Welcome to the online version of "Fighting FTAs: the growing resistance to bilateral free trade and investment agreements", a collaborative publication released by bilaterals.org, BIOTHAI and GRAIN in February 2008. "Fighting FTAs" provides a big picture of what today’s frenzy over free trade agreements (FTAs) means, and an insight into some of the struggles being waged by social movements fighting back.
Hardly a day goes by without news of some FTA hitting the headlines. Global talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have been going nowhere for some time. In the meanwhile, big powers like the US, the EU and others are using a range of tools to force other countries to conform to their gameplan of political and economic domination. Negotiated behind closed doors, FTAs are a very effective means to realign global power relations.
FTAs hit hard. On the one hand, they push countries deeper into neoliberalism — guaranteeing freedom for transnational corporations to do what they want, wherever they want, regardless of the human and ecological costs. The comprehensiveness and depth of many of today’s FTAs often go much further than the WTO. Typically, they cover a huge array of issues and targets, from giving corporations the right to sue governments in Southeast Asia, to legalising the dumping of American farm surpluses in Central America to raising the cost of life-saving medicines, through longer patent terms, in North Africa.
On the other hand, FTAs lock countries into new political alliances at a time of tense competition for control over natural resources (oil, water, land), labour, new technologies and markets. But while economic and geopolitical power are at the heart of the FTA frenzy, they are not just a tool of old North-South relations. Many so-called developing countries have joined the FTA bandwagon to cut open new markets and investment deals between each other — with the same neoliberal drive.
But FTAs are being strongly resisted in many countries around the world. Ever since the North America Free Trade Agreement came into being 15 years ago, social movements have been fighting these deals tooth and nail, and pushing forward their own strategies to defend food sovereignty, public services, biodiversity, controls on trade and investment, people-based forms of regional integration, etc.
This website contains the full text of the "Fighting FTAs" publication and more — photographs, audio clips, videos, a few additional texts, an interactive map, etc. It does not pretend to be a complete guide to what is going on to stop FTAs around the world. But it does offer some important accounts of these struggles, from the perspective of people and groups engaged in local movements to resist and oppose these powerful new deals.
About this site
fightingftas.org is the online version of "Fighting FTAs: the growing resistance to bilateral free trade and investment agreements", a collaborative publication produced by bilaterals.org, BIOTHAI and GRAIN. This website contains the full text of that publication accompanied by photographs, audio clips, videos, an interactive map of FTAs around the world, and links to more materials about FTAs and people’s struggles against them. Both the publication and the website were launched in February 2008.
fightingftas.org is available in English, French and Spanish. It is also available on DVD, for those who do not have internet access (see below).
This site has a very simple structure:
As you browse the texts, you will see that each article is accompanied by a sidebar pointing to related materials for going further. You can also comment on each article and share your own experiences.
This site is a free resource, built with mostly free software, to be used, adapted or further developed by anyone who is involved, or wants to get involved more, in these struggles. Feel free to contact us at fightingftas.org@gmail.com.
A much broader view of what is happening on a day to day level, including links to activist websites, is already available at bilaterals.org, an open-publishing website that you are encouraged to participate in.
Available materials
- Print publication
The print version of "Fighting FTAs" is available in English, French and Spanish. (The Thai version will be ready in September 2008.) To request a copy, or bulk copies to distribute at meetings, write to fightingftas.org@gmail.com.
- DVD
All the materials found on this website — the publication texts, audio interviews, videos, the map and all the photos — are available on a two-disc DVD. To request a DVD, write to fightingftas.org@gmail.com.
You are free to make further copies of the DVD. The labels to print on the discs are available for download here.
- Web banners
If you wish to post a graphic link to Fighting FTAs on your website, a number of banners are available for download here.
All these materials are available free of charge.
Contacts
fightingftas.org
fightingftas.org is a collaborative website. Several people, mostly from the bilaterals.org team, maintain the site.
bilaterals.org bilaterals.org is a collective effort to share information and stimulate cooperation among movements and organisations fighting against bilateral free trade and investment agreements. It was launched in September 2004 as an open-publishing site. A small collective takes care of day-to-day updating and maintenance. The site contains over 10,000 articles about the push for and fight against FTAs, attracting 6,000 visitors each day. Your direct collaboration is needed and welcome.
BIOTHAI
BIOTHAI (Biodiversity Action Thailand) was created in 1995 to raise public awareness and fight for better policies related to biodiversity, which is central to community livelihoods in Thailand. It presently has 7 staff and operates as both an organisation and a network. BIOTHAI was a founding member of FTA Watch and is heavily involved in people’s struggles against FTAs, GMOs and the increasing industrialisation and corporate takeover of food and agriculture, not only in Thailand but also in Asia.
GRAIN
GRAIN is a small international organisation that works to help support movements in their struggles against privatisation and corporate control in the area of food, biodiversity and agriculture. It was created in 1990 and has 15 staff spread across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. GRAIN has been involved in the struggle against FTAs since the late 1990s, when it became clear that bilateral trade and investment deals were becoming a cutting edge tool to push corporate control over agricultural biodiversity, farther and faster than the WTO and other international fora.
Authors
To get in touch with any particular author, write to fightingftas.org@gmail.com and we will send you their address.
