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Free Trade or Sustainable Trade? An Ecological Economics Perspective. Jonathan M Harris. What Is Free Trade?. Harris: In practice, it is “simply the international application of an unregulated free-market system” “Holy trinity of concepts embodied in traditional economic thought” - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Free Trade or Sustainable Trade? An Ecological
Economics Perspective
Jonathan M Harris
What Is Free Trade?
• Harris: In practice, it is “simply the international application of an unregulated free-market system”
• “Holy trinity of concepts embodied in traditional economic thought”– Economic growth– Technological progress– Free Trade
Criticisms
• Unrealistic– Constant economic growth is impossible
• Increase in pollution
• Limitations– Short-term– Consumption gains as the sole measure
of social welfare
Short-Term?
“Gives no consideration to longer-term issues of sustainability, growth, and the social and institutional impacts of trading patterns”
Enemy of Sustainability?
“According to the logic of ‘free trade’, environmental legislation that restricts or taxes the flow of traded commodities… can be challenged as a barrier of trade”
GATT Article XX
Exceptions to trade rules for measures relating to conservation of exhaustible resources
UNREALISTIC
The Real Problem: Sustainability vs. Free Trade
Sustainability requires control over the market
Free Trade lets the market decide
Harris’s Circle
• Sustainability first means free trade second
• Free trade cannot be the second priority
• It is unrealistic to keep it as the top priority
What About a Compromise?
WTO Committee on Trade and Environment 1996
Failure to resolve differences in opinions among delegates
No proposals for modification of WTO rules
VERDICT: FAIL
Current Ideas
Broaden Article XX
WTO recognition of multinational environmental agreements
Trade measures
Why Compromise Can’t Work
• Free trade requires constant growth
• Environmental protection would disrupt this
Conclusion: Free trade cannot be the basis of sustainability
The Environmental Kuznets Curve Principle (EKC)
Environmental damage increases initially
Starts to diminish after the nation hits a “Turning Point”
Flaws
1. Tests of this are limited
2. “Turning Point” is highly variable
3. “Turning Point” is often higher than suspected
Global “Turning Points”
Nitrogen Oxides2079
Sulfur Dioxide 2085
Suspended Particulate Matter 2089
Further Issues of Free Trade
• Rising Inequity
• Undermining Community Organizations
Rising Inequity
Undermines Unions
The NAFTA Agreement (1993)
• Praised
• Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
• North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC)
The Truth About the CEC
Little more than a statement of good intentions
NAALC’s Turn
POWERLESS
“Free” Trade
Intellectual Property Rights & Bioengineering
=Developed nations and multinationals
VsDeveloping nations
Conclusions
• Future of Sustainability
• Future of NAFTA
• The Future.
Future of Sustainability
Strategies included in trade policies and agreements
– Both globally and locally
Future of NAFTA
• Expansion of current policies
• More effective sanctions
The Future
“Freer Trade” ends
Trade evaluated socially and ecologically– Reflected by global and regional policy