SubscribePart of Water is Life, a class website on water privatization and commodification, produced by students of Geography 378 (International Environmental Problems & Policy) at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, USA, Spring 2004.
"Water is fundamental for life and health. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a healthy life in human dignity. It is a pre-requisite to the realization of all other human rights."
-The United Nations Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights,
Environment News Service, November 27, 2002
Quotations on Water
Is Water a "Good"?
A "good" is defined in a dictionary as something that has economic utility or satisfies an economic want; personal property having intrinsic value but usually excluding money, securities, and negotiable instruments; and finally something manufactured or produced for sale. According to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, water is in fact a good. Listed as a commodity under Section IV, Chapter 22, it reads:
"Other waters, including natural or artificial mineral waters and aerated waters, not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter nor flavored; ice and snow."
Source: (Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States 2004 chapter 22)
Trade Laws Pertaining to "Goods"
The Canadian environmental activist Maude Barlow stated that "...In 1993, then-US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said in a letter to a U.S. environmental group, 'When water is traded as a good, all provisions of [NAFTA] governing trade in goods apply.'" All trade organization rules and regulations share a few common points of interest: they take away basic domestic rights; they see water as a commodity and a service; and they all share the same term: “National Treatment.” National Treatment, in various clauses of these organizations, ultimately stresses that once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market a nation must give others the same treatment as one's own nationals. This problem is best illustrated by the International Forum on Globalization in the document Blue Gold:
“If a Canadian company, for instance, gained the right to export Canadian water, American transnationals would have the right to help themselves to as much Canadian water as they wished.”
Source: (Water Incorporated; The Commodification Of The World's Water)
World Trade Organization (WTO)
The World Trade Organization, was originated in 1995, set up under GATT. It was created to implement GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). These agreements cover the major sections of trade conducted by the WTO. This trade organization contains no minimum standards, and all of the countries that are part of it work toward removing all lingering tariff and non-tariff barriers. The WTO, unlike any other international organization, has legislative and judicial power to challenge laws, policies and programs of member countries.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
According to The Text of GATT, Article XI, adopted in January of 1948,
“No prohibitions or restrictions other than duties, taxes or other charges, whether made effective through quotas, import or export licenses or other measures, shall be instituted or maintained by any contracting party on the importation of any product of the territory of any other contracting party or on the exportation or sale for export of any product destined for the territory of any other contracting party.”
This basically states that no matter what, aside from for the exceptions in Article XX sections b and g, the government is powerless to control, in any aspect, these transfers. The exceptions are stated as follows:
(b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;
(g) relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption.
The problems with these exemptions are the facts that first, attempts to use section b have already failed when trying to protect marine animals, and second most fresh water sources are categorized as renewable.
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
GATS was implemented in 1995 and operates under the fortification of the WTO. What’s different about GATS is that it actually includes water in its "rules and regulations" consisting in sections of: sewer services, freshwater services, treatment of waste water, nature and landscape protection, construction of water pipes, waterways, tankers, groundwater assessment, irrigation, dams, bottled water, water transport services, and the like. The main purpose of this is to limit government actions with respect to services, incorporating water with them.
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
According to the Citizens Trade Campaign:
"The TRIPS agreement creates enforceable global rules on patents, copyrights and trademarks to protect inventions or artistic products, but also extends far beyond this scope. Intellectual “property” now includes the practice of patenting plant and animal forms as well as seeds. By taking such public and cultural goods out of the hands of people and communities, the private rights of corporations are promoted over the rights of local communities; and the protection of ecosystems, public health, and traditional cultures are all undermined."
There are no apparent correlations between TRIPS and water.
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
NAFTA, put into action in January of 1994, in essence, grants corporations more control and strength than they originally had with GATT. One of the ways that this is done is by what many refer to as the “Proportionality Rule,” which limits the amount of water that can be restricted. In Article 315 this rule is defined along these lines:
"Except as set out in Annex 315, a Party may adopt or maintain a restriction otherwise justified under Articles XI:2(a) or XX(g), (i) or (j) of the GATT with respect to the export of a good of the Party to the territory of another Party, only if:
a) the restriction does not reduce the proportion of the total export shipments of the specific good made available to that other Party relative to the total supply of that good of the Party maintaining the restriction as compared to the proportion prevailing in the most recent 36 month period for which data are available prior to the imposition of the measure, or in such other representative period on which the Parties may agree."
There are other parts to this article, but not as relevant as part a). If there is a significant deficiency of water in a NAFTA country, exports can be momentarily limited as long as they are done so in an equivalent proportion to the total supply accessible over the past three years. If one of those years has a notably higher availability of water than the other two, restrictions to this supply may not be implemented because the shortage won’t look noteworthy, when it actually is.
Even more so, NAFTA introduced Chapter 11, which protects the investors and their investments. This chapter can correlate to water in a few particular ways. If a government, whose country was part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, tried to limit the distribution of water, or even attempted to ban water exports before they hit the market, it involuntarily puts them at the mercy of its foreign investor’s rights under NAFTA. Foreign companies have most of the support in this chapter, and even changes in government policy could bring about confrontations for that country, province, or state.
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
The FTAA is proposed to be put into effect in the year 2005. Essentially every article and chapter that was presented in NAFTA would also appear in the FTAA, but would be extended to a broader number of nations and with a greater intention of exposing public services for privatization and deregulation in the Western Hemisphere. The Free Trade Area of the Americas would be included in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which is now being discussed as a part of the WTO. According to the People’s Consultation on the FTAA, GATS and the FTAA would:
- Give corporations an absolute right to bid on running or purchasing all public services, including… the public water supply.
- Force governments to give contracts to the lowest bidder without considering fair labor practices, corporate safety records, or environmental responsibility.
- Let corporations challenge any laws that get in the way of their profits, like environmental, labor or consumer protection laws… the cases would be heard by a secret tribunal, with no chance of appeal.
- Let corporations ignore unprofitable areas when providing a service, even if it means not… providing water to rural or inner city areas; those areas would be served by governments on limited funds.
- The FTAA has not yet gone into effect, and the best thing that you can do to oppose it is to get involved in one of the many organizations going up against it. Here are some links to various "fair trade" groups:
All in all, these international "free trade" organizations, such as the IMF, or the WTO, promote the private sector of the economy and neglect human and environmental rights. Once the international pump is turned on, it won't be turned off again until there isn't any left.
"Every human should have the idea of taking care of the environment, of nature, of water. So using too much or wasting water should have some kind of feeling or sense of concern. Some sort of responsibility and with that, a sense of discipline."
The 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso quoted in Peter Swanson's Water: The Drop of Life (2001).
For more information:
Citizens Trade Campaign:
http://www.citizenstrade.org/wto.php
People’s Consultation on the FTAA:
http://www.peoplesconsultation.org/education/background.html
NAFTA:
http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/nafta/naftatce.asp
International Forum on Globalization:
http://www.ifg.org/
Blue Gold:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Water/Threat_Agreements_BG.html
Trading our water away:
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2122-AA.shtml
Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (2004):
http://hotdocs.usitc.gov/tariff_chapters_current/toc.html
GATT:
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_e.pdf
FTAA/2nd draft:
http://www.ftaa-alca.org/ftaadraft02/draft_e.asp
Keep up-to-date on GATS:
http://www.GATSWatch.org
Public Citizen site with up-to-date information on trade agreements:
http://www.tradewatch.org
The New Economy of Water:
http://www.pacinst.org/reports/new_economy_of_water.pdf
The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Water:
http://www.ifg.org/programs/ftaawater.htm