Corporate Colonialism: Guidelines for US

The US delegation at UNCED should block any measures aimed at controlling carbon dioxide emissions, hazardous wastes or genetic engineering, urges a recent study by an influential US think-tank. The Heritage Foundation, which has close links to the US administration, also declares that the US must oppose proposals for technology transfer or for industrialized countries to give more money to the Third World.

'Guidelines for the UN Environmental Conference' throws light on the priorities of the increasingly intransigent US delegation at UNCED. Its authors say that the US should push for "environmentally sound, free market goals" in the UNCED negotiations. These goals are: "Limit discussions of global warming"; "Do not draft a detailed plan for reducing specific quantities of 'greenhouse gases' by a set date"; "Do not address issues dealt with by other international bodies"; Promote an understanding of biotechnology that realistically assesses its risks and benefits"; "Protect private intellectual property rights"; and "Oppose UNCED proposals to spend more money on environmental problems in developing nations."

According to the Heritage Foundation, the UNCED meeting in Rio de Janeiro will be "too large and politicized" to deal "fairly" with the complicated issue of global warming. Instead, global warming should be "examined" by the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) which "is composed of specialists who have been working in a very focused set of meetings less pliant to the glare of activist pressure." The INC should "strive to produce a realistic and scientifically sound appraisal of the evidence that exists on global warming."

The Heritage Foundation's arguments totally misrepresent the roles of the INC and UNCED. The convention on climate change that the INC was established to formulate is supposed to be signed by world leaders at the Rio conference. It is intended to be one of the main achievements of the UNCED process. The INC does not have a mandate to review the scientific evidence for global warming. This is done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which in 1990 produced an authoritative report representing the consensus opinion of 370 of the world's leading climate researchers. The IPCC report declared that global releases of the main greenhouse gases would have to be reduced by over 50 per cent immediately just to stop their atmospheric levels from rising any further.

Acting on the IPCC's conclusions would mean, as the Heritage Foundation notes, a reduction in the profits of electric power generating industries, and "could greatly curtail the use of automobiles in the US." The Foundation cannot accept this. To them,

"sound scientific evidence" is evidence, from whatever source, that does not challenge the interests of US corporations. Clearly, the Foundation is supportive of the INC because the US, the world's biggest producer of gases that cause global warming, has been successful in preventing the negotiations from agreeing on specific targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

The Foundation's opposition to UNCED addressing issues dealt with by other international bodies is mainly due to the fear that it may attempt to ban the international trade in toxic wastes. Concern over the dumping of industrialized country wastes in the Third World led to the adoption of the 1989 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes. However, pressure from the US and the other major waste producers ensured that the Basel Convention did not ban the international waste trade but merely attempted to regulate it.

A ban on the transport of toxic wastes would, the Heritage Foundation fears, "curb the production of many economically critical chemical processes that produce dangerous by-products." In other words, Third World countries must continue to accept hazardous wastes in the interests of highly polluting US industries.

The importance to US corporations of resisting regulations on the development and application of genetic engineering is shown by the Heritage Foundation's call for the US UNCED delegation to "point out that the risks of biotechnology are exaggerated." According to the Foundation: "The world must become more knowledgeable about biotechnology so that scientific research will not be impeded by unnecessary regulations." The possibility that if people became more knowledgeable about genetic engineering they would want to impose more regulations on scientists and corporations is not considered. The Foundation appears to believe that the US has a duty to teach the ignorant world about the benefits of genetic engineering: "UNCED's New York and Rio sessions will be a good place for the US to begin this educational process."

The Foundation quotes approvingly from a US document on biotechnology presented at the third UNCED preparatory committee held in August 1990. Despite the general ignorance about the potential consequences of genetic engineering, and the very few biotech products that have so far been commercialized, the document talks of "the vast experience of governments, industry and consumers with genetically altered organisms." In 1991 there were only eight biotech products on the US market.

Like most proponents of genetic engineering, the Heritage Foundation seeks to play down the differences between traditional breeding methods and the new biotechnologies. However, the importance of this distinction is shown by the efforts of the US to force other countries to adopt strict patenting laws on genetically engineered organisms.

Protecting patents should be one of the main goals of the US at UNCED, according to the Heritage Foundation: "As the world leader in technology, America has an enormous stake in maintaining the integrity of intellectual property." The US should thus oppose any UNCED proposals regarding the transfer of "environmentally beneficial technologies". Any actions at UNCED that could interfere with the intellectual property agreement that may emerge from the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) should also be blocked.

The Foundation claims that the US has been "generous in providing funds to help solve international environmental problems." Any further funds are thus unnecessary. Existing aid budgets should be spent "on projects that promote environmentally sound free market reforms." According to the Foundation, the countries of the Third

World are poor "because they pursue policies which keep them poor." The Heritage Foundation claims that "'environmentally sustainable development' is a code phrase for subordinating commercial activity and economic growth to the most extreme claims of environmental protection." It is clear that for the US, "economically sustainable and scientifically sound solutions to world environmental problems" is a code phrase for turning UNCED into an agent of US corporate colonialism.

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