ISDS Case Map
Guatemala
Three times a week, Julian Mux walks two hours from his small parcel of land in the Guatemalan highlands to the nearest road, carrying just-harvested miniature zucchini that will end up in U.S. supermarkets.
Free trade under the current economic rules can only widen the gap between rich and poor in the Americas, said the head of the Guatemalan bishops' conference.
Colombia, fresh from reaching a free trade agreement with the United States, is now trying to eliminate trade barriers with Central America.
The Canadian government is facing demands to disclose a draft free trade agreement with four Central American nations currently in the final stages of deliberation behind closed doors.
With just a few days to go before the removal of trade barriers between Guatemala and the United States, social organisations are afraid that living standards in Guatemala will decline, while the government and the business community predict an influx of investment, economic growth, and the creation of thousands of new jobs.
More popular organizations have joined the on-going vigil in front of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court, where a bill against the free trade agreement with the US is being discussed Thursday.
The COS (Social Organizations Group) and the MISPEC (Guatemalan indigenous, farmer and popular movement) have joined the vigil Wednesday in front of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court to reject the free trade agreement with the United States.
The Guatemalan Congress began its second day of questioning Economy Minister Marcio Cuevas Thursday, on the basis and effects of the free trade agreement with the United States.
As during the crudest times of interventionism in banana republics, James Derham, US proconsul in Guatemala, snuck into a session of Congress on April 18 to pressure legislators to approve -- now! -- a complimentary law being demanded by the United States so that the country definitely enters into a Free Trade Agreement.
The Guatemalan pharmaceutical industry is the strongest company in Central America and among the first 10 in Latin America, but it is today threatened by the free trade agreement (FTA) with United States.
