by Henry Holmes
Sustainable Alternatives to the Global Economy (SAGE)
Thanks to massive opposition by people from around the world, the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), scheduled for April 1998, is all but dead. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) intended MAI as a new constitution for a global economy to protect the interests of investors across national borders. Its promoters have never been shy about their agenda to promote profit over environmental protection, ecologically sustainable development, human rights, consumer protection, labor rights and the needs of local communities. The US government has not been much better, consistently downplaying the serious flaws in the agreement. But activists who gathered in Paris in October 1998 to pressure negotiators found reasons for cautious celebration.
A weekend teach-in on the MAI and global financial crisis drew several hundred participants, and concluded with two days of street actions. A press conference and mobile action on the Paris subway ended with activists occupying the offices of the International Chamber of Commerce, broadcasting opposition from the "heart of the beast."
The following day, activists floodlit OECD headquarters to symbolize the "Dracula Strategy" - exposed to the light of day, MAI withers and dies. Two days of negotiations were reduced to one, and downgraded to "consultations" after France announced its decision to abandon the OECD MAI proceedings and called for their transfer to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The MAI agenda is not dead by any means. Several countries support moving it to the WTO, and many of its provisions are being introduced into regional agreements, such as the Transatlantic Economic Partnership between the US and the European Union. Resistance to the agenda continues, as the economic growth model is fatally flawed. It widens the gap between rich and poor, even within nations; it destabilizes societies, and pollutes and depletes the Earth's resources. Africa, Asia, Russia, and now Latin America bear the worst of it, but repercussions are also striking Europe, Canada and the US.
The November 1998 International Conference on Alternatives to Globalization in Tagaytay City in the Philippines included activists from 31 countries. They explored alternatives ranging from citizens' international trade and investment rules and stronger nation-state control over "sustainable development" to local initiatives for smaller-scale diversified, decentralized economies. Participants agreed that alternatives must uphold and safeguard people's rights, welfare, and values, ensure their sovereign control of their natural and human resources, guarantee economic democracy, democratic governance and their right to determine their national destiny. There are different ways to achieve sustainable alternatives, and we must respect each other's independence in pursuing the goal.
In California's San Francisco Bay area, SAGE's work on sustainable urban community economic development continues through collaboration with the United Indian Nations Community Development Corporation (UINCDC). UINCDC has been leading an effort to convert the Oakland Army base into an eco-industrial park as a model of green manufacturing and sustainable community economic development. The MAI would prohibit many of the project's features, such as local hiring and training requirements. SAGE will use such community initiatives as examples to demonstrate the local impacts of economic globalization, and to connect local efforts to global work toward ecologically sustainable community economic development. SAGE is also developing a greenprint for bioregionally-based ecological economies linked to community needs in the San Francisco Bay area.
SAGE has been invited by a number of civil society organizations in Russia to do a series of briefings and workshops on economic globalization and sustainable community development. Developing partnerships with these and other international grassroots globalization efforts will continue to be an integral focus for SAGE.
Henry Holmes is Director of Sustainable Alternatives to the Global Economy. For more info, contact SAGE:
Write: 300 Broadway, Suite 28, San Francisco, CA 94133
Phone: (415) 788-3666 x122
E-mail: <sage@earthisland.org>
Surf: www.earthisland.org/sage
Fight continues against globalization