The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Global Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and other international free-trade agreements threaten the ability of advocacy groups to control the marketing and sales practices of multinational firms, according to Jim Grieshaber-Otto, Ph.D., an international trade expert with the government of British Columbia.Grieshaber-Otto told attendees at the recent Global Alcohol Policy Advocacy Conference that the "golden rule" of such agreements as NAFTA, GATT and others negotiated through the World Trade Organization (WTO) is that foreign goods be treated at least as well as domestic ones. "This broad obligation clearly constrains government efforts to regulate alcohol," said Grieshaber-Otto, who added that global alcohol firms can now make the case that attempts to control pricing, sales and marketing are forms of illegal protectionism.
The same agreements also could impact efforts to control the marketing and sales of tobacco and firearms. "Alcohol regulation and international treaties are now becoming part of the same field, and you are being seriously outmaneuvered," Grieshaber-Otto told advocates. "While you have been working hard to investigate ways in which government could best reduce the harm associated with alcohol, hundreds of other specialists have been crafting complex, binding international treaties that increasingly are making the adoption of the very public-policy approaches you advocate far more difficult to achieve."
"Free trade" is actually a misnomer, Grieshaber-Otto contends; the new global rules are actually aimed primarily at restricting government regulations, which is bad news for advocates. As they are currently being written, Grieshaber-Otto warned, free-trade agreements could lead to the dismantling or diminution of state-run alcohol monopolies, often cited as a key method for controlling the sale of alcohol products.
Quotas are also forbidden, he said, which could impact local lawmaking limiting the number of retail outlets in a given community or the volume of sales. Quantitative restrictions on sales are "absolutely prohibited under WTO agreements," said Grieshaber-Otto.
"What's being most adversely affected are those steps that are seen as most effective from a public-health standpoint," he said. Free-trade could lead to freezing or even rolling back existing laws to meet treaty obligations, and at a minimum could smother experimentation with bold, new policies.
Already, international agreements on trade have hindered the ability of Norway, Finland and Sweden to limit alcohol sales in the name of public health, said Grieshaber-Otto. In North America, GATT has been used to challenge attempts by Canada's provinces to limit alcohol imports and set minimum prices, and U.S. tobacco firms thwarted a Canadian plan to require plain-paper packaging for cigarettes by pointing out that NAFTA rules would entitle them to hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for such a move.
Unlike some past agreements, those formulated under the WTO are both binding and sanctionable, said Grieshaber-Otto, meaning that governments will be under great pressure to ensure that laws adopted at the federal and sub-federal (e.g. state and provincial) levels are in compliance. Grieshaber-Otto predicts that these treaties will continue to be "broadened and deepened, to include issues formerly thought of as strictly domestic."
"Because of the sanctions, trade agreements tend to trump other international agreements on public health, the environment" and other issues, said Grieshaber-Otto, who sees such deals as a "threat to democratic governance." He advised advocates to research these international agreements, inform policymakers about their ramifications, promote alternative approaches, and ensure that the debate on free trade is both open and accountable.
"The most difficult task is overcoming disbelief and understanding the magnitude of this problem," Grieshaber-Otto said. "Your intervention is essential to prevent the foreclosure of flexibility in global alcohol policy."
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