land-use policies as non-tariff trade barriers.

9. Oppose the presence of corporate welfare in trade agreements. Oppose the presence of special protections for pharmaceutical companies to curtail access to affordable generic medicines; service sector privatization and deregulation requirements; bans on "buy American" and anti-sweat shop and environmental procurement policies; and new rights and privileges for foreign investors to promote offshoring.

10. Require U.S. corporations that operate in other countries to guarantee their workers the same rights that American workers enjoy, including the labor standards established by the International Labor Organization's Declaration of the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

11. Address U.S. imports of goods exported from nations that lack protections equivalent to U.S. standards for labor, health, safety, and the environment by one or more of the following ways: restrict trade of goods and services that are not in keeping with these standards; levy social and/or environmental tariffs to internalize the difference in standards; consider inclusion of a social charter in each trade agreement guaranteeing workers common health and safety standards, collective-bargaining rights, and working conditions, with standards harmonized to the highest existing levels among treaty signatories; consider inclusion of an environmental charter in each trade agreement, with environmental laws and standards where they affect trade harmonized to the highest existing levels among treaty signatories. Combine such strategies with debt relief and/or financial aid to exporting countries so that these countries may more quickly raise their social and environmental standards to a high, common international level.

12. Require labeling of all imported and exported genetically modified products.

Resources

none

References

http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/comments/?p=553
http://www.gp.org/platform

CONTACTS:
Marnie Glickman marnie - at - greenchange.org
Bruce Hinkforth bhinkforth - at milwpc.com
Jane Zara jjzara - at - aol.com

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