Preventing a KORUS FTA train wreck
Hankyoreh, Seoul
Preventing a KORUS FTA train wreck
한겨레
The train for the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) has not yet left the station. We are the passengers on board, not the tearful ones waving handkerchiefs and seeing them off. We should never have boarded this train to begin with, but now that we have stumbled aboard, we must now do all we can to ensure the train does not derail, and get off before we reach the cliff.
The KORUS FTA and amendments to fourteen conflicting laws were passed, with more laws and ordinances to be amended in the days ahead. We need to examine what effect the laws that were passed are going to have on South Koreans. We also need to investigate what laws will be created and abolished and take steps to block this.
For example, Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said in the final National Assembly discussions that there would be no problem with providing school lunches using South Korean agricultural products. These words came from the very same ministry that presented an opinion to the Supreme Court in the past stating that such lunches were in violation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement, and had a great number of ordinances amended accordingly. This is the chilling effect that has been so often emphasized. The more we press the issue, the less government employees will panic and abandon their policies. The Distribution Industry Development Act and Act on the Promotion of Collaborative Cooperation between Large Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises provide good examples of this, as does the strengthening of health insurance guarantees.
Far more important than this is the issue of voluntary privatization and deregulation. Indeed, the biggest problem area with the KORUS FTA has to do with the service sector. Robert Zoellick, the current World Bank president and the originator of the U.S. FTA strategy of “competitive liberalization,” has openly declared that the goal of such agreements is privatization of public services and deregulation.
It seemed rather odd that no real fuss was raised about this area during the 2006 negotiations, and the secret behind this lay in South Korea’s own pledges for privatization. Certainly, there would have been whispers among our delegation that there was no need to bring up and specify in the agreement the privatization legislation the government was pushing at the time, including amendments to the Capital Market Consolidation Act, Profit Hospital Act, and Pharmaceutical Affairs Act. We need to detect and head off voluntary privatization moves from the Lee administration and Grand National Party (GNP). A thorough reading of a Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI) report gave an immediate indication of what areas they want to privatize.
When voluntary privatization occurs, its effects extend beyond the KORUS FTA to other agreements like the South Korea-European Union FTA (KOREU FTA). Even if we abandon the KORUS FTA, foreign investors may use other FTAs to demand investor-state arbitration.
The KORUS FTA will also neutralize emergency measures taken by the government in response to the frequent financial crises large and small that erupt in the future. The emergency measures taken by Argentina after its 2001 financial crisis were met with no fewer than 47 investor-state arbitration requests through 2009, and these continue to mount even now. This is not just the problem of some distant land.
The KORUS FTA represents the culmination of an antiquated ideology of market triumphalism. It places greater emphasis on investor property rights than on human rights or the right to live.
Currently, a worldwide movement is afoot to increase public functions and ensure policy space. The KORUS FTA may take effect, but we need to take steps to minimize its damages and wait for the right time to disembark before the train goes over the cliff. “Season One” has finished its run, and “Season Two” has now begun. We need to fix our shoelaces and raise our candles high. This is something we must do if we wish to save nature and our children.
The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.
