Could an Americas free trade treaty limit the ability of cities, counties and states to pass laws on zoning, government contracts and other local issues?
Critics of the proposed 34-nation accord fear that it will, and they're calling on governments crafting the pact to write in provisions to safeguard local lawmaking.
The concerns surfaced Tuesday night at a panel in Miami on the Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, the ambitious accord scheduled for 2005 that seeks to reduce trade barriers, spur business and trim poverty across the hemisphere.
Trade lawyer Lori Wallach said the FTAA would set binding rules on all countries, "one-size-fits-all, top-down," and jurisdictions that pass laws seen as blocking trade or otherwise conflicting with those rules could face challenges and fines through a special FTAA tribunal, separate from traditional court systems.
"This city has a lot to lose in making its own decisions," warned Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, a unit of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
The concerns stem from controversial provisions already included in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, the decade-old trade pact linking the United States, Canada and Mexico. Those provisions have prompted numerous lawsuits, some fines and letters of concern from states' attorneys general.
Former Florida Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth raised the issue last year, for example, in a letter to the state's U.S. senators during a trade debate.
Butterworth warned that NAFTA's so-called "investor protection" provision may give foreign investors more rights than U.S. citizens to sue for compensation over state and local laws that they see as blocking trade and hurting their profits. He urged the senators to make sure such provisions are kept out of future trade pacts.
"The FTAA model is on a collision course with state and local governments," said panelist Peter Riggs, director of the Washington-based Forum on Trade and Democracy.
Riggs urged FTAA negotiators to write rules that leave room for cities and states to customize laws, so communities could still act to say, give tax breaks to selected industries or preferences on government contracts to minorities and other targeted groups.
The pacts should be drafted, he said, "so if push comes to shove, the local rules prevail."
More than 100 people turned out Tuesday night for the two-hour debate on the FTAA, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade County and moderated by Tanya Dawkins, founder of the Inter-American Forum at the Collins Center for Public Policy in Miami.
The forum came amid preparation for Nov. 17-21 meetings in Miami, when Americas' business leaders and trade ministers will hammer out details of the accord that would create the world's largest free trade area, encompassing more than 800 million people.
At least 20,000 protesters are expected at the November talks in Miami -- among them panelist Gihan Perera, executive director of the Miami Workers Center.
"We're not against trade," Perera said, "but the question is who writes … the rules of the game, and are the present rules fair?"
"We feel the rules and the ability to change them are locked out to us," he said, "and we need to start writing some new rules."
Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5009.
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