NICE cats hate GATS - If they ever get to hear about it - break info blocade -make sure they do hear

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday August 30, 2002 16:14 by Blisset (slight Return)

Gats is number 2 in Project Cencored most censored news stories of the last year

GATS and the links of same to the NICE Treaty had better be explained clearly and correctly to the people of erron by the Referendum Commission - else they leave themselves open to court action deeming their information - 'unconstitutional'. Excerpt from Project Censored Below:

# 2 New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services

Source: The Ecologist, February, 2001
Title: The Last Frontier
Author: Maude Barlow - [email protected]

A global trade agreement now being negotiated will seek to privatize nearly
every government-provided public service and allow transnational
corporations to run them for profit.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a proposed
free-trade agreement that will attempt to liberalize/dismantle barriers
that protect government provided social services. These are social services
bestowed by the government in the name of public welfare. The GATS was
established in 1994, at the conclusion of the "Uruguay Round" of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1995, the GATS agreement
was adopted by the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO).
Corporations plan to use the GATS agreement to profit from the
privatization of educational systems, health care systems, child care,
energy and municipal water services, postal services, libraries, museums,
and public transportation. If the GATS agreement is finalized, it will lock
in a privatized, for-profit model for the global economy. GATS/WTO would
make it illegal for a government with privatized services to ever return to
a publicly owned, non-profit model. Any government that disobeys these WTO
rulings will face sanctions. What used to be areas of common heritage like
seed banks, air and water supplies, health care and education will be
commodified, privatized, and sold to the highest bidder on the open market.
People who cannot afford these privatized services will be left out.
Services are the fastest growing sector of international trade. If GATS is
implemented, corporations will reap windfall profits. Health care,
education, and water services are the most potentially lucrative. Global
expenditures on water services exceed $1 trillion each year, on education
they exceed $2 trillion, and on health care they're over $3.5 trillion.
The WTO has hired a private company called the Global Division for
Transnational Education. This company plans to document policies that
"discriminate against foreign education providers." The results of this
'study' will be used to pressure countries with public education systems to
relinquish them to the global privatized marketplace.

The futures of accountability for public services, and of sovereign law are
at stake with the GATS decision. Foreign corporations will have the right
to establish themselves in any GATS/WTO-controlled country and compete
against non-profit or government institutions, such as schools and
hospitals, for public funds.

The current round of GATS negotiations has identified three main priorities
for future free-trade principles. First, GATS officials are pushing for
"National Treatment" to be applied across the board. "National Treatment"
would forbid governments from favoring their domestic companies over
foreign-based companies. This idea already applies to certain services, but
GATS will enforce it to all services. This will create an expansion of
mega-corporate access to domestic markets and further diminish democratic
accountability. The economically dominant western countries would like to
make it illegal for "developing" countries to reverse this exclusive access
to their markets.

Second, GATS officials are seeking to place restrictions on domestic
regulations. This would limit a government's ability to enact
environmental, health, and other regulations and laws that hinder
"free-trade." The government would be required to demonstrate that its laws
and regulations were necessary to achieve a WTO-sanctioned objective, and
that no other commercially friendly alternative was available.

Third, negotiators are attempting to develop the expansion of "Commercial
Presence" rules. These rules allow an investor in one GATS-controlled
country to establish a presence in any other GATS country. The investor
will not only be allowed to compete against private suppliers for business,
but will also be allowed to compete against publicly funded institutions
and services for public funds.

This potential expansion of GATS/WTO authority into the day-to-day
business of governments will make it nearly impossible for citizens to
exercise democratic control over the future of traditionally public
services. One American trade official summed up the GATS/WTO process by
saying, "Basically it won't stop until foreigners finally start to think
like Americans, act like Americans, and most of all shop like Americans."
Faculty evaluator: John Kramer, Student researchers: Chris Salvano, Adria
Cooper

International media coverage: Toronto Star, 3/3/02, The Herald (Glasgow)
2/27/02, The Hindu, 11/17,01 The Weekend Australian, 8/25/01, The Gazette
(Montreal) 6/15/01 The Financial Times (London)