Statement on Free Trade Agreements
and Economic Justice

December 2007

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was founded in 1915 to study, make known and eliminate the causes of war, and to work for global peace based on economic and social justice, on equity and on equality for all. In the past our organisation has urged governments to launch a thorough assessment of the impact of existing agreements under the World Trade Organisation on developing countries and the lives people and the environment everywhere.

We are aware of the growing number of Regional Trade Agreements that are now in place or are being negotiated and are concerned that many of these involve agreements between one or more powerful nations and developing countries.  We foresee dangers in this for the developing countries in that their anxiety to improve the infrastructure in their own countries and to reach a standard of material development approaching that enjoyed by rich countries leaves them open to pressure to accept conditions which are unfavourable to their long term prosperity. Even though they have resources and experienced, trained professionals and technicians, developing countries experience political and cultural pressures and often subjected to aggressive advisors and conditions from international financial organization experts.  They are expected to accept processes that rich countries have found convenient and have developed for their own purposes over long periods, despite the environmental costs that such processes have often implied.      

Opening the markets of developing countries puts at risk the livelihoods of small businesses and farmers and hence the well being of families and communities.  It leads to unemployment and instability, migration to cities and to other countries and breakdown of community life.  

Forty-eight percent of the Costa Rican population voted “No” to the establishment of a Central American Free Trade Agreement of the Americas on a Referendum held in 7 October 2007, an impressively large minority considering the resources available to those advocating the Yes vote. 40% of people abstained from voting at all,  which means that only a little over 30% actually supported the referendum, and even those Yes votes were achieved through many controversial means including employers threatening to massively fire people if the “no” vote won, cash was given in extremely impoverished communities.  There was also an announcement by a U.S. Official in the major media, TV and newspapers that if the Treaty was not approved, the country would also lose the benefit of the Caribbean Basic Initiative- which allows many export products access to US markets with little or no taxes.  The campaign also promoted fear about other internal matters.  Yet the outcome was a great demonstration of resistance to threats and fear, in which grass roots work and community leadership engaged to give hope for the challenges ahead.

It is notable that some of the most violent regions of the world are areas rich in mineral resources; exploitation of these brings no wealth to the residents of the region but instead brings despoliation and strife as profiteers move in without regard for the local community.  Much of the material wealth created is siphoned off to outside investors and does little to compensate for instability and dissatisfaction.

This increasing economic and social inequity is taking a particularly heavy toll on women.  They provide the bulk of cheap labour in the free trade zones where they are employed in conditions where often the most basic labour and environmental standards are violated.  An ever-larger number of women are driven into prostitution, sex trafficking and slavery by the abject poverty to which they are condemned.

There is need for regulating trade in order to respond to the needs of global development which benefits all peoples and protects the health of people and their environment rather than one which widens the disparity between rich and poor and causes social disintegration, violent conflicts and wars in many regions of the world.

Such a trading system must:

• Control the powerful corporations and financial institutions whose interests are to maximise profits for themselves - the State and its laws should ensure that they pay taxes due and contribute to sustainable development and guarantee they meet international labour and environmental standards;
• Create evaluation systems and mechanisms to improve the lives of the working people and their families;
• Ensure that the working people whose labour contributes to the trading are heard and their needs taken into account;
• Be sensitive to the concerns and wishes of small communities that are affected by trade;
• Control publicity that creates appetites for unnecessary goods imported from countries that are unable to provide for the needs of the indigenous people, or where the environmental costs in transport, extraction are excessive, wasteful and unsustainable;
• Truly respect and support democratic local and global governance, openness and accountability to the people, all of which are basic to creating conditions for equitable sharing and stewardship of the world’s riches;
• Prohibit tactics that force trade liberalisation against the wishes of people and governments;
• Guarantee that food security will not be endangered by increasing consolidation of land for cash crops and by allowing chemical and biogenetic industries to take control of crop cultivation;
• Protect the earth’s biodiversity and ecosystem and strongly punish those attacking or endangering them.

A fair trading system furthermore must:

• Promote wealth distribution enabling all to live in dignity with access to essential resources such as clean water, clean air, food, education and health care;
• Acknowledge the rights of workers;
• Be transparent in its conduct of negotiations;
• Be open and accountable to the people and work for the promotion of trade arrangements that are fair and benefit people around the globe;
• Respect the knowledge and skills of indigenous women and men;
• Respect the right to development, as outlined in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development.

We recall that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 in response to concerns about problems experienced by developing countries in conducting international trade.  We believe that UNCTAD is the body that should construct an international system that will enable all to live in dignity with access to essential resources.

WILPF calls for all trade agreements to respect the fundamental rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the different Covenants and Conventions promoting and protecting human rights, women's rights, labour rights, health and education, and the environment, as well as the commitment made by governments to implement the plans of action resulting from the UN World Conferences on environment and development, population and development, social development, and women and the human settlements (Habitat II). 

Since the special role of women as small scale farmers and traders, as carers of children and of the environment and as the majority of low paid workers is generally ignored, we call for special consideration to be given to their situation.  Trade negotiations and implementation bodies, must include representatives from working women whether working in the waged or unwaged economy.