KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives/Initiatives œcuméniques canadiennes pour la justice
A Response to the A Dialogue on Foreign Policy
Submitted to The Hon. Bill Graham
Minister of Foreign Affairs
May 1, 2003
There are moments in history when a crack in time seems to open and swallow the known world: solid-seeming institutions… collapse or are discarded; settled beliefs are unsettled; old truths are discovered to be provisional; boundaries thought impossible are passed without comment. (Jonathan Schell, Harpers, March 2003)
Such a time is ours. A significant time; a time for faith; the time to act. A KAIROS.
Who is KAIROS
On July 1, 2001, from a rich global heritage and a hopeful Canadian tradition, Canadian churches and religious organizations formed KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives. A faithful and decisive response to God’s call for respect of the Earth and justice for its people, KAIROS is dedicated to promoting human rights, justice and peace, viable human development, and solidarity. In KAIROS, the churches and religious organizations work together for justice, benefiting from collective discernment in responding wisely and faithfully to the signs of the times.
KAIROS brings together the work of ten previous national ecumenical coalitions, each of which was a response to crisis and opportunity. Their work was broad: ranging geographically from the Americas (including Canada) to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; thematically from human rights to economic justice, ecology, and Aboriginal rights; and in practice from research to education and advocacy.
As a faith-based organization, we believe that the gifts of God’s creation are to be shared by all. Our interpretation of the Scriptures calls on us to be particularly vigilant for the well being of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our societies. These are elements we would like to see at the centre of the policies adopted by our Government.
A KAIROS Moment
Today’s global dysfunctions differ little from those encountered ten or twenty years ago, they have simply intensified—huge disparities in wealth; rampant miniaturization, aggression and violence; imperialism and the expansion of empire; and the unrelenting and unrepentant worship of self and Mamon—as evidenced by the proliferation of resource wars, ethnic, national and religious conflicts and the impoverishment and immiseration of entire populations following the deregulation or liberalization of global trade and currency regimes.
In this present ‘moment’, confronting new ‘realities’, we offer essentially the same prescription:
Canadian international relations must privilege above all other objectives the struggle for peace with justice in the global community. Peace, justice, human rights, universal solidarity and the integrity of Creation.
Sustainability and solidarity are the only roads to planetary survival. Sustainability presupposes systems—biological and social—that respect their mutuality, or interdependence, and the boundaries of viability. Solidarity acknowledges that we all hold each other’s welfare in our hands. A commitment to sustainability and solidarity requires that each of us undertake, in equal measure and to the best of our ability, to safeguard and sustain the health and integrity of our world and its resources.
Sustainability will not permit Canadians—in fact, those in the North generally—to maintain our present rate of consumption. Sustainability implies not only that the South ‘develop’ and ‘progress’; but, that we at the same time, consume and demand less. It is evident that the earth cannot sustain the current level of demand on its resources and that we in the North cannot continue, in all conscience, to live off the accumulated profits of five centuries of colonial exploitation, environmental degradation and unequal global development.
Over the past 300 years, Northern countries have been the primary beneficiaries of economic development. At the same time, the rich industrialized North has been the key contributor to environmental degradation, including climate change, whose impacts will be felt most intensely by future generations and vulnerable countries in the South. Our current economic system not only grievously compromises global biological viability in the longer term, it exacerbates historic, existing, social and economic injustices between the industrialised and the developing world.
For the Canadian churches, climate change is among the most dramatic illustrations of the destructive impact of growth-obsessed economics and unmitigated human selfishness on the well-being of God’s Creation. As such, it is of significant theological and ethical concern.
Globalization has brought the world’s problems to the doorstep of every Canadian household. Global relations are no longer ‘external’. We are engaged in a mortal struggle for a global system of rules and institutions, created democratically and transparently in the interests of all who inhabit this planet. We must choose between structures that provide for an inclusive globalization based on cooperation and solidarity and those that concede to ‘the market’—or rather to those who profit from that market—the unilateral right to define our future.
Canadian global relations must address the contradictions in society, most particularly, a global economic regime, driven by non-sustainable and inequitable levels of mostly Northern consumption, that continues to destroy our ecological heritage and intensify the disparities between the world’s rich and poor. As our government, you must help all Canadians understand the global implications of our behaviour and the responsibility we bear—each of us individually and together as a community—for the survival and well-being of this planet. This is an axial moment in human history. Are you—are we—up to the challenge?
Framing a KAIROS Response
The discussion paper, A Dialogue on Foreign Policy, invites opinion on whether current Canadian foreign policy priorities and objectives still obtain in a world confronting global economic integration, rampant poverty, devastating disease, environmental degradation and exponential rates of change. Those priorities and objectives are captured under three rubrics or ‘pillars’: 1) protecting national security; 2) promoting domestic and global prosperity (and employment) and 3) promoting cherished Canadian values and culture.
The paper also singles out for consideration the ‘particular relationship’ Canada enjoys with the United States first as its geographic and cultural neighbour and major trading partner; and, more importantly, as an ‘unmatched global power’.
We should begin by naming the policy assumptions that frame this ‘dialogue’—assumptions that privilege a particular Western geopolitical perspective and that are informed by an historic dichotomous understanding of international relations. This is not so much an open ‘dialogue’ as a conversation that unfolds within a predefined ideological framework.
That being said, we recommend first that ‘foreign policy’ be recast as ‘external’ or ‘global’ relations to signal the interdependence and interrelatedness of the world’s nations and peoples. Secondly, we advocate that Canada take a more critical position against the anti-democratic and coercive tendencies of contemporary trade regimes. Thirdly, we propose that foreign policy focus on the root causes of terrorism and global insecurity—such as regional conflict, economic domination, etc. Fourthly, we seek policy coherence—Canadian economic policy, for example, should be consistent with the humanitarian values we express in our support for such international agreements as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We cannot continue to support trade regimes whose effects compromise human security, well being and self-determination.
In light of our beliefs, we propose the following as our ‘five pillars’ or guiding principles for Canadian global relations:
(1) sustainable economic and human development
(2) democracy
(3) human rights
(4) ecological sustainability and
(5) peacebuilding, including disarmament and demilitarization.
Within this framework, we see the following as Canada’s key foreign policy objectives:
· A democratic, just, sustainable and equitable global society;
· Sustainable human development, universal recognition of human rights and respect for the integrity of the planet; and
· Reinforcement of a reformed and renewed United Nations.
As an international actor committed to these priorities and objectives, Canada should strive to reappropriate the Pearsonian vision of peacebuilding and peacemaking. This implies, as stated previously, both a reassessment and critique of Canadian support for international trade initiatives and regimes and a reduction in our economic dependence on the United States.
Emphasizing peacebuilding, environmental protection and the right of access of all citizens to necessary social services, will set an example for all countries to emulate.
Canadian values, widely held by the majority, advocate caring and sharing in the international sphere and using Canadian wealth and resources to assist in poverty eradication and taking policy positions in international debates which address structural inequalities and have at their core the upholding of the entire family of human rights: economic, social, cultural and political. These cannot be undermined by narrow Canadian commercial interests, increasingly advanced by our government, that sustain and reinforce an economic development model that is both ecologically destructive and contrary to the wishes and aspirations of citizens in the South. As KAIROS member the United Church of Canada states:
Adherence to an ideology which dictates that commercial interests and market forces must prevail contributes to major, systematic violations of human rights around the world. Basic rights of workers are not only ignored but the brave people who attempt to assert those rights risk instant dismissal from their jobs and sometimes arrest and imprisonment, or violence, intimidation and assassination by hired thugs. Women face sexual harassment, violence and assault. Traditional rights to land are pushed aside in favour of agribusiness, modern highways or hydro developments. Skewed development priorities, often reinforced by SAPs, deny millions of people their rights to food, clean water, clean air, adequate shelter, health and education.
Security
KAIROS regrets the perceived shift in Canadian foreign policy from understanding security as broadly encompassing human well-being to a more narrow conception of physical safety. Such a shift is especially troubling for those engaged in human rights work. KAIROS also laments the growing economic dependence on arms production, reduced resources available for human survival and development, and the desensitization to and popularization of violence. In this area, we echo the analysis and recommendations of Project Ploughshares that “encourage Canadian policies and approaches that contribute to the peaceful settlement of disputes and to the kind of rules-based international order in which the pursuit of peace with justice can find greater resonance and success.”
The primary objective of any state’s domestic and international policies must be to serve the safety and well-being of people. Human security is the fundamental criterion of the effectiveness of national and international security policies and is measured by the degree to which citizens are freed from fear for their safety, and the extent to which their most basic needs are met, on a day-to-day basis. A secure and stable order, local or global, cannot be sustained ultimately by repression, military might or superiority.
While it may seem self-evident that the safety and security of persons is the fundamental purpose of national and international security efforts, too many states pursue “national” security with relatively little regard for the welfare of people. The term “human security,” is important for at least two reasons. First, it acts to offset the disproportionate amount of attention paid to ideology, state structures, and military defense in security discourse. Secondly, it holds that human well-being is not achieved primarily through military defense or “protection,” but rather through favorable social, political, and economic conditions. This implies, in turn, that all effective security strategies and planning need attend to these issues and conditions.
Increases in Canadian security spending should focus on: support for equitable economic development, peacemaking, the promotion of human rights and democratic governance, environmental protection, and the implementation and verification of arms control and disarmament agreements. Moreover, Canada should continue to promote the enforcement of international law. Not only are Canadian values advanced by these measures, but also Canada’s vital security interests.
While Canadian foreign policy acknowledges that international law and multilateral agreements serve our national interest, American foreign policy does not. Rather, believing that such agreements undermine US interests and security, Washington seeks to manage the international order directly, asserting its right and duty to take whatever action it regards as necessary to advance its national agenda. This difference in approach is significant, because it informs a fundamental division between those Canadians who believe Canada’s security depends on a stable and secure international order, and those who believe it depends primarily on maintaining friendly and special relations with the United States. We hold that both Canadian security and productive and mutually beneficial relations with the United States are pursued best through a multilateral approach to the development and respect of international law.
Canadian security, the well-being of Canadians, is best safeguarded within a stable international order that promotes justice and equity. And international stability, in turn, depends substantially on the extent to which people around the world feel that their needs are and will be met.
Since 1995, at least C$29 billion has been cut from social programs including Employment Insurance, Old Age Security, health care and education. Given that such programs are foundational to building human security in Canada, they must be restored and improved before new expenditures are made on intelligence gathering and combat capability.
Prosperity
Probably the most provocative of all the issues addressed in the Dialogue document is the particular understanding of ‘prosperity’ used as the measure of global economic health. The churches reject the assumption that consumption-led economic growth and/or trade-led economic integration constitute prosperity or progress on the grounds that they are both morally repugnant and—in their cavalier disregard for the social costs or ‘externalities’—bad economics. We oppose the anti-democratic and socially destructive tendencies and implications of the current and emerging international trade regimes, regimes that cripple a nation’s capacity to provide for itself. Canada’s global relations should support and reinforce locally-conceived, sustainable, economic self-sufficiency. Moreover, Canadian efforts to enhance the ‘prosperity’ of Southern states must acknowledge the extent to which our wealth was and continues to be acquired at their expense. 50,000 people die every day as a result of poor shelter, polluted water and inadequate sanitation. Eleven thousand children die every day of hunger and preventable disease.
In light of long-standing concern about the social and ecological consequences of international trade agreements, many Canadian churches have joined the growing hemispheric opposition to the controversial FTAA negotiations. Like hundreds of civil society organizations, KAIROS believes that international trade agreements must be rooted in respect for economic justice, the environment and the primacy of human rights.
Under NAFTA, on which the FTAA is modelled, foreign investors may sue national governments for compensation where they believe public policy adversely affects their interests. Under these NAFTA provisions, corporations have successfully challenged Canadian restrictions on toxic gasoline additives, a Mexican municipal ban on the construction of dangerous waste disposal facilities, and Canadian restrictions on the export of PCBs. This is simply unacceptable.
The vision of ‘sustainable development’ proposed in the late 1980s by the UN report Our Common Future married the need for stewardship with the recognition that all nations and all creatures—including future generations—are entitled to their share of the world’s resources. While loudly heralded as progress, the concept admitted no fundamental tension between sustainability and development. The demands on the planet continued, therefore, unabated. Sustainability requires that scales of exploitation be respected and that limits to growth acknowledged in the developed world. As such, it will likely not entail ever-improving life conditions. Canadians need to understand and accept this.
Prosperity must be understood in the long term. We cannot have everything we want at the expense of the things we will need. The alternative is total social and environmental disintegration. Canadians must hear and understand this and then change their behaviour. This is integral to Canadian global relations. In a single global village we cannot go on despoiling the Commons. Sustainability is no longer somebody else’s problem.
Globalisation
Although globalization deeply affects our social, moral, cultural, political, as well as economic, lives, we primarily define it exclusively in economic terms. Moreover, it has been cast as an inevitable process, over which citizens have little control. While the positive features of current globalization, including greater accessibility to information and knowledge, and technological, scientific and medical advances, must be acknowledged, the human and social costs are all too frequently overlooked or minimized, on the assumption that “quality of life” will simply improve along with enhanced competitiveness, increased trade and political and economic restructuring.
As churches we offer a vision of globalization that gives priority to social, political, economic and ecological justice. Ours is a vision rooted in equality, mutual benefit, justice and democratic control of our national and international economic regimes.
Our perspective is physically grounded in the concerns and struggles of local communities—the poor and the marginalized—who have borne the brunt of globalization’s “shadow-side”. Global economic justice is possible only by adopting an ecologically sustainable development ethic, one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the future.
Canada must recover its voice as an independent moral leader on the world stage and the Canadian government must resist those forces of globalization that interfere with its responsibility to protect and actively promote the democratization of global political and economic decision-making. If our times teach us anything it is that “prosperity” is a very narrow, if not crass, way of understanding both economics and human development. Real human development—health, education, human security and respect for human rights—emerges out of universal justice, equity and sustainability. For this reason we urge renaming the ‘prosperity’ pillar as the pillar of ‘justice, equity and sustainability’.
Debt
The burden of debt continues to thwart the development aspirations of many countries. In 1980, the South owed the North over five hundred billion dollars. Since then, debtor countries have paid over three trillion dollars and their debt today is triple the amount initially ‘owed’. For every $1 that northern countries provide in aid, over $3 comes back in debt service payments. Moreover, to finance their debt, countries have been forced to adopt policies that included privatizing their public services, gutting labour regulations and cutting government spending – most importantly, spending on health, education and the environment. Today, for example, Cote d’Ivoire—the country with the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in West Africa—cannot afford to maintain or repair its sanitary infrastructure.
Many loans were made to corrupt or even illegal regimes leaving some of the world’s poorest people crippled by debt payments for money they never borrowed and from which they never profited. Although many debtor nations are rich in resources, debt payments to the already-wealthy North are impoverishing them.
The call for debt cancellation is not an appeal to Northern charity. In fact, the roots of indebtedness lie in the exploitative structures created over centuries of colonization. The more significant issue is the social, financial and ecological debt we in the North owe to the people of the South.
We commend Canada for its decision to stop collecting debt payments from a number of HIPC countries in 2000 and for its leadership on this issue. Unfortunately, the effect of these unilateral Canadian gestures was minimal as Canada holds less than one half of one percent of all low-income countries’ debts. The biggest obstacle to debt remission for the poorest countries is the refusal of the multilateral financial institutions – the World Bank, the IMF and regional development banks – to cancel debts.
When the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative was launched in 1996, the total debt of 41 countries on its list of potential beneficiaries was US$205 billion. By the end of 2001, these countries total debts had increased to US$215 billion.
As of August, 2002, only 26 countries have qualified for the “enhanced” debt relief promised at Kőln. Seven years after its birth, the HIPC Initiative is projected to deliver US$41.5 billion worth of nominal debt relief for these 26 countries once they all reach their “completion point” some time in the future. This amount is equivalent to only about one fifth of the 41 countries’ total debts and just 8.6% of all low-income countries’ long-term debts.
Of these 26 countries only 6 have reached the “completion point” under HIPC when they are supposed to have achieved a lasting exit from “unsustainable” debt burdens. But 3 of these 6 countries – Uganda, Mauritania and Burkina Faso – still had “unsustainable” debt burdens even after receiving the full HIPC treatment. The other 20 countries are still in an “interim” period having qualified for some debt relief but are still under the supervision of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs. However, 13 of these 20 countries have had their HIPC debt relief delayed because they had fallen “off track”, that is not in compliance with some of the stiff austerity and structural adjustment conditions laid down by the Bank and the Fund.
According to IMF projections even after these countries get back “on track”, only about half of them will have “sustainable” debt burdens at their completion points. In other words HIPC will have been a failure, even on its own terms, for half of the countries it was supposed to benefit. One reason for this failure is the unrealistic projections of economic growth and of commodity export earnings the IMF and the World Bank use to calculate how much debt relief would be needed to achieve “sustainability”. What is worse is that some countries, Mali, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Niger, will actually have to make higher annual debt payments after passing through the HIPC process than they did before. At the end of 2002 the sad reality is that many of the poorest countries in the world remain caught in the debt trap despite the International Financial Institutions’ promises.
Despite the promise of the Kőln Debt Initiative, no real change to the essence of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) has occurred. The renaming of the IMF’s “Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility” as the “Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility” was only a cosmetic gesture.
Numerous extensive studies on the actual experiences of countries that have prepared Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers have been carried out. These reports have concluded that the major macro-economic planks of SAPs remain in place and that meaningful consultation with civil society has not taken place. (E.g. Uganda study) These reports also confirm that the World Bank and the IMF remain wedded to their traditional SAPs promoting export-oriented growth, privatization of such basic services as potable water, cost recovery schemes for health and education, and removal of subsidies – all measures which have led to greater poverty.
KAIROS calls on the Canadian government to renew its efforts in the following areas:
1) immediately and unconditionally cancel 100% of the bilateral and multilateral debts of all low-income countries using the IMF's gold reserves and the World Bank's loan loss reserves and retained earnings to pay the costs.
2) end the imposition of Structural Adjustment Programs.
3) assess and cancel the illegitimate debts of all developing countries.
International Debt Arbitration Mechanism
The International Monetary Fund has just been told to shelve indefinitely its plans for a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) that would allow sovereign countries to declare a standstill on their debt payments and renegotiate the terms of their debts with their creditors. Under that plan the IMF would have effectively reserved for itself the crucial role of determining how much of a country’s debt is “sustainable”. With or without the SDRM the IMF insists on continuing to dictate macroeconomic policies for debtor countries.
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The IMF’s proposal is in some respects very similar to the HIPC Initiative: the IMF would remain the judge of sustainability and of the debtor’s economic program. Thus the prospects are that an SDRM process would have similar results as HIPC: inadequate levels of debt relief (in effect writing off debts that cannot be collected in any case) in return for continued adherence to strict austerity and structural adjustment programs.
Many NGOS are proposing a very different solution: a Fair and Transparent Arbitration Process (FTAP). Such a body must be totally independent of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank since these institutions are themselves creditors and subject to political pressure from their largest members.
An FTAP would be modeled not on Chapter 11 of the US bankruptcy code which applies to corporations but on Chapter 9 which applies to municipal governments. Chapter 9 sets precedents for how to apply insolvency proceedings to government debts. It exempts from creditors’ reach resources needed by the state to meet the needs of its population. A government is not expected to stop providing essential services for the health, safety and well-being of its people while its debts are restructured.
Structural Adjustment
Over the past two decades churches were at the forefront in criticizing orthodox SAPs for their lack of attention to issues of poverty. We remain concerned that such issues as poverty and ecological destruction remain secondary to the very narrow economic thrust of orthodox SAPs.
The economic, social and political impact of orthodox structural adjustment programs has been well documented. Whatever the macro-economic indicators suggest, there is very little disagreement over the fact that these policies have had an especially harsh impact on the poor. Numerous studies have also challenged the assumption that the impact of structural adjustment policies has been gender-neutral, drawing attention to the fact that women have lost the most and gained the least from such initiatives. The long-term environmental sustainability of structural adjustment programmes has also come under closer scrutiny. Moreover, the appropriateness of re-orienting the aid programmes of Northern countries to support the structural adjustment regime has been questioned.
One of these studies, the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative has offered important lessons about the experience of countries undergoing SAPs. This initiative was a five- year review of adjustment policies, carried out jointly by the World Bank, civil society and participating governments. A great deal has been learned from this Initiative, not only with regard to the impact of structural adjustment programs, but also about the mobilization, organization and participation of civil society in matters related to international economic policymaking. The SAPRIN study concludes that SAPs have significantly increased hunger, stagnation and poverty in all of the countries reviewed. SAPs promoted export crops at the expense of food self-reliance, reducing effective demand through imposing spending cutbacks and causing unemployment through unilateral trade liberalization. SAPs have also led to the privatization of such essential services as clean water, and made health care and education inaccessible to the poor due to insistence on user fees. Despite these findings, and the fact that the World Bank actively participated in the research and results, the World Bank has refused to change course. As Lidy Nacpil of the Freedom from Debt Coalition in the Philippines and the steering committee of SAPRIN notes, “Thousands of groups around the world have involved themselves in various dialogues with the Bank, but all our words have fallen on deaf ears. The Bank continues to push countries into the same old programs which have failed in their ostensible mission of helping the poor.”
As the key institutions promoting the macro-economic policies that have had such a devastating impact on the world’s poor, the World Bank and IMF are badly in need of transformation. KAIROS reiterates the call made by Canadian churches in the last Foreign Policy Review that the Canadian government review its participation in the IMF and the World Bank with a view to their immediate reform and eventual replacement by new, more democratic institutions under the United Nations. In the process of building these new institutions Canada should work toward the following measures to curtail the unaccountable, undemocratic and untransparent policies of the Bretton Woods Institutions. This would include calls to change the undemocratic voting structure, transparent decision-making processes, liability for bad loans and an end to structural adjustment conditionality.
New multilateral institutions should exist within the larger framework of the United Nations system. Power must be exercised through democratic, transparent processes, in line with the following seven principles:
Principles for a Just International Financial System
1. Fair and transparent decision-making is essential with no country having the right to veto decisions; civil society must have input into decision-making.
2. The system must have the capacity to manage and contain economic crises in such a way as to minimize instability and economic and social costs to people.
3. There should be a capacity to offer global economic policy expertise based on “best practices” with a full spectrum of options. Policy advice within the system must respect national economic sovereignty and the right to endogenous development.
4. It must not allow creditor imposed conditionality, such as Structural Adjustment Programs. Mutual accountability that flows from internationally accepted agreements/standards (to which all countries are subject) would be acceptable.
5. Creditors must assume the risks involved in their lending; the international financial system must not offer bail-outs to private lenders.
6. The system should allow for institutions to be reformed and new institutions to emerge.
7. The goal of the system is to nurture communities and the health of the earth. Financial markets must be regulated since unregulated markets tend to allocate too much credit in some instances and not enough in others.
ODA
Last September, CIDA released Canada Making a Difference in the World setting out the policy framework within which CIDA resources will be allocated. KAIROS supports the proposed increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and hopes to see increases in each of the next 5 budgets to bring Canada closer to its ODA goal of 0.7% of GNP. We agree that improving aid effectiveness is a key concern, as is the right of peoples to determine their own development goals. Canada must make clear its position that autonomous, effective, civil society organizations are essential to “good governance” and support the partnership with civil society in designing, implementing and monitoring national developmental policies and poverty reduction programs.
Conversely, we reject CIDA’s uncritical acceptance of a structural adjustment approach to global debt relief and poverty reduction that has exacerbated already dire social and economic disparities in many poor and indebted countries. Canada must insist that institutions such as the World Bank give Southern countries the discretion to define the macro-economic framework they will use for economic development, including poverty reduction.
Our partnerships with churches, NGOs and people’s organizations in developing countries confirm the importance of “local ownership” of their development goals. We have been among the longest and strongest advocates of Canadian development assistance. It is most important to find a balance between civil society, the private sector and local governments to achieve lasting, equitable development.
Trade
While it is clear that increased trade may bring economic, social and environmental benefits there is widespread evidence that free trade is not necessarily consistent, and in many instances undermines these objectives. Thus policies are needed to ensure trade is fair and ecologically sustainable. The social, political, cultural and ethical implications of trade arrangements should not be divorced from or regarded as secondary to purely economic criteria. Trade agreements must be based on an appropriate vision of social justice and environmental sustainability. To ensure fairness, Canada should pursue trade policies that have as their basic goals: 1) the satisfaction of basic human needs; 2) increasing social equity; and 3) ecological sustainability.
Our concerns and recommendations arise from witnessing directly, and monitoring closely the disastrous impact that free trade and investment agreements and liberalization measures have had in the South.
While these measures have coincided with some macroeconomic growth and increased Canadian trade and investment, they have failed to reduce overall poverty levels. For example, poverty levels have dramatically increased, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean 2002 report, which says that 43% of Latin America’s population now lives in poverty. Canada’s increased interest and support of the free-trade model of integration that it is advancing through bi-lateral free trade agreements like the Canada- Central America Four (CA-4) and through regional agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the WTO indicates pursuit of economic liberalization will come at the expense of the majority of the hemisphere’s citizens.
A recent study by the FAO found that in sixteen developing countries where trade was liberalized, food imports rose rapidly while export levels remained flat. The study noted a general trend in these countries toward the consolidation of land by large landholders, resulting in the marginalisation of small producers, undermining food security and increasing both unemployment and poverty.
We believe that the test of any trade and investment agreements, is the degree to which it meets the needs of all citizens (particularly, the poorest amongst us), guaranteeing and enhancing their well-being, dignity and human rights. We believe that trade agreements must serve as tools for just and sustainable development, addressing social and environmental issues, and not just commercial or financial concerns.
Therefore, we believe that international human rights law arising out of United Nations instruments like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, as well as human rights instruments of the Inter-American System (OAS) system, have primacy over all other conventional international law, including those found in trade and investment agreements, and in the event of conflict between these legal regimes, human rights law must prevail.
In order to ensure the primacy of human rights law in trade and investment agreements, there is a need for enforceable and binding mechanisms within trade agreements. These mechanisms must guarantee the fundamental and internationally-recognized human rights of all citizens to adequate food and shelter, just conditions of employment, fair wages, and access to health care and education, as well as to civil, political and cultural rights.
The NAFTA Experience
On the eve of the Third Summit of the Americas April 2001 Church Leaders traveled to Mexico to witness first-hand the economic, social, political, and cultural consequences of trade liberalization in general and NAFTA in particular. As documented in an Open Letter sent to Prime Minister Chrétien, the Church Leaders stated, "...we hear how the North American Free Trade Agreement, along with so-called free market policies that were implemented some years earlier to pave the way for Mexico's entry into NAFTA, are directly linked to a situation in which more and more Mexicans find it harder and harder to survived. What that means is growing numbers of people - in the millions - who cannot afford an adequate diet for themselves or their children, let alone adequate housing, clothing or access to health care and education." Indeed, recent figures from both the World Bank and the Mexican government illustrate that real wages have declined significantly. The real minimum wage is down 23% under NAFTA and manufacturing wages are down 12%. The number of households living in poverty has grown 80% since 1984, with some 75% of Mexicans currently living below the poverty line.
The rural sectors of Mexico have also been adversely affected. As the Church leaders witnessed:
"In rural communities in the state of Chihuahua, we witnessed the terrible human impact on small farmers of policies that have consciously neglected and excluded them......The exodus from the countryside, as we were told by the respected Democratic Campesino Organization, as well as many of the farming families we met with, is a direct result of economic policies that were enacted to make Mexico NAFTA-ready...subsidies to corn producers in Mexico were complete phased out in 1997, 12 years ahead of schedule, thus creating an uneven playing field. Moreover, since NAFTA came into effect in 1994, tariffs have been lifted and cheap corn and beans from the US have flooded the Mexican market, making it impossible for Mexico producers to compete. In addition, free market policies that began prior to 1994 but which have been made permanent in NAFTA, have resulted in the elimination of credit for small farmers, leaving them at the mercy of local loan sharks who charge usurious interest rates."
Recently, in a visit to Canada, Emilio Lopez, a member of the historic grassroots Coalition “El Campo No Aguanta Mas” and Hemispheric Social Alliance Member spoke of how these trade liberalization policies have impacted all rural production in the entire country with 90% of the countryside living in poverty and 70 Campesinos daily abandoning corn production as a way of life. These austere consequences of ‘free trade’ have led the Coalition to under-go massive mobilization in the face of even more liberalization and to demand that food security and protection of food staple crops must take precedence over liberalization. Unless our priorities change the stark and desperate reality of Mexico’s campesino and indigenous farmers will only be multiplied throughout Central and South America through the proposed FTAA, which is modeled on the NAFTA.
NAFTA’s National Treatment for Foreign Investors
Given the vast differences in the levels of development in our hemisphere, equal treatment among unequals is profoundly inequitable. Governments should have the right to treat local family and community business and public enterprises more favorably than foreign enterprises.
In addition, one of the most disturbing aspects of NAFTA is Chapter 11, specifically its investor-state dispute mechanism. Chapter 11 has enabled corporations to challenge government regulations and laws that safeguard human and environmental health. Results have been distressing with governments choosing to reverse bans on harmful chemicals, pay out millions of public dollars in compensation to corporations, and deter them from acting on behalf of their citizen’s best interest. Canada itself has been subject to 8 Chapter 11 cases since 1994 with resulting negative consequences.
In that regard, we urge the government to remove Chapter 11 from NAFTA, stop negotiations of the FTAA and all other trade and investment deals in order to look at the economic instability, the rich-poor disparity and the social and environmental damage caused by economic and trade liberalization. We urge the government to listen to Canadians who demand that that all public services – in their entirety – be exempted for all trade and investment deals and that countries across the Americas maintain their sovereign right to govern in the best interest of their populations over and above all economic agreements. These recommendations are congruent with the Canadian government’s obligation to ensure that the primacy of human rights and human rights law takes precedence over any and all trade and investment agreements.
As part of a plan to cultivate new partnerships with emerging powers, Canada should actively support Mexico's demand to renegotiate the agriculture chapter of NAFTA and at the same time seek Mexico's support for the removal of Chapter 11 from NAFTA.
As part of a plan to cultivate new partnerships with emerging powers, Canada should heed the call of Brazilian President Luiz da Silva and give higher priority to the promotion of social development than to trade. In this regard Canada should join with Brazil in resisting US plans to insert "TRIPS plus" measures into the intellectual property chapter of an FTAA. Brazil has pioneered a very successful program that provides antiretroviral medicines free of charge to about 116,000 persons infected with HIV. This program has cut the number of HIV/AIDS deaths and new infections in half. Brazil is able to afford this program because it licenses the generic production of antiretrovirals legally under the terms of the WTO TRIPS accord. If the USA's "TRIPS plus" proposals for the FTAA were ever accepted, it would be a severe blow to the possibilities for providing life-saving medicines for millions of people in this hemisphere who cannot afford high-priced prescription drugs for any number of illnesses, not just HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria. Canada should join with Brazil in resisting the "TRIPS plus" agenda that violates both the spirit and the letter of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)
The NEPAD document has provoked an unprecedented and intense debate about the problems besetting the continent and the solutions proposed. The message that is being repeated through many of the analyses and consultations can be summarised in three points:
1) NEPAD provides a welcome opportunity to engage in a serious discussion about the problems facing Africa. It is Africans, civil society and governments who must be the ones to diagnose the problems and propose the solutions.
2) The process by which the NEPAD was developed is deeply flawed. African leaders did not consult their people in the process of drafting the document. Before NEPAD is implemented there must first be a consultation process of African governments with their people.
3) While the analysis of Africa's problems has some merit the proposed solutions are deeply flawed. As the statement of civil society participants to the CIDA consultation held in Montreal in May 2002 declared: "The economic strategy at the heart of the NEPAD is based on the discredited package of IMF/World Bank inspired economic policies that have been implemented by African countries for the past two decades with disastrous effects for their economies."
At the centre of the often intense debate is whether opening up the continent to further trade and investment will lead to true human-centred development. A number of analyses have pointed out that Africa, far from being marginalized from the global economy, is more integrated than any other region of the world. After 21 years of structural adjustment, Africa exports nearly 30% more today than it did in 1980 but the prices that it receives for these exports have fallen by 40% over the same period. Thus Africans produce more for the external market but receive less for their labours. Implementing NEPAD will only further this kind of exploitative integration. What Africa needs to do is to develop its internal markets for its products first by developing industries that process raw goods into finished products. This strategy requires that governments protect industries until they can compete in the global economy, a strategy that every modern industrialised economy has pursued at an earlier stage of development. Structural adjustment policies and now the World Trade Organisation rules prohibit African countries from pursuing such a strategy.
As our church partners in South Africa have declared:
“NEPAD fails to offer any alternative to the dominant market fundamentalist development model that places unquestioning faith in uncontrolled, private sector led, rapid economic growth as the answer to the problem of rampant poverty, despite the evidence that this strategy in fact deepens poverty, increases unemployment, and widens inequality in the short and medium term, while making national economies extremely vulnerable to speculative capital and ‘market sentiment’. NEPAD in fact promotes a market-driven strategy as the solution to Africa’s problems, effectively sacrificing the poor who are here now for some uncertain end in the distant future.”
The South African churches, conclude their assessment of NEPAD by issuing a challenge both to the North as well as to the church: “The skewed power relations between rich and poor limit the possibility of transforming global structures into just and caring systems. This remains the biggest challenge to Africa’s reconstruction and development. The church must proclaim the good news that a better life is possible for Africa’s people.”
Middle East
Canadian involvement in the Middle East Suez Crisis during the 1950s and 60s earned us an international reputation that reflected Canadian values of compassion, justice and fairness.
Once again, amidst the ongoing crisis in Palestine/Israel, Canada could choose to play a critical role, particularly since other international actors are viewed with suspicion by both Israelis and Palestinians. A Canadian role in promoting peace should be based on the following three principles:
· A durable peace must be based upon justice through international laws and conventions
· A peace that is based on these laws and conventions must and can address the grievances and security of both Israelis and Palestinians
· Such a peace cannot be achieved through negotiation between the parties. Rather, it must be implemented, based on a new process mediated by a third party. Dialogue should focus on modalities of implementation, not negotiation, of international law
The Canadian position to not participate in the recent Iraq war demonstrated to the people of the Middle East that Canada is willing to take a principled stand on conflict issues that are based on UN resolutions and processes. We ask that Canada apply these same principles to the conflict in Palestine and Israel.
Asia
In cultivating new economic partnerships with emerging powers such as China and India Canada should provide support for sustainable rural development projects, many of which are being led by NGOs and civil society organizations. Perhaps even more important, cultivating new economic partnerships would involve supporting the positions of the states of these emerging powers on key economic policy questions in various fora including the World Trade Organization. At present, for example, in the debates on investment under the auspices of the WTO (i.e. around both the existing TRIMs Agreement and the proposal to negotiate a new and comprehensive agreement on ‘investment’), India and China have made proposals for the inclusion of investors’ obligations to host countries. Such obligations involve respecting broad national development objectives and the right of states to use various policy instruments to cope with shorter term economic instability. Canada should develop its understanding of such policy positions and lend its full support to them if Canada is to maintain its reputation as a peace making rich nation in the international arena.
Principles for Fair Trade: A 10 Point Agenda
1) Ensures human rights take precedence over commercial interests. Commitments Canada has made under the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally recognized agreements on labour and environmental protection must take precedence over investors’ rights as inscribed in trade agreements. Human rights encompass civil and political rights and also social, economic and cultural rights including the right to adequate food, housing, education and health care. An integration agreement must ensure that minorities and vulnerable sectors of the population are not excluded.
2) Gives priority to eradicating poverty, generating high quality jobs and economic stability. An integration agreement must give priority to genuine poverty eradication. Agreements should foster high quality employment and not the phasing out of secure unionized jobs in favour of insecure contract work. Investment rules must allow governments to set performance requirements that screen out unproductive, speculative capital flows and channel investment into stable, long-term development.
3) Protects the environment. The primacy of commitments made to international environmental treaties must be honoured in any new trade agreements. Governments must retain the capacity to regulate corporations so that they do not damage citizens’ right to a healthy environment. In particular, any economic integration agreement must not include an investor-state dispute resolution procedure such as that in NAFTA which allows foreign corporations to sue for lost earnings resulting from enforcement of government regulations.
4) Protects human health. Citizens’ rights under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights to a standard of living adequate for health and well being, as well as to medical care must not be undermined or violated by any economic integration agreement. Specific populations, such as those suffering from HIV/AIDS, must not be denied inexpensive generic versions of life-saving drugs in order to protect the monopoly profits of pharmaceutical companies.
5) Ensures food security. Countries should have the right to exclude the production of staple foods from trade agreements.
6) Upholds the right to access essential social services for all citizens as provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Public services in areas such as water, education, health care and housing must be strengthened and not undermined by the intrusion of private service providers.
7) Gives special and differential treatment to small and less developed countries. Economic integration agreements must redress the imbalance in negotiating leverage and economic power between large, industrial states and small, developing countries by providing for special and differential treatment for the latter.
8) Releases countries from intolerable and unjust debt burdens. Illegitimate debts must also be annulled. These include debts that cannot be serviced without causing harm to people and communities, debt incurred by illegitimate debtors, debts incurred for illegitimate uses and debts incurred with illegitimate terms.
9) Gives governments the right to control their development. International financial institutions continue to impose Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on the poor countries of the Americas. These programs which include trade liberalization, exacerbate inequalities as their austerity measures fall disproportionately on the poor, especially women. SAPs involve an unacceptable intervention in the affairs of sovereign states. These programs must be eliminated, and the power of the institutions that promote them must be dramatically reduced.
10) Gives citizens broad-based access to the process. Citizens must have direct access to the design and implementation of economic integration agreements. Governments must submit economic integration agreements to democratic consultations in each of the countries involved. The right to freedom of expression—including dissent—must be respected.
Curbing Corporate Rule
The relationships that connect business with society have changed profoundly over the past two decades. Economic globalization has shifted power away from governments and into the hands of multinational corporations, whose policies and practices affect the well-being of millions of people in Canada and around the world.
Human rights abuses and environmental degradation have escalated in lockstep with the rise of corporate power, leading civil society groups to challenge the largely unaccountable and hardly legitimized control that multinational enterprises exercise over economic development. Governments have increasingly abdicated the means of regulatory control leaving the non-governmental sector to demand greater corporate accountability for activities that contribute to social injustice, violations of human rights, increased militarism and ecological abuse.
According to Thomas Kuhn, in seeking to understand and interpret the world as we see it we create habits of thought and practice—understanding and ways of reasoning—that he calls paradigms. A paradigm contains inconsistencies or ‘anomalies’ which accumulate over time until the paradigm loses its explanatory value, eventually giving way to new models of understanding. We believe this to be true of our prevailing, ‘neo-liberal’, economic regime, a paradigm in which economic viability is equated with GDP growth.
Consider, for example, competition, a concept central to neo-liberal economics. Theoretically, by eliminating the unfit, the damaged, the less ‘productive’, competition allocates resources with the greatest possible efficiency, maximizing growth. In the interests of competition, the size and capacity of the public sector has been constrained—taxes reduced, spending cut and people services privatized. For the sake of competition, trade has been liberalized, traditional ways of life eliminated, capital and investment deregulated and democratic governments disempowered. And what benefit has competition brought?
In a world where the top 500 corporations account for 70 percent of the world’s trade, where is the competition? In fact, of the world’s largest economies fewer than half are sovereign states.
As a result, there is an increasingly large gap between the world’s haves and have-nots. Since 1983, almost all growth in household income and wealth has accrued to the richest 20% of the world’s population. The income gap between the richest and poorest fifths of the world’s countries went from 30 to 1 in the 1960s to 78 to 1 at the end of the century. In fact, the assets of the three richest individuals exceed those of the combined GNP of the 48 poorest countries. What this adds up to is that five hundred people are worth more than half of the world’s population.
Given its reputation as a world leader in the multilateral arena, Canada is well placed to call for new mechanisms to regulate TNCs. International treaties must respect the rights of peoples to assert sovereignty over their economies and choose their own development priorities, superseding the principle of “national treatment”. The activities of the private sector must be subject to public accountability as well as to minimum standards of social, economic and ecological justice. Governments at all levels must maintain the right to enforce regulations governing the activities of TNCs. Canada should monitor trade and corporate practices of Canadian based companies, especially mining companies operating in developing countries
involved in gross human rights violations, destruction of environment and communities in the course of their operations.
Culture and Values
The values, priorities and strategies that promote right relations among peoples and among nations and those that enhance viable life—biological, spiritual, cultural, present and future—are those that must inform and drive Canadian global relations. At the same time, Canadians must understand the implications of those values in terms of their own behaviour and expectations.
A foreign policy centred on a rights-based approach
One of the three foreign policy “pillars” of the Canadian Government is the “promotion of the values and culture that Canadians cherish”. While culture and values are key to every society, we believe that framing our nation’s foreign policy on the promotion of something as imprecise and variable as “values” may have unforeseen consequences.
Our experience has shown us that in many parts of the world, countries often reference national “values” or cultural relativism to justify limiting fundamental freedoms and basic human rights. For example, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has argued frequently that suppressing the rights of sexual minorities is acceptable in his country, as these rights are a product of western colonialism and do not reflect traditional African culture.
We believe that the promotion of internationally recognized human rights standards and norms and not the projection of national values and culture should serve as a pillar of Canada’s foreign policy.
The promotion and protection of internationally recognized human rights standards and norms should be at the core of Canada’s foreign policy.
A foreign policy which upholds the rule of law
Canadians have made important contributions in the articulation and development of international norms for the promotion and protection of human rights. Indeed, it was a Canadian, John Humphrey, who, as the first director of the human rights division of the United Nations, was the key author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since its adoption, the Universal Declaration has served as the inspiration for more than 60 international instruments, creating a vast network of legally binding treaties for signatory States.
Yet in the post 9-11 context, the fragility of these international norms is becoming increasingly evident as nations set aside their human rights obligations, often in the name of countering “terrorism”. In countries such as the United States, one increasingly hears arguments justifying the use of torture under certain circumstances. Such well established international principles as right not to be detained arbitrarily or imprisoned indefinitely, the right to due process of law, an impartial jury and an impartial judge, and the right to be free from inhumane and degrading treatment are, in the words of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, today under siege.
In voicing his concern, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said recently: “I remain as convinced as ever that we are all safer – the large and powerful as much as the small and weak – in a system where all are governed by the international rule of law and the principles set out in the United Nations Charter.”
KAIROS strongly rejects any dichotomy between security and human rights, maintaining that only in fully respecting our individual and collective rights can there be any true security. Now, more than ever, the Canadian government must take a strong and principled stand for the rule of law and, in so doing, clearly distance itself from those who would sacrifice principle to accommodate this so-called new world “reality”.
Canada’s foreign policy should be rooted in the promotion and protection of international law and international human rights covenants.
An independent foreign policy based on multilateralism
Canada has been a staunch advocate of multilateralism. In an age where the only remaining superpower has questioned the “relevance” of the United Nations, it is all the more important that Canada’s foreign policy be shaped by steadfast support for consensus building methods and multilateral approaches.
Canada should increase its visible support of the United Nations and of multilateral approaches.
The current “re-thinking” of development by international civil society is increasingly sensitive to its cultural and ethical dimensions. The potential extinction of many indigenous peoples dramatically demonstrates that planetary survival requires continued cultural, religious, ecological and economic diversity. It is the world’s indigenous peoples, environmental, peace and women’s groups, community and popular organizations who are playing a key role in developing and promoting the alternatives to the wasteful and destructive economic models that are depleting the earth’s resources.
Culture is at the heart of the struggle for development alternatives. More than the values, symbols, and customs which characterize a people, culture comprehends a peoples’ sense of their own physical and temporal place, their ways of working and doing things. It is the entire repository of knowledge of a people, including how decisions are taken and power exercised. Alternative development paths tap the well of popular creativity, freeing up and empowering people to exercise their intelligence and collective wisdom. Ethics has a central place in the construction of a new politics of development that repudiates the impoverishment and violation of the most vulnerable as an unfortunate incidental cost of modernization.
Ultimately, Canadian foreign policy must confront the structures of power. As Marcos Arruda argues, this requires “carefully examining who runs the world today, and what are the structures and mechanisms responsible for the creation of development for some and maldevelopment for the world’s majority.” Only then can we find ways to influence those actors in power, and empower those who have been excluded.”
We can no longer tolerate a global economic regime that privileges the few at the expense of so many. We can no longer countenance the power of the non-democratic international economic agencies that direct the global economy with little if any popular input into their objectives and methods. We can no longer support the extraction of wealth from one country to enrich another. This must be at the heart of Canada’s global relations. |
