Author Archives: Jim Hodgson

Human rights, ecology, in the spotlight as Canada-Ecuador trade talks move forward

Behind all the bad-news headlines from Ecuador these days (political murders, gang violence, a government crackdown, a police raid on the Mexican embassy), Indigenous people and environmental groups continue to organize in opposition to resource extraction industries.

On April 21, they claimed victory when voters rejected two government proposals that would have fortified investments by transnational corporations and provided “flexibility” in their ways of contracting workers. Those victories, however, are overshadowed by approval of a range of security measures that, in turn, provoke greater concern about human rights under President Daniel Noboa.

Headlines in English about the April 21 referendum focused on President Noboa’s security agenda. La Jornada (Mexico) and TeleSUR (Venezuela) examined Noboa’s failure to advance his market-oriented economic agenda.

The proposals to expand public security that were approved include: involvement of the armed forces in fighting crime, increased penalties for serious crimes, the possibility of extradition of citizens to face charges in other countries, seizure of illicitly-obtained good, and restrictions on private ownership of weapons.

In contrast, the package of measures sought by corporations were rejected: international arbitration of investment and trade disputes, and a measure that would establish time-limited contracts and hourly-work—the “flexibility” to replace permanent, full-time jobs. 

Meanwhile, in the face of human rights and security concerns, Canada is pressing ahead with plans for a free trade agreement with the South American nation.

Canada’s objectives for negotiating this FTA look nice: “a modern, ambitious and inclusive trade agreement, reflecting the latest approaches, including in areas such as digital trade, trade and gender, environment and labour.” Mention is made of women, Indigenous peoples and labour rights.

But it is the experience of Indigenous people in Ecuador with Canadian mining companies and with the Chevron Texaco oil giant that drives opposition to free trade and one of its hallmarks: protection of foreign investors.

Canadians have seen the harmful effects of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) processes, both with corporate lawsuits against Canada and others involving Canadian companies overseas. (One of the latter with which I became very involved was that launched by mining companies against the government of El Salvador after it rejected an application to re-open a gold mine in Cabañas department. Salvadoran water defenders and their international allies won that fight, but such victories are rare—and our victory has provoked a cruel response by the present government.)

Stuart Trew of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) points to a “litany of expensive and controversial ISDS awards against Ecuador involving natural resources” that led the former government of Rafael Correa to withdraw his country from ISDS processes. Constitutional reforms in 2008 include a ban on such arbitrations, and it was this article of the constitution that the Noboa government sought to amend in the referendum. 

Throughout the lead-up to the vote, the Union of People Affected by Texaco/Chevron Operations (UDAPT), the Indigenous and peasant movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and others like Acción Ecológica campaigned to ensure the “no” vote.

On its website, Acción Ecológica maintains ongoing actions on mining, petroleum, protection of nature defenders, and free trade.

Christian Pino, a lawyer who specializes in investment law, welcomed the result, saying that approval of international arbitration of investment disputes would have benefited the transnationals and those Ecuadorans who hold their investments in offshore “fiscal paradises.”

I like to say that I have been fighting free trade since 1848, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described it in The Communist Manifesto as “that single, unconscionable freedom” that drowns all others. But no: more like 1988, when Canadians gave Brian Mulroney a mandate to sign the first FTA with the United States, abandoning more than a century of caution in Canada-U.S. trade relations, transforming modes of production, and provoking the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. 

So this is not our first free trade fight or struggle to defend human and ecological rights in the face of resource extraction companies. As these FTA negotiations proceed, bear two things in mind: 

  • In the Harper years, when Canada was negotiating free trade with Colombia, we called for a “human rights impact assessment” (HRIA) but ended up with a fake mechanism that has failed to protect rights. 
  • We also pressed for a ombudsperson who could press for accountability by Canadian companies operating overseas so as to protect individuals and organizations who complain about abuses. But we ended up with a toothless office, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), that has no investigatory power.

CCPA, together with MiningWatch Canada and Amnesty International, have amplified the concerns of Ecuadoran organizations and shared them with Canadian parliamentarians.

While any Canada-Ecuador FTA cannot now include ISDS, the deal could still exacerbate the human rights situation in Ecuador.

“Amnesty International Canada’s Human Rights Agenda for Canada calls for guarantees that no free trade agreement will advance without meaningful consultation with affected Indigenous Peoples and their organizations and their free, prior and informed consent. The organization is also calling for credible, independent human rights and environment impact assessment of any proposed trade agreement,” states an April 30 news release from the three Canadian organizations.

We can do better this time.

No Ecuador trade deal without human rights, consultation and consent

If you too wish to express your concern about Canada’s free trade plans for Ecuador, Amnesty International has set up a page from which you can send a message to Trade Minister Mary Ng telling Canada to put human rights and the environment first.

Haitian claim for slavery reparations at the heart of a UN forum

by Jim Hodgson

A United Nations forum on the historic wrongs committed against people of African descent is building momentum in favour of an international tribunal on atrocities dating back to the transatlantic trade of enslaved people.

When the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) held its third session in less than two years in Geneva in mid-April, African and Caribbean governments together with civil society organizations pressed forward with plans to create a tribunal that would be similar to that which oversaw the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Proponents say such a tribunal would help establish legal norms for international and historical reparations claims.

Supporters include many members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), made up of 15 member states, and the African Union (AU), which includes 55 states—and Antonio Guterres, the UN General Secretary. “We call for reparatory justice frameworks, to help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination,” he said March 25.

Supporters argue that Western countries and institutions that continue to benefit from the wealth slavery generated should be held accountable, particularly given ongoing legacies of racial discrimination. Opponents say that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for historical slavery.

The World Council of Churches was among faith-based and civil society organizations that came together at the PFPAD forum to examine what states and other actors may do to redress the historic exploitation and harms that Africans and people of African descent have suffered. (You can learn more here about global ecumenical efforts to overcome racism, discrimination and xenophobia.)

Righting the wrongs in Haiti

Given that Haiti’s claim for reparations is among the strongest, the voices of Haitian civil society groups and their diaspora counterparts were heard at the PFPAD forum. 

Those groups used the forum to put a spotlight on the crucial role that Haiti played in the struggle to end slavery. “To recognize the historic context is essential to understand the unique position of Haiti in the global struggle for justice and egality,” they said in a statement before the forum. Participating groups—including the Montana Accord network and of the Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy (HAFFD)—said they strongly approve calls for reparations to Haiti.

Le Marron Inconnu, and in the background, the National Palace before the 2010 earthquake.

Haiti was born as an independent nation in 1804 after the enslaved people revolted against their French colonial masters. The values of “liberté, égalité et fraternité,” expressed in the triumph of the French Revolution in 1789, resonated among slaves in Saint-Domingue, France’s richest colony. In 1804, the world’s first successful slave rebellion resulted in the birth of the Republic of Haiti. 

Beginning in 1825, France squeezed an “independence debt” from Haiti that adds up to at least $21 billion in today’s dollars. That estimate comes from The New York Times, but backers of the reparations claim say the amount is much higher.

“It’s $21 billion plus 200 years of interest that France has enjoyed so we’re talking more like $150 billion, $200 billion or more,” Jemima Pierre, professor of Global Race at the University of British Columbia, told Reuters.

Despite the obvious injustice of that debt, France continues to resist pressure to join in reparations. In August 2010, about 100 prominent academics, authors, and human rights activists signed on to an open letter to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that the case for repayment was “morally, economically, and legally unassailable.” France dismissed the petition, pointing to its record of delivering other aid to Haiti and not addressing the legitimacy of the debt.

“What’s important is that it’s time that France recognises this and we move forward,” Haitian civil society activist Monique Clesca told Reuters. France, whose development agency has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Haiti, has previously referred to a “moral debt” owed to Haiti.

Looking beyond the crises: A new agenda for peace

by Jim Hodgson

For years, I have gathered and often shared the stories of how people organize for a better future for their communities and the planet. A few days ago, I started gathering articles as they appeared about the ecological crisis.

And I am alarmed – though the rational part of my brain reminds me that I have long-known of the intersection of ecological disaster with civil conflict and war. 

In 1971, I was 13 when I attended my first demonstration. It was about peace and the environment: opposing the third in a series of U.S. nuclear tests at Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands between Alaska and Siberia. Again today, war and ongoing failure to respect ecology bring us closer to collapse. A previous test in 1969 gave rise to the Don’t Make A Wave Committee in Vancouver. The group became the global movement Greenpeace. (Photo: an old clipping from the Summerland Review, November 1971).

Addressing the UN General Assembly a week ago, Secretary General António Guterres pointed to the two canals most vital to world trade and management of supply chains.

Trade via the Panama Canal is down 36 per cent in the past month because of low water levels – a consequence of the climate crisis. 

Trade via the Suez Canal is down by 42 per cent, since the start of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea more than three months ago. Those attacks in turn are a foreseeable consequence of the excessive – many argue “genocidal” – Israeli response to the Hamas-led attack on Israeli civilians from the Gaza strip last Oct. 7.

The Pressenza news service reports this week that for the first time on record, the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degree Celsius over a 12-month period, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Last month was also the warmest January globally since C3S records began in 1950, with an average air surface temperature 0.7 degrees Celsius higher than the January average from 1991 to 2020.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Ocean system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report published Feb. 9 in the journal Science Advances. Such collapse could lead to further sea level rise and cause temperatures to plunge dramatically in Europe and rise in the southern hemisphere.

A new UN report shows that about 44 per cent of migratory species worldwide are declining in population. More than a fifth of the nearly 1,200 species monitored by the UN are threatened with extinction.

In Mexico, prolonged drought led to sharp drops in production of corn and avocados last year. Lack of rainfall has affected water reservoirs used for agriculture. Across the country, water storage is at 42.7 per cent of normal, and down 34.8 per cent from 2022. This is leading producers to plant less in the winter 2023-24 season. Images from La Jornada: (left) “corn production dropped 40 per cent because of the drought;” (centre) “Monarch butterflies occupy 59.3 per cent less surface area than the previous year because of climate impacts;” (right) “Industrial activity in Iztapalapa (the east side of Mexico City) could be paralyzed for lack of water.”

In January, Mexico’s national weather service reported that 2023 was the driest in 82 years, with just 21.1 per cent of normal rainfall. Last year also saw the largest amount of land afflicted by wildfires.

The Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas has published an interactive map where you look at drought risks in any part of the planet. Half of Mexico and large parts of the western United States are in red, along with most of northern Alberta. 

Raúl Zibechi, the Uruguayan observer of social movements in Latin America, published a column recently that examined these and other risks.

“We continue to be stuck in the minuteness (‘chiquitismo’) of consumerist and narcissist daily life,” he wrote – “the latest telephone or clothing; the football game where we are merely spectators; the electoral campaign that only entertains, but does not resolve anything profound. This is the strategic triumph of capitalism: taking us headlong toward collapse while we look at the screen, ignoring the destruction and massacre of life.”

Views from Corpus Christi, Texas, June 2007. (Photos: Jim Hodgson)

In the speech by António Guterres that I noted above, he denounced the wars and ecological destruction, and offered some signs of ways forward. He spoke of A New Agenda for Peace.

“Peace is a rallying cry,” he said. “It is a call to action.” And he went on to describe the actions that must be taken: ceasefires, negotiations, addressing causes of migration, protection of species, debt and development finance, real action on climate, and reform of UN systems including the Security Council.

“We must also make peace with the planet. Humanity has waged a war we can only lose: our war with nature,” Guterres said. “For my part, I can guarantee that I will never give up pushing for peace.”