ISDS Case Map
FTAA
Free Trade Area of the Americas
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has accused his US counterpart George W Bush of trying to restore the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which is a dead project, he asserted.
"We think his policies are totally contrary to what we want for Latin America and are promoting genocide, domination of workers and their communities and the plundering of natural resources," said Argentine labor leader Juan Gonzalez, who is heading a protest "People's Summit" coinciding with Bush's visit Thursday through Saturday.
An apparently chance remark by a junior trade minister appears to have put Venezuela's Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez Araque on something of a spot.
Minister of Integration and Foreign Trade Gustavo Márquez declared Tuesday that in the event that the parties to the Andean Community decide to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, Venezuela will have to revise trade arrangements with those nations.
Latin American countries have rightly learned to be apprehensive over the domination of the United States, and it is this reluctance that is behind their slowdown over the FTAA.
As indicated by CAFTA's ratification, instead of pushing for the enactment of the FTAA, the Bush administration has re-evaluated its strategy, now attempting to build up momentum by establishing separate free trade agreements with the different regions in the hemisphere through a "divide-and-conquer" strategy.
DR-CAFTA's narrow victory will incite US domestic producers' lobbies to exert heavier pressure to get a US-Panama agreement more favorable to US industry.
Passage of CAFTA is not guaranteed because of splits within the US corporate elite over the proper pace and focus of free trade.
An ambitious American plan for a hemispherewide trade pact, which President Bush described as a "vital link for prosperity," is mired in disputes that have led to widespread skepticism about its chances of ever materializing.
Sovereign states are the original right bearers. They have to denounce bilateral investment treaties or their most arbitrary clauses following the procedures provided, in accordance with the legal principles of democratic constitutions; to recover their legislative and jurisdictional powers, by retrieving their inherent jurisdiction which had been delegated to international foreign tribunals, allowing them to rule on the general regulatory or contractual policies of independent nations.
