On August 9, representatives from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua were in Houston to promote the Central American free trade agreement (CAFTA) to Texans as part of the US Chamber of Commerce’s “2004 U.S. Central America and Dominican Republic Ambassadorial Tour and Conference Series.” As was to be expected, attendees heard lots of predictions about how CAFTA will be beneficial to all those involved and mark a new era in free trade. CAFTA boosters rallied their audience to come to the aid of the struggling agreement, which they said would not pass if voted on in Congress today.

But if CAFTA is going to be so great for everyone, why is it that a majority of members of Congress don’t support it? In fact, most people who learn anything about it don’t support it. Based on NAFTA, the North American free trade agreement, the only thing CAFTA can truly promise is more of the same.

Every major national environmental organization has voiced strong opposition to CAFTA, including the Center for International Environmental Law, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, League of Conservation Voters, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, and US PIRG. The reasons are many.

Modeled after NAFTA, CAFTA will extend the shortcomings and utter failings of NAFTA to five struggling Latin American countries (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica) and the Dominican Republic. Like NAFTA, CAFTA poses its greatest threat to the environment through a combination of insufficient enforcement for basic environmental protections, coupled with NAFTA’s unprecedented corporate rights provisions.

Central America faces serious environmental challenges that vary from country to country, all resulting in severe impacts on the region’s efforts to achieve sustainable development. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, 75 percent of Central America’s population already lives in conditions where pollution of both air and water, and depletion of water, have resulted in increased violence and diminishing public health standards. Unfortunately, CAFTA does not require member countries to adopt a set of basic standards for environmental quality and protection. What’s more, the agreement does not even ensure that member countries enforce their existing domestic environmental laws.

CAFTA’s investor rules would undermine US and Central American environmental standards by allowing foreign investors to challenge legitimate laws and regulations before international tribunals, bypassing domestic courts. In bringing these cases, foreign investors can demand monetary compensation for the implementing of legitimate environmental protections. For developing Central American countries, the simple threat of costly investor challenges could freeze adoption of environmental standards.

In Costa Rica, for example, the government has been able to fend off Texas company Harken Energy in its attempt to sue that government for environmental regulations intended to protect the coastline from offshore drilling and open pit mining. Harken wants $57 billion for the law’s impact on potential lost profits. Costa Rica’s annual gross domestic product is only around $17 billion, and the government’s entire annual budget around $5 billion. So far, Costa Rica has been able to defend its protective rules through its domestic court system. Under CAFTA, Harken will be able to bypass that system and take its claim to a secret tribunal where trade lawyers will evaluate Costa Rican law only in terms of its burden on business.

And therein lies the fundamental flaw underlying CAFTA and other so-called free trade agreements. They are designed to subject all kinds of domestic policy to the forces of the free market, seeking only to protect the interests of the big corporations that supposedly drive that market. After ten years of NAFTA, we know that the free market does not take care of human needs or support life-sustaining environmental protections. We must reject CAFTA and any free trade agreement that promotes corporate profit above all other concerns.

For more information about CAFTA, visit www.texasfairtrade.org, or email Lesley@Texasfairtrade.org.

Lesley Nicole Ramsey is director of the Texas Fair Trade Coalition.