FTAA: Trading Away Our Right to Protect Animals
By Michael Greger

Originally Published in Satya, Jan/Feb 2004

 

“As far as animals are concerned, the WTO is the single most destructive international organization ever formed.”—Animal Welfare Institute

“In all my years working on these issues, there has never been a bigger threat to animal protection than that posed by GATT and the WTO.”—Patricia Forkan, Executive Vice President of the Humane Society of the United States

Four years ago in Seattle, among thousands of fellow protesters, hundreds of activists donned sea turtle costumes to protest the World Trade Organization. Two years ago, amidst clouds of tear gas, mooing mad cow-dressed activists handed out International Fund for Animal Welfare pamphlets to the thousands that gathered to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) talks in Quebec City. The black spots on their costumes formed the shape of the continental Americas, which would be subsumed under the most far-reaching trade agreement in history—the Free Trade Area of the Americas—if the 34 heads of state who gathered in Quebec had their way. Their next meeting was in Miami, November 2003, and the Miami dolphins—hundreds of activists dressed as dolphins—were there to greet them.

People who care deeply about animal issues—fur, factory farming, animal testing, endangered species—should be very concerned with corporate globalization. In the U.S., it all started in 1947 with GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. As its name implies, GATT aimed to reduce tariff rates between trading nations, but it soon turned to non-tariff barriers, to so-called “unfair” trade barriers like the protection of dolphins from being drowned by the far-reaching nets of tuna fishers.

Under GATT, Mexico challenged the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allowed only dolphin-friendly tuna to enter the U.S. The Mexican tuna industry, which continues to kill up to 50,000 dolphins a year, demanded, in the interest of “free trade,” that their tuna be allowed into the U.S. The GATT panel sided with Mexico and ruled that the dolphin protection law was indeed an unfair trade barrier and demanded that the U.S. allow the importation of Mexico’s dolphin-deadly tuna. Under tremendous public pressure to protect dolphins, however, the U.S. government stood its ground, which it could do without penalty because GATT lacked any powers of enforcement. But on January 1, 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was born, which gave GATT the teeth to rule on trade disputes. Now, all Mexico had to do was threaten to take the U.S. before the WTO, and this U.S. law to protect dolphins—this victory dozens of organizations fought for over decades—was effectively overridden, setting a lethal precedent for the fate of animals.

Sea turtle protection was up next. Sea turtles are one of the world’s oldest animals, now on the brink of extinction thanks to shrimp trawl fishing, one of the world’s most destructive fishing practices. To protect the world’s sea turtles, Congress amended the Endangered Species Act to prohibit the importation of shrimp from countries that continued needlessly killing turtles. This law was also deemed a barrier to trade and critically weakened: four shrimp fishing nations—Thailand, Malaysia, India and Pakistan—issued a WTO challenge.

It’s the same story with whale protection, and with attempts to ban “walls of death”—driftnets. Europe tried to bar pelts from North America because we still use the barbaric steel-jaw leghold trap, but to no avail. Europe passed a law banning the importation of cosmetics tested on animals, one of the most dramatic victories for animals in the 1990s. It was also effectively struck down by the WTO.

Some animal protection laws haven’t even made it to the books yet but are already being undermined by these so-called free trade agreements. In 1999 all of Europe adopted a ban of battery cages for egg-laying hens. But before the law goes into effect it must undergo a WTO review, which is still pending. Europe wants to ban sow farrowing crates—horrible veal calf-like stalls—but they can’t because of the WTO. Groups tried to get exports from U.S. puppy mills banned, but couldn’t because of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The FTAA aims to extend NAFTA throughout the Americas (barring Cuba).

There is resistance brewing. Animal rights groups not only played a major role in the Seattle demonstrations, they were on hand at the World Bank protests four months later in Washington, DC. The group Compassion Over Killing used these words to describe their experience there: “The collective efforts of activists from so many social justice movements was nothing short of beautiful. And the support animal rights activists received was wholly empowering. Marching from blockade to blockade, under a huge banner reading ‘Animal Rights Activists Say NO to Globalization,’ we were met with cheers and support. For many, it was clear that A16 [April 16, the day of the protest] was the first time they recognized the interconnectedness of all of our efforts to fight for the liberation of all.”

For the animal rights movement, corporate globalization may turn out to be the key bridging issue on which to build coalitions with other social justice movements. Teamsters and turtles in Seattle gave way to dolphins and dockworkers in Miami. And regardless of what happened inside the closed meetings, that solidarity is a victory in itself.

Michael Greger, M.D. is a physician, vegan nutrition specialist, prize-winning cook, popular speaker, and author of Heart Failure: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student. He is also an authority on Mad Cow disease and serves as Farm Sanctuary’s Chief BSE Investigator. To learn more about Dr. Greger, see www.veganmd.org. For more on globalization and the FTAA, and how to get involved, visit www.globalexchange.org.

Originally Published in Satya, Jan/Feb 2004