------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Janet M. Eaton" <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 11:26:37 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) PBS Special on Micro-Credit - One more thing !! Further to my earlier posting below, I was reminded that this is probably about the Grameen Bank. Therefore I wanted to suggest in the viewing thereof we should be mindful of the Grameen's deep financial troubles, their courtship with Monsanto -perhaps for this reason, their subsequent backtracking after Vandana Shiva's letter to Yunus and other pressure from Developing World interests and that Yunus is still desperately seeking outside finance to prop up Grameen. All the best, je ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Janet M. Eaton" <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 08:38:16 +0000 Subject: PBS Special on Micro-Credit & Micro-enterprise -Tonight*** TO OUR CREDIT, a two-part documentary for public television, will air on PBS on Thursday, September 10 and 17 at 10 PM - check local listings as times vary. Part I, Bootstrap Banking and the World, presents stories of women in Bangladesh, South Africa, Bolivia and India who have received microloans and who have established successful businesses. Worldwide, microcredit has reached over 13 million people during the past decade. Four out of five borrowers have been women. Part II, Bootstrap Banking in America, profiles microentrpreneurs in New Hampshire, North Dakota, Chicago, and Arkansas. Microenterprise development is a strategy which is particularly focused on those whom the booming American economy has left behind. For them, self-employment is often the best, or only, option. Over 300 organizations in the United States work to provide these micro-entrepreneurs with loans, training and support. For Tool Kits, Viewer's Guides, preview tapes, Press Kit, contact <<http://www.toourcredit.org>> or ****************************************************************************** -- For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/ X-POP3-Rcpt: jslakov@clan Return-Path: •••@••.••• Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 08:21:17 -0300 (ADT) From: J H Martin Willison <•••@••.•••> To: Jan Slakov <•••@••.•••> Subject: corporation bites nation story (fwd) ************************************* ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 17:07:23 -0700 (PDT) From: MichaelP <•••@••.•••> To: "unlikely.suspects": ; Subject: Two pieces on Nafta - environmental subverts FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: For More Information Contact: August 24, 1998 Michelle Sforza 202-546-4996 or The Council of Canadians 613-233-2773 Canada slapped with NAFTA lawsuit against another environmental law Canada revoked PCB Ban to Avoid NAFTA Challenge Producer now demands compensation for lost profits while law was in effect Notice Comes one week after Canada pays U.S. chemical company $10 million, revokes other NAFTA-challenged green law Canada was slapped with another NAFTA challenge just a week after the country paid $10 million to the US-based Ethyl Corporation and revoked a public health law to avoid a potentially costly ruling under the same NAFTA provision. The new lawsuit, using a NAFTA provision that allows companies to directly sue governments, was initiated by Ohio based company S.D. Myers Inc. Canada banned the export of PCB-contaminated waste in 1995, but revoked the ban in early 1997 after U.S. firms announced they would challenge the law under NAFTA. Myers, a PCB treatment company, demands an undisclosed sum for profits lost during the 15-month period of the ban. "Myers used NAFTA to complain about Canada's PCB export ban, so the ban was lifted. Now they are using NAFTA to demand payment for lost profits from when the law was in effect. NAFTA empowers a company to force our government to have to pay for trying to protect the environment," said Maude Barlow, volunteer national chairperson with the Council of Canadians. "With the challenge occuring in a secret tribunal, Canadians aren't even allowed to know what's happening. It's undemocratic and simply outrageous and Canadians can look forward to much more of the same under NAFTA," adds Barlow. Under NAFTA rules, Myers' complaint and any proceedings, including negotiations with the Canadian government, are kept confidential. Myers is using a NAFTA provision on which the controversial Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) is based. The MAI, a proposal to establish far-reaching rights for multinational corporations, is under negotiation at the OECD, where talks are scheduled to resume in October. The provision empowers corporations to directly sue governments in NAFTA tribunals for cash damages for any government action "tantamount to" an indirect expropriation or "taking." Sometimes called "regulatory takings," this provision allows Myers to claim its missed opportunity to profit during the ban constitutes an illegal seizure of its assets. Says Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, "NAFTA's critics warned that NAFTA would have a chilling effect on public interest safeguards. This case proves that corporations will use NAFTA to attack public health and environmental laws. NAFTA's "takings" provision goes further than the property rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, with devastating effects on public health and the environment." Myers' use of NAFTA to attack Canada's policy reverses the international trend towards minimizing trade in hazardous waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposed a total ban on PCB imports in July 1997. "Under U.S. law, Myers can not import PCBs from Canada. This suit is about extorting money from the Canadian government during the few months the U.S. allowed PCBs to be imported," says Wallach. "Chalk this case up to another NAFTA broken promise. Ethyl's and now Myers' lawsuit show that trade agreements will be used to subvert environmental goals; an occurrence that the U.S. government repeatedly denied would happen under NAFTA. Yet rather than slowing down and reassessing its trade policy, the Administration is negotiating agreements that would apply these same anti-regulatory rules worldwide," Wallach says. In addition to the MAI, the Clinton Administration is negotiating the Free Trade area of the Americas (FTAA), a hemispheric trade pact, which will include an investment chapter modeled on NAFTA's. Negotiations on the investment rules for the FTAA are set to begin in September. Margrete Strand Rangnes MAI Project Coordinator Public Citizen Global Trade Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE Washington DC, 20003 •••@••.••• 202-546 4996, ext. 306 202-547 7392 (fax) To subscribe to our MAI Listserv send an e-mail to •••@••.•••, or subscribe directly by going to our website, www.tradewatch.org =========================================== ENVIRONMENT-FINANCE: Corporations Use Trade Pact to Sue Countries By Abid Aslam WASHINGTON, Sep 2 (IPS) - U.S. companies are using the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to sue neighbouring countries in secret trials that, opponents warn, will spread to other nations as wider free-trade pacts are inked. When Canada moved to protect its citizens' health from a potentially harmful fuel additive, the chemical's U.S. manufacturer sued on the grounds that this would obstruct free trade - and in July succeeded in overturning Canadian law. Another U.S. company, having used similar means to force Canadian authorities to rescind a ban on chemical waste exports, now says it will sue to be compensated for business lost while the ban was in force. A third U.S. firm awaits the outcome of its complaint, that it had been prevented from opening a waste disposal plant because of environmental zoning laws in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. In all three cases, corporations have invoked the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which since 1994 has given them the right to sue governments they believe are erecting unfair trade barriers. Cases are heard - in secret, if so desired by any one party - by tribunals whose decisions are binding. Opponents warn that similar actions could be taken against countries signing on to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and other international pacts modeled on NAFTA, which was forged by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. ''Trade agreements will be used to subvert environmental goals, an occurrence that the U.S. government repeatedly denied would happen under NAFTA,'' says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. ''Yet, rather than slowing down and reassessing its trade policy, the (U.S.) administration is negotiating agreements that would apply these same anti-regulatory rules worldwide,'' Wallach adds. MAI negotiations are set to resume in October and talks on investment rules for a 'Free Trade Area of the Americas' are scheduled to begin this month. In July, the Canadian government agreed to lift its prohibition against importing and inter-province trading in the fuel additive MMT (or 'methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl'). It further agreed to pay MMT maker Ethyl Corporation some 10 million dollars and issued a public statement that the formula posed no health risk - just as new evidence surfaced, linking the manganese used in the octane enhancer to nervous-system problems. In return, Ethyl agreed to drop a 250-million-dollar suit alleging that Canada had, in effect, seized its property - in this case, its anticipated profits - by banning MMT. The U.S.-based company also claimed that its reputation had been damaged by parliamentary debate before the ban was imposed in April 1997. A far-reaching precedent has been set, according to trade lawyer Lawrence Herman. ''The investor-state arbitration provisions of NAFTA seemed confined to cases where governments took assets away by direct action and refused to compensate the investor,'' he notes in 'The Financial Post.' Ethyl Corp.'s case, however, ''illustrates governments are at peril if they adopt measures having the 'effect' of expropriating foreign-owned assets, directly or indirectly.'' Canada also banned exports of industrial waste containing carcinogenic PCBs (or 'polychlorinated biphenyls') between 1995 and early 1997, when it abandoned its policy after U.S. firms threatened a challenge under NAFTA. According to lawyers for S.D. Myers Inc., which specialises in PCB treatment, the company has served notice to the Canadian government that it intends to sue for cash damages. The firm's argument is that the ban denied it opportunity to profit and therefore amounted to a seizure of its assets outlawed by the regional trade pact. Yet, ''under U.S. law, Myers cannot import PCBs from Canada,'' counters Wallach, who notes that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in July 1997 banned all imports of PCBs. ''This suit is about extorting money from the Canadian government during the few months the U.S. allowed PCBs to be imported.'' Myers's actions show that ''NAFTA empowers a company to force our government to have to pay for trying to protect the environment,'' says Maude Barlow, a leading trade activist who chairs the non-governmental Council of Canadians. The promise of secrecy to anyone requesting it, she adds, ''is undemocratic and simply outrageous.'' A three-member tribunal has yet to hand down its ruling in a January 1997 case registered with the International Centre for settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) by Metalclad corporation, another U.S. waste disposal company, against the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Metalclad had taken over a waste disposal plant on condition it lean up existing problems. State authorities declared the site an cological zone and refused to allow the firm to reopen the acility, however, after an environmental impact assessment evealed that it was perched atop delicate underground streams. The company is seeking some 90 million dollars in damages. ''In a vein similar to that of Ethyl Corporation's claims, Metalclad is claiming that the zoning law constitutes an effective seizure of the company's property,'' says Michelle Sforza, research director at Public Citizen. ''Without NAFTA's strong provision on expropriation, Metalclad alone would be forced to assume the risks of investment and would have learned a valuable lesson about conducting the proper environmental assessments before committing significant resources to an investment,'' Sforza notes. ''Under the rights conferred by NAFTA ... the government of Mexico could be forced to shoulder the isks and costs of Metalclad's investment should the company win its suit.'' Under NAFTA, disputes can be referred to ICSID, a legal ecretariat housed at the World Bank's Washington headquarters, or the Vienna-based U.N. Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). The tribunal handling the Metalclad case - an American and Mexican presided over by a Briton - was appointed by the parties in May 1997, says a legal source. The Ethyl case had been registered with the UN body because Canada is not a member of ICSID. (END/IPS/aa/kb/98) >---------- >Abid Aslam >Inter Press Service/IPS >1293 National Press Building >Washington, D.C. 20045 >Tel: (202) 662-7177 >Fax: (202) 662-7164 >email: •••@••.••• ============ -- For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
