FOCUS on APEC
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FOCUS-on-APEC
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A regular bulletin produced by Focus on the Global South
(FOCUS)
Bangkok, Thailand
Volume 1, Number 1
March 1996
Welcome to the first issue of FOCUS-on-APEC!
FOCUS was designated the NGO Information/Monitoring Center
on APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum) by the
participants of the 1995 NGO Forum on APEC in Kyoto, Japan.
It was out of this commitment that FOCUS-on-APEC was
created. FOCUS-on-APEC carries APEC-related news, the
latest items of interest and concern, and informed and
critical analysis from a progressive perspective -- with a
broad geographical concentration on East Asia and the
Western and South Pacific.
FOCUS-on-APEC is where you can learn about other people's
APEC-related work and they can learn about yours. Please
send us your APEC-related information (by e-mail, fax or
snail-mail!) -- including news items, research papers,
opinion pieces and information on grassroots activities
happening in your respective country. Your contributions
will be incorporated into the bulletins.
We welcome your comments and suggestions!
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CONTENTS:
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- APEC HIGHLIGHTS
- Partner Organizations
- REGIONAL ANALYSIS
- OSAKA: No Action, No Agenda?
- APEC and DEMOCRACY
- APEC and ASEM
- APEC and ASEAN
- APEC and the ENVIRONMENT
- REGIONAL ROUNDUP
- Australia Update: NGOs in the APEC Process
- Aotearoa/New Zealand Update: July Forum
- Philippine Update: Organizing for November
- ANNOUNCEMENTS
- FOCUS' Website!
- Hard copy versions
- RESOURCES
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APEC HIGHLIGHTS
FOCUS' APEC Project Partner Organizations:
Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development
<npr@igc.apc.org>
(Nautilus and FOCUS are working together on two key research
projects -- Alternative Security in the Asia-Pacific and
Alternatives to APEC. Nautilus now plans to send out an
electronic bulletin and short faxes on APEC, with a focus on
the environment and a geographical concentration on the
Western hemisphere. If you are interested in receiving
this, please contact Nautilus directly to subscribe
yourself.)
Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural
Development (ANGOC)
<angoc@econet.apc.org>
Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC)
<parc@twics.com>
Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA)
<arena@hk.net>
____________________________________________________________
REGIONAL ANALYSIS
"The Osaka Summit: A 'No Action No Agenda' Meeting?:
Analysis and Reaction"
Summary of two _Economist_ articles Nov. 25 , 1995 and Jan.
6,1996
by Ma. Salome Bulayog
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
In the November 25 issue of The Economist, the APEC summit
in Japan was described as a "No Action, No Agenda" meeting.
According to The Economist, the summit has adopted an Action
Agenda but there was no real action taking place, in the
sense that most of the programs agreed upon by the delegates
were vague. Commitments to open and free trade which were
proclaimed in Indonesia and which were reaffirmed in Japan
are to be implemented in 2010 in the case of rich countries
and by 2020 in the case of poor countries. However, it
seems that the member countries have different
interpretations of the word "free" and "open". For
instance, to the Americans and Australians, free trade means
a 5% reduction in tariffs, abolition of quotas, and some
unspecified progress in reforming policies and other
measures which inhibits trade which the other members of
APEC disagreed. Furthermore, the members were also unclear
about how they are going to achieve their goals. There was
an argument among them on whether the benefits of
liberalization should be extended to trading partners
outside their charmed circle. Optimists plead that it is
better to settle on a vague agenda than to risk divisive
arguments; at least harmony has been preserved in a group
which includes countries as diverse as Brunei and Canada.
Although the agreements were vague and the harmony
artificial, the group can get results. To quote, The
Economist stated that "In sum, Osaka's Action Agenda
committed nobody to anything. The best that can be said is
that when they meet again next year, the region's leaders
may be shamed into bolder tariff cuts. Then again, shame
seldom bothers politicians".
Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International
Economics in Washington, D.C., and chairman from 1992-1995
of the forum's advisory disagrees. According to Mr.
Bergsten, the recent Osaka summit has provided encouraging
evidence that the APEC's ambitious goals can be achieved.
He said that all challenges to the comprehensiveness of its
liberalization commitment, notably from Japan and South
Korea on agriculture were rejected. Agreements were reached
on key "trade facilitation" issues including customs
harmonization and simplification, harmonization and
simplification, product standardization and mutual
agreements for product testing and recognition . In fact, a
number of down payments on liberalization were announced:
Japan will accelerate by 50% its Uruguay round cuts in
industrial tariffs, a number of countries will accelerate
their adoption of the Round's intellectual property and
other disciplines, China will cut a number of its tariffs by
30%, and Indonesia and several other developing countries
have reduced tariffs sharply. On the criticism that the
Osaka summit was vague, Bergsten emphasized that Osaka
produced precise agreements on the nine principles, an
agenda of fifteen topics, and launched timetables that
together will guide the process for implementing the free
trade pledge -- APEC's equivalent of the Punta del Este
agreement that Uruguay round in 1986.
To The Economist's conclusion that "Osaka's Action Agenda
committed nobody to anything", Fred Bergsten admits that it
is true that commitments made at the Osaka summit were non-
binding and voluntary and unilateral rather than negotiated
actions and decision by consensus. He said that many Asians
emphasized peer pressure and enlightened self-interest
rather than the give and take of formal negotiations that is
familiar to western trade officials. This is perhaps the
reason for The Economist's conclusion. However, he said
that despite some wistful chatter about keeping APEC as a
consultative forum, it has already undertaken serious and
successful negotiations. Its trade ministers developed a
joint offer in late 1993 that helped bring Uruguay Round to
a successful conclusion. A code of non-binding investment
principles was worked out in 1994. Bergsten emphasized
that the Bogor Declaration, through which the free trade
commitment was enunciated in Indonesia, was a thoroughly
negotiated document and that the Osaka "Action Agenda" was
negotiated over nine months with at least the intensity of
Punta del Este and similar trade agreements.
Bergsten said that it is also doubtful whether the "Asian
way" really differs very much from the traditional trade
talks reiterating that all begin with a commitment to
liberalize that is political rather than legal as at Bogor
or Punta del Este. "No trade negotiations commence with a
legal obligation and Economist misleads its readers by
suggesting that APEC is somehow unusual in this respect,"
Bergsten said.
Bergsten also stated that in the Osaka Summit, the zeal for
consensus has not prevented the will of the majority from
prevailing on every important issue. There was still
flexibility alongside comprehensiveness to enable countries
to liberalize more slowly in sensitive sectors such as
agriculture but this is no different from the rearend
loading of the phase out of textile quotas by the United
States and others under the Uruguay Round. According to
Bergsten, "Any differences in APEC may turn out to be much
more rhetorical than substantive".
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"Democracy in APEC"
by Jane Kelsey
Aotearoa/NZ APEC Monitoring Group, Professor at the
University of Auckland
The difficulty we have in working with APEC is that it is a
very difficult agency to monitor or to intervene in. Many
people compare APEC to the EU or NAFTA . But the EU has
institutions, such as parliament, a court, a council, which
are visible, which are required to make public the
operations and decisions, and which allow some level of
democratic participation. Much of NAFTA's framework at
least involved formal agreements that required ratification
within legislature of the countries involved, although the
reality of democratic participation for any outside the
United States was very limited.
APEC, however, is the most anti-democratic, secretive,
invisible, and inaccessible of these entities. What we are
seeing next week is a pageant of ministers and leaders, but
this is not really how APEC works. Rather, it operates
through a series of meetings throughout the year involving
officials who work behind the scenes, outside the framework
of national governments in a way which is very difficult to
monitor and hold to account. Alongside them are private
sector lobbyists who very deeply influence what takes place
within APEC. The organization PECC (Pacific Economic
Cooperation Council) combines academics, private sector
lobbyists, and officials, in their "private capacity,"
which means that their governments cannot be implicated for
what they do. So what we have is an informal network that
operates behind the scenes in APEC.
A further dimension of APEC's operation which was promoted
by the United States in 1993, was to set up APEC study
centers in universities in the different countries. The
intent is to create educated like-thinking elites throughout
the region, who are committed to neoliberal economics and
structural adjustment. It is supposed to provide a
launching pad for new ideas to be promoted within APEC.
These networks operate not only within APEC. These same
officials and same private lobbyists meet in other forums,
such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Trade
Organization, and during the consultative processes of
ASEAN.
Therefore, one of the concerns that we have when we look at
APEC is not simply the institutions but what lies behind
them. The aggressive agenda which the United States,
Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have pursued sees APEC as
a convenient vehicle to achieve their goals. They have
little understanding or show little understanding of the
complexities involved.
It may well be, in fact, that APEC will fall apart. Some of
us may be tempted to call this a success. But what we have
to remember is that behind APEC there are series of networks
which will survive and find other ways to pursue the same
goals. The challenge to us as NGOs and people who are
committed to social justice is to develop our own networks
to ensure that we can challenge the way the international
economic decisions are now being made, outside of the sphere
of the state, and which have dramatic impacts on the lives
of all of us, whether we live in the North or the South.
(This is a reprint from the _AMPO Japan-Asia Quarterly
Review_ Vol. 26 No. 4. See the "RESOURCES" section of this
bulletin.)
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"ASEM versus APEC"
by Walden Bello
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
Fifteen European and 10 Asian heads of state held an
economic summit in Bangkok (Asian European Meeting (ASEM))
on March 1 and 2, 1996. The meeting ended with vows of
facilitating freer trade and investment activity. A key
objective of the European Union was to press the Asians to
agree to the new Multilateral Investment Treaty that they
are pushing in the World Trade Organization (WTO) that would
grant foreign investors "national treatment," that is,
accord them the rights and privileges granted to nationals.
Sensitive issues were by agreement avoided; this included
human rights, Burma, East Timor, Northern Ireland, the
social clause issue, and arms sales.
These issues were, however, in the forefront of the parallel
meeting, "The First Asia-Europe NGO Conference", that took
place in Bangkok before the summit, on Feb. 27-29. Attended
by 350 NGO representatives, the conference opposed the
proposed investment treaty, called for greater respect and
protection of migrant workers in Europe, demanded greater
efforts to stop sex trafficking and child exploitation, and
recommended a parallel withdrawal of Indonesia from East
Timor supervised by ASEAN and of France from New Caledonia
and Tahiti. The NGO meeting received wide coverage in the
Thai, regional, and international press. (Violeta Corral of
ANGOC attended the meeting representing the International
Organizing Committee for the Philippine Forum on APEC.)
The official summit was, however, largely a symbolic
occasion, the strategic intent of which was to begin to
build a counterweight to APEC. As Dr. Joel Rocamora of the
Philippines observed, "APEC is the main reason for the EU's
push to improve relations with Asia, the main reason
therefore why we are here. Without APEC, ASEM would
probably not have happened." Rocamora then quoted from the
EU's Asia Strategy Paper which said that unless the EU
adopted a more coordinated and proactive policy, "The Union
stands to lose out of the economic miracle taking place [in
Asia] because of strong competition from Japan and the US
and also increasingly from companies within the region's
newly industrialized and capital rich countries."
(Papers presented to the "First NGO Asia-Europe Conference"
will be published in a collective book. Copies will be
available at FOCUS within 6 months time. The next conference
will be held in London in 1998.)
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"ASEAN and APEC: An Uneasy Coexistence"
by Walden Bello
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
(This article originally appeared in _The Nation_
[Bangkok] Nov. 16, 1995. It is the last article of a
three-part series. The first dealt with APEC and the
US, the second with APEC and Japan.)
It has been from within the ranks of ASEAN that
the most militant criticism of the Australian-American
move to convert APEC into a free trade area has
emerged. The mercurial Prime Minister Mohamad
Mahathir has not only become identified with the
posture that APEC should refrain from becoming a free
trade area, but he is the principal proponent of what
Washington and Canberra see is a threatening rival
concept: the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC).
ASEAN and the EAEC Controversy
The EAEC would include only Asian and Western
Pacific nations in a loosely structured consultative
group. While the other ASEAN countries have not been
on the forefront espousing it, they have nevertheless
been broadly supportive of the idea. In Mahathir's
view, after all, ASEAN would be the nucleus or
core of the EAEC. In fact, it has been at the advice
of his ASEAN neighbors that Mahatir has downgraded his
proposed formation from the status of an independent
regional "group" to being a "caucus" within APEC in
order to lessen Washington and Canberra's suspicions.
It has not had this effect, however, and the
Clinton administration has brought against the
"caucus" proposal the same criticism that the Bush
administration launched at the original "group" idea:
that it would create an "artificial dividing line down
the middle of the Pacific."
Washington knows, however, that the so-called
line is far from artificial, and its strident
opposition to Mahathir's project stems from the fact
that it would reinforce trends that are already at
work Already, intra-Asian trade makes up some
45 per cent of East Asia's trade and it is growing
much faster than its trade with other parts of the
world. The size of Japan's trade with Asia now
outstrips its trade with the US, and Southeast Asia
has overtaken the US to become Korea's biggest market.
With East Asia becoming both integrated production
base and its own biggest market, the formation of EAEC
would accelerate the lessening market dependence on
the US and promote greater political independence.
So threatened is Washington that a few weeks ago,
US Undersecretary of State Joseph Nye, according to a
report that appeared in Singapore's Business Times,
made the strong suggestion in Tokyo that the US would
"probably withdraw our security presence" from the
Asia-Pacific if the countries in the area were to
proceed to form the EAEC on the grounds that the
latter would "exclude the US from the region
economically." It was another one of those Super 301-
like threats that was not likely to raise Washington's
stock in Southeast Asia.
Endorsement of the EAEC does not mean, however,
that ASEAN as a whole is opposed to the APEC free-
trade area concept. It is more accurate to say that
ASEAN is not of one mind about APEC liberalization.
Postures range from Singapore's support, Indonesia's
formal endorsement amidst strong doubts, Thailand's
apprehensiveness, Malaysia's confrontational stance,
and the Philippines' largely spectator role.
It is fair to say, however, that the center of
gravity of ASEAN opinion tends toward the cautious,
critical, and suspicious. This is not mainly because
of Washington and Canberra's opposition to EAEC, which
remains, after all, a proposal. The reason is much
more concrete and, for ASEAN, more vital: APEC is
increasingly perceived as a rival to ASEAN and its pet
project, AFTA, the ASEAN Free Trade Area.
The ASEAN Vision: Regional Industrialization
via Trade Liberalization
ASEAN is the grandfather of multilateral regional
arrangements in the Asia-Pacific, and the ASEAN
governments are very jealous of their creation when
confronted with newcomers like APEC. Indeed, even
among sectors of the ASEAN citizenries, there is a
fellow feeling--a sense of "ASEAN brotherhood and
sisterhood"--that is unique in the East Asian region.
In its first quarter century, ASEAN achieved
success mainly as a political alliance against
communism. However, the original impulse for its
founding in the late sixties was for it to serve as a
vehicle for regional economic cooperation. The spirit
that animated plans for an economic bloc was not the
neoclassical concern for "efficient allocation of
productive resources through free market mechanisms"
that underlies, in theory at least, the APEC free
trade area. Rather, trade integration was seen as a
base for integrated regional industrialization. As
originally envisioned by the influential Robinson
report undertaken for ASEAN by UNESCAP, ASEAN members
were to carry out limited trade liberalization to
create a wider market that would encourage coordinated
industrial import substitution at a regional level.
In the 1970's and 1980's, the ASEAN countries
launched several initiatives, including the
Preferential Trading Arrangements (PTA), which aimed
at a limited liberalization; the ASEAN Industrial
Projects (AIP), which sought to assign large-scale
capital-intensive projects to different countries to
develop; the ASEAN Industrial Complementation Scheme
(AIC), which aimed to divide different production
phases of the automobile and other industries among
member countries; and the ASEAN Industrial Ventures
(AJIV), aimed at increasing industrial production
through resource pooling and market sharing by ASEAN
firms. Running through these schemes was the
protectionist perspective of using trade policy--that
is, reducing trade barriers among members while
keeping them up against non-members--as an instrument
to build regional industrial capacity.
Grand in vision, these initiatives were scarcely
implemented in the 1970's and 1980's, as ASEAN focused
on regional political issues like the continuing
instability in Cambodia. But with the end of the Cold
War and the return of relative political stability to
Cambodia, ASEAN members returned to the common-market
agenda that had been ASEAN's original impulse by
launching AFTA in 1992. There was another reason as
well: the founding of APEC in Canberra in 1989 and
Australia's energetic diplomacy to make it the
regional economic bloc for the Asia-Pacific.
The core of AFTA is the so-called CEPT or "Common
Effective Preferential Tariff Agreement" which applies
to all manufactured goods, including capital goods and
processed agricultural products. The central
provision of CEPT was that all tariffs would be
lowered to a substantially free trade level within 15
years, in 2008. In the view of its planners, AFTA
was, like the previous ASEAN tariff reduction
attempts, no simple free trade scheme. It was to
simultaneously use internal trade liberalization and
external trade discrimination in an effort to create a
wider market that would provide the economies of scale
for the profitable operation of capital-intensive and
technology-intensive industries, be they ASEAN-based
or foreign.
As Australian government study pointed out,
unlike the APEC free trade scheme, AFTA employs trade
policy for regional industrialization ends: "By
creating an integrated ASEAN market and production
base, AFTA seeks to encourage multinationals (and
ASEAN-based firms) to develop region-wide production,
distribution, and marketing strategies; and in the
process boost the overall competitiveness of ASEAN
production."
When it came to implementation, however, the
agreement was initially bogged down in different time
frames for tariff reductions and long lists of
products that the different countries wanted to exempt
from CEPT provisions, casting doubt on countries'
commitment to the liberalization process. It seemed
AFTA would go the way of past ASEAN initiatives, until
ASEAN governments "relaunched" the program in 1994
with the ambitious agreement to advance the target
date for the elimination of trade barriers from 15 to
10 years, making ASEAN a substantially free trade area
by the year 2003.
AFTA and APEC as Rival Processes
This time it was Bill Clinton's big push for the
APEC free trade area during the November 1993 Seattle
Summit that served as the spur to ASEAN's quickening
pace of trade integration, just as it was APEC's 2020
APEC free trade vision articulated at the November
1994 that sparked the Sultan of Brunei's recent
controversial proposal that the achievement of free
trade in AFTA should take place by the year 2000,
three years ahead of the already revised schedule.
ASEAN's competitive pace is not surprising, for
the grouping would lose its raison d'etre--to become a
unified market and production base via internal trade
liberalization and external trade discrimination--if
the APEC free trade area were to become a reality.
ASEAN would be happy with APEC if the latter were to
remain a group for consultation and cooperation that
would not threaten the ASEAN goal of regional
industrial upgrading through regional trade
liberalization. At the same time, Canberra and
Washington have come to realize that the more AFTA
becomes a reality, the more difficult it would be for
an APEC free trade area to come into existence.
This race for effective liberalization between
AFTA and APEC has been largely carried out without
direct references to the essential contradiction
between the two enterprises. This may be about to
change. One Australian government unit has already
warned that AFTA could become a "substitute for more
comprehensive liberalization," and urged Canberra to
"press for liberalization of a range of ASEAN tariff
and non-tariff barriers and remaining impediments to
investment, for all of ASEAN's trading partners." But
probably more alarming, and more offensive, to ASEAN
is a recent remark by Dr. Fred Bergsten, the American
head of the Eminent Persons' Group, to the effect that
permission must be secured from APEC and the World
Trade Organization before any subregional economic
grouping in East Asia is allowed to pursue further
integration.
The ASEAN reaction to Bergsten's proposal and
similar suggestions to "bring AFTA under control" is
probably not different from that of a commentator in
Singapore's Business Times: "This is extraordinary.
APEC is a voluntary and non-binding agreement among
Asia-Pacific states and why it should have the right
to veto any proposal from formally constituted bodies
such as ASEAN is hard to see...APEC needs to more
carefully avoid giving the impression of patronizing
any of its members, especially as it is viewed as an
instrument of US policy in this region. A few lessons
in diplomacy would not come amiss among visitors from
Washington."
ASEAN's Guerrilla Strategy
The ASEAN governments, however, have not been
without effective weapons in their effort to slow down
the momentum toward free trade in APEC. Perhaps the
most clever ploy has been to invoke the Most Favored
Nation (MFN) principle in international trade, which
states that one automatically extends to all other
trading partners the terms granted to the most favored
partner. Here, the ASEAN countries have teamed up
with Japan in opposing the United States, which
adamantly sticks to the principle of reciprocity,
which would extend APEC trade terms only to non-
members who undertake reciprocal concessions.
The US position is that MFN within APEC would
encourage "free riders," like the European Union,
which would benefit from a free trade area while
keeping up their own barriers. This would eventually
dilute the benefits of belonging to an APEC free trade
area. The ASEAN and Japanese reply is that MFN is the
only position that is really consistent with the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) global
trading framework administered by the WTO.
Disagreement on this very fundamental principle would
push discussion of concrete liberalization plans
within APEC further into the future, giving AFTA the
space to put its liberalization program securely in
place.
That ASEAN's resorting to MFN in this context
stems less from principle and more from a strategy to
slow down the APEC free trade process is obvious if
one realizes that none of the ASEAN countries would
even dream of invoking MFN in an AFTA context--which
is precisely what the Australians are trying to get
them to do.
Rather than Mahathir's confrontational tactics,
it is likely to be guerrilla tactics of this kind,
coupled with rhetorical bows to regional free trade--a
strategy in which the Japanese are also quite
masterful--that will bring about the effective demise
of the ersatz vision of a regional free trade area
that American and Australian pressure produced at
Bogor, and bring APEC back to the role that ASEAN,
Japan, and practically all the other Asian countries
are comfortable with: serving as a consultative forum
for economic cooperation, with no other ambitions.
(You can access the first two articles in the three-part
series by visiting FOCUS' new ftp site:
(ftp://maia.au.ac.th/incoming/focus/ParadigmsProgram/APEC.fo
lder/)
For instructions on how to ftp, contact Shea Cunningham at
FOCUS: <focus@ksc9.th.com>)
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"APEC and the Environment: Guiding Principles, Innovative
Strategies"
by Lyuba Zarsky
Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development
(Excerpts from the original paper)
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) has
emerged as the overarching institution in the Asia-Pacific
region. APEC's eighteen members span East Asia, Australasia
and the Western Hemisphere and include the world's fastest
growing economies.
The heart of APEC's diplomatic agenda is the creation
of a region-wide, liberal trade and investment regime.
Although not all APEC members are equally enthusiastic,
heads of state agreed in Bogor, Indonesia in November, 1994
to reduce trade and investment barriers by 2010 for the
developed and 2020 for the developing countries. In
November, 1995, APEC foreign ministers will meet in Osaka
to discuss an "action agenda:" ways to implement the
sweeping vision of the Bogor Agreement.
Many environmentalists and citizen groups throughout
Asia-Pacific worry that APEC's "sweeping vision" portends
something more akin to a clear-cut, smoking forest than an
efficient economic paradise. Despite some first steps to
"green" APEC, free trade diplomacy has to date taken little
consideration of the environment. Yet, economic openness
generates new and specific pressures on environmental
policymaking. With economic interdependence, the policies
and norms of one country become deeply entangled with those
of its trading partners. The scope for unilateral action is
reduced, even as trade-induced economic growth increase
pressures on resources and eco-systems.
Regional economic integration necessitates the creation of
regional frameworks for environmental governance--and APEC
is the place to build them. Mutual commitments to open
borders to trade could be vehicles which also carry
commitments to promote ecologically sustainable development.
Beyond working to expand market access, APEC countries must
cooperate in putting in place conditions and safeguards
which provide incentives for sustainable resource and
ecosystem use. In this way, trade and environmental
policies can mutually reinforce, rather than undermine, each
other.
APEC is a young and flexible institution. Over the next
five years, an opportunity exists to build environmental
concerns into APEC's very foundation. In one way or another,
it is likely that environmental issues will be on the
agenda. The crucial and unfolding issue is how deep and
broad will be the integration of trade and environmental
concerns.
Towards an Environmental Agenda for APEC
Over the next two years, the Philippines followed by Canada
will be the chairs of APEC. In the Philippines, the
severity of ecological degradation has made the environment
a mainstream concern, both domestically and internationally.
Under the leadership of President Ramos, environment and
finance ministers will meet in Manila in July to discuss
innovative approaches to financing sustainable development.
In Canada, there is considerable interest to make the
environment a "key theme" of its chairmanship. The United
States has also identified environment as one of fifteen
"broad" issues to be included in the action agenda.
The role of analysts and activists could be pivotal in
the next five years. The environmental agenda is very much
in the development stage and the political will to discuss
environmental issues at APEC is just emerging. Without
external pressure, governments are likely to focus on narrow
environmental concerns, such as the harmonization of product
standards, which are heavily influenced by their national
economic interests. It is up to citizen groups, scientists,
analysts and other non-governmental stakeholders to
articulate regional common interests and to press for a
broader environmental agenda.
Trade-Environment Principles
Suggested common principles to guide
the governance of the trade-environment interface:
1. Integration of Trade and Environment: The first
principle is the recognition that trade and environment
impacts and policies are interlinked, both at the national
and regional levels. Trade and investment policies, as well
as other forms of regional economic cooperation, should
take environmental impacts into account and aim to maintain
the resilience of eco-systems.
2. Cooperation: Common rules, guidelines and frameworks for
environmental management should be developed through
processes of regional discussion
and consensus-building. The more powerful countries should
eschew the use of unilateral trade sanctions to impose
environmental conditionalities. Ample opportunities must be
created for environmental concerns to be articulated by all
members of APEC and for a broad consensus to emerge on ways
to integrate environmental and economic management.
3. Mutual Responsibility: No APEC country can claim the
moral high ground as the guardian of ecologically sound
development. The embrace of regional mechanisms which
promote environmentally sound trade patterns will require
all APEC countries to make changes in their existing
domestic policies and to enact new policies.
4. Efficiency, Eco-Efficiency, and Cost Internalization:
One of the central aims of regional trade-environment
cooperation is to generate market prices which take
ecological costs into account The reverse is also
important: environment policies should promote economic
efficiency and aim to ensure that scarce financial resources
are well-spent.
5. Scientist and Stakeholder Participation: The creation
of sound approaches to regional environmental management
requires APEC to open its doors to scientists, especially
ecological scientists, citizen groups and other
stakeholders. Scientists and stakeholders should receive
ongoing opportunities to participate in the design and
implementation of regional trade, investment and environment
policies. Stakeholders include community, consumer,
environment and development groups, labor unions, farmers,
businesses and others.
6. Diversity and Commonality: The general approach of
APEC should be to promote common guidelines and frameworks
while leaving micro-management to national and sub-national
governments. Rather than the same standards, for example,
APEC could aim to standardize information gathering and
testing procedures, as well as standard-setting
methodologies such as environmental and health impact and
risk assessment. Harmonization of standards should be
pursued where appropriate.
(For the full text of Zarsky's paper contact the Nautilus
Institute, Fax: 1 510 204 9298, E-mail: npr@igc.apc.org)
____________________________________________________________
REGIONAL ROUNDUP
Australia Update: NGOs in the APEC Process
by Jeff Atkinson, Community Aid Abroad
In response to lobbying by NGOs, the Australian Minister for
Trade has agreed to establish a Consultative Group for
Australian NGOs and unions on APEC. This will enable these
organizations to input directly to the Minister and to
policy makers within the Australian Government. The
Consultative Group will be chaired by the Trade Minister and
will have 3 representatives from development NGOs, 2 from
environment groups, 1 from the consumer movement, and 3 from
trade unions, nominated by the Australian Council of Trade
Unions.
The Minister already has a Trade Policy Advisory Committee,
with business and farmers' representatives only, and the new
NGO Consultative Group could be seen as a side-lining of
NGOs. However, the fact that it gives them direct contact
with the Minister on a regular basis, unimpeded by other
views, has convinced the NGO community that it is worth
doing.
Unfortunately soon after the Minister announced this new
initiative, a federal election was called in Australia,
which could result in a change of government. In the course
of the election campaign, the opposition has indicated that
it also might consider some form of APEC advisory group, but
it is unlikely to include either NGOs or unions.
As part of its lobbying during the recent election campaign
in Australia, Community Aid Abroad sent to every candidate a
copy of a Social Justice Manifesto which set out what it
felt should be the social justice priorities of an
Australian Government. Among these was the promotion of
socially and environmentally sensitive trade policies
through APEC. The official launch of the manifesto
attracted significant media publicity.
------------------------------------------------------------
Aotearoa/New Zealand Update: July Forum
GATT Watchdog is organizing an Alternative Forum on Free
Trade to be held in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand from
12 - 14 July 1996. Entitled "Trading With Our Lives: the
human cost of free trade" it is scheduled to coincide with
the APEC Trade Ministers Meeting being held at Christchurch
Town Hall, involving the trade ministers and senior
officials from the 18 APEC member countries. Topics that the
forum aims to look at will include: free trade and
colonization; indigenous rights; free trade, labor rights
and standards; women and free trade; the role of
transnationals and the erosion of economic sovereignty;
market reforms - the New Zealand experience - links to the
global picture.
Keynote speakers from Mexico, East Timor, and the
Philippines are expected to attend as well as a cross-
sectoral representation of New Zealanders who are concerned
about free trade.
Successive NZ governments have committed themselves to
sweeping market reforms over the past decade and by hosting
the Trade Ministers Meeting and the 1999 APEC Leaders
Summit, are striving to position themselves closer to the
regional center of the liberalization process which APEC
forms an important part of. Debate and alternative views
about the path of development which they have chosen have
been actively stifled by politicians and much of the media.
"Trading With Our Lives" aims to add momentum to the work at
both national and regional levels to challenge these forces.
For further details, please contact Aziz Choudry or Leigh
Cookson at GATT Watchdog, Fax 64 3 3484763 or E-mail
<gattwd@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz>
------------------------------------------------------------
The Philippine Update: Organizing for November
Excerpted notes by Joy Chavez
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
February Official Meeting in Philippines:
During the First Senior Officials Meeting of APEC held in
February 1996 in Manila, the Philippine delegation presented
a new philosophy that should govern cooperation among the
APEC economies. The Philippine delegation said that APEC
should depart from the "donor-donee" approach to
development. Instead, APEC should shift to resource pooling
to harmonize regional interests and to minimize national
agenda. This approach to development will harness economic
strengths of APEC members without strings attached.
Resource pooling will also enhance regional bonding and will
enable APEC economies to maximize opportunities for trade
and investment liberalization and facilitation. The idea of
resource pooling is similar to the AFTA's Integrated
Cooperation Scheme (AICO).
According to the Philippine delegation, if the proposal is
adopted, APEC will foreshadow economic donor agencies like
the United States Agency for International Development and
the Japan's External Trade Organization. The new approach
will integrate human resource development,
telecommunications and information services on top of
infrastructure and technology which are considered as
"classic" modes of development.
Some key points of interest:
Taiwan and China: The Philippine Government has issued an
assurance to China that Taiwanese President Lee Teng Hui
will not participate in the APEC Summit this November. It
will adhere to the "one-China" policy. The Philippines will
follow the procedures adopted in previous summits. That is,
it will send invitation to Taiwan, but it expects Taiwan to
turn it down. On the other hand, Ambassador Chan Hsi Ching,
the Taiwanese representative to Manila, said that since
Taiwan is a full member of APEC, Mr. Lee has every right to
attend the Summit. According to Ambassador Chan, Mr. Lee
can make a lot of contributions to the APEC process
especially in the most sensitive area of agriculture. Mr.
Lee has a Ph.D. in agriculture from Cornell University, and
is considered one of the main movers of TaiwanÕs
agricultural development.
On 13-15 March 1996, APEC held a workshop on small and
medium size industries in Los Banos, Laguna. The workshop
tackled the organization, structure, funding and
sustainability of the Center. The main function of the
Center is to package information for use of small-and
medium-scale enterprises within APEC.
Notes from two recent FOCUS' interviews:
According to Mr. Akihiko Hashimoto, JICA (Japan
International Cooperation Agency) resident representative to
the Philippines, Japan's apprehension over the "mobility of
labor" concept arises from two things. One, Japan has been
under a recession for the last four years. Labor mobility
poses undue competition to their own labor markets which
they have to protect. Two, it is unacceptable to Japan that
cooperation for human resource development should benefit
countries other than the intended direct beneficiaries.
Japan is among the biggest donor for ODA. Their intention
is for the workers trained under their programs, or using
Japanese aid money, to help the economies of their own
countries (say, Filipino workers help to improve Philippine
economy) and not other economies. Hence, their objection to
the concept of "labor mobility" which covers not only
"qualified persons" but also the generic overseas contract
workers. (Mr. Hashimoto said that his statements are
unofficial.)
Mr. Stewart Henderson, Counselor and Consul, Political and
Economic Relations/Public Affairs, Canadian Embassy, Manila
stated: it is clear to Canada that APEC harnesses people-
to-people relations. But APEC is not a formal organization,
and does not entail formal treaties. Members enter into
agreements, not negotiation. Thus, it should not be
compared to GATT where members undergo a process of
ratification. Nor to the European Union where citizens of
the members are able to cast their votes, because there is
no APEC Parliament, no formal organization that requires
such process. And because everything is done on a voluntary
basis, there is no need for sanctions. APEC cannot and will
not issue sanctions officially. However, APEC cannot stop
its members from issuing bilateral sanctions to other
members who choose not to comply with the APEC agreements.
The People's Forum:
The Philippine Hosting Committee (PHC) is chaired by Mr.
Horacio "Boy" Morales of the Philippine Rural reconstruction
Movement (PRRM). Mr. Omi Royandoyan of the Philippine
Peasant Institute (PPI), and Ms. June Rodriguez of the Rural
Enlightenment and Accretion in Philippine Society (REAPS).
Working in close coordination with the PHC is an interim ad
hoc International Secretariat currently manned by the Asian
NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
(ANGOC) and Focus on the Global South (FOCUS). A Manila-
based International Secretariat is expected to be formed by
end-March.
As of 14 March 1996, the PHC reported the following number
of confirmed participants for the "People's Forum on APEC
1996" (PFA) : 81 Philippine NGOs and People's Organizations,
13 international/regional organizations, and two members of
the Philippine legislature. Up for confirmation are 20
other local groups and five members of the legislature.
(The International Secretariat and the PHC will meet to draw
up the list of international groups to be invited.)
April Events:
A strategy planning meeting of the International Committee
and Philippine Hosting Committee will be held on Wednesday,
24 April 1996, from 6.00 PM up, venue to be announced.
The tentative date for the launching of the PFA '96 is
Thursday, 25 April 1996, venue to be announced.
All interested NGOs are invited to attend.
Given funding constraints, however, the International
Committee will not be able to finance the plane fare of
those attending from outside the Philippines. All inquiries
re: PFA Ô96 should be addressed to:
The Secretariat, Manila PeopleÕs Forum on APEC 1996, Room
209, PSSC Bldg., Commonwealth Ave., Diliman, Quezon City,
PHILIPPINES; Tels: (632) 929-6211; (632) 922-9621, Fax:
(632) 924-3767
or to: Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural
Development (ANGOC), No. 14-A 11th Jamboree Street, Brgy.
Sacred Heart, Kamuning, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES; Tels :
(632) 993-315/973-019, Fax : (632) 921-5122, E-mail:
<angoc@igc.apc.org>
____________________________________________________________
RESOURCES
Books:
_Economic Fundamentalism: The New Zealand Experiment - A
World Model for Structural Adjustment?_ by Jane Kelsey
(London: Pluto Press, 1995).
_Challenging the Mainstream: APEC and the Asia-Pacific
Development Debate_ (1995). A collection of articles on
APEC, featuring Walden Bello. To obtain the book please
contact ARENA in Hong Kong: Tel: (852) 333 7737, Fax: (852)
362 1847, E-mail: arena@hk.net, address: RmA4, Blk G, 2/F,
Hung Hom Bay Centre, 104 - 18, Baker Street, Hung Hom,
Kowloon, HONG KONG.
Periodicals:
"The Big Picture" is a quarterly newsletter produced by GATT
Watchdog. For subscription information contact: PO Box
1905, Otautahi/Christchurch, New Zealand, Tel: 64 3 366
2823, Fax: 64 3 348 4763, E-mail:
<gattwd@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz>
_AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review_ published by the Pacific
Asia Resource Center (PARC). For subscription information
contact: PO Box 5250 Tokyo Int'l, Japan, Tel: 81 3 3291
5901, Fax: 81 3 392 2437, E-mail: <parc@twics.com>
Electronic information:
The Asia Pacific Regional Environmental Network (APRENet)
Run by The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable
Development in Berkeley is an international electronic network of
people interested in Asia-Pacific environmental issues.
Network participants include analysts and activists from
research institutions, environment and development citizen
groups, government, and business. The Network links sources
and users of information on environment-related issues in
the Asia-Pacific to encourage dialogue and promote regional
environmental advocacy. A primary focus is to stimulate
debate about institutional evolution and policy alternatives
on trade, environment, and development issues at APEC.
Contact Nautilus to subscribe: E-mail: <npr@igc.apc.org> or
visit the Nautilus Website:
http://www.nautilus.org/
____________________________________________________________
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- FOCUS now has a Website! URL:
http://www.nautilus.org/focusweb/focus.html Please visit for
more general information on FOCUS and find more APEC-related
information and internet links. Be forewarned, however,
that we are working out a few bugs and it will be under
considerable construction for the next two months.
- Regular mail and shortened faxed versions of FOCUS-on-
APEC are available upon request. Due to our budget
constraints, however, we are unable to air-mail the bulletin
to many people/groups, so we kindly ask you to print this out
and regular mail it to interested groups in your country who
do not have access to e-mail. Thank you.
____________________________________________________________
FOCUS-on-APEC is produced by Focus on the Global South
(FOCUS). Edited by Shea Cunningham. For more information
contact our office: c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok 10330 Thailand. Tel: (66 2) 218 7363/7364/7365,
Fax: (66 2) 255 9976 E-Mail: <focus@ksc9.th.com>
Greetings FOCUS-on-APEC subsribers! Below is a correction to the first
bulletin:
In the "RESOURCES" section of the bulletin where _Challenging the
Mainstream_ was listed,
the contact information was incorrect. ARENA's new contact information:
Flat B1 2/F Great George Bldg.,
27 Paterson St.,
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2805-6193, (852) 2805-6270
Fax (852) 2504-2986.
The book is also available from:
Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA)
E-mail: <daga@asiaonline.net>
Fax: (852) 2697-1917;
Christian Conference for Asia (CCA)
Fax: (852) 2692-3805;
Asia Alliance of YMCAs
E-mail: <asiay@hk.super.net>
Fax: (852) 2385-4692
If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the first bulletin,
please get in touch with us.
Warm regards,
Shea Cunningham
FOCUS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330 Thailand
Tel: (66 2) 218 7363/7364/7365 E-Mail: focus@ksc9.th.com
Fax: (66 2) 255 9976