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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsU.S. Loses WTO Meat Labeling Case--U.S. Consumers to Lose "Country of Origin" disclosure labels
(This is just a first step. Next could be imported Vegetables,Fruit, Fish, Products Manufactured in Other Countries all concealed as to "Country of Origin." And, if TPP/TPIP passes look for even more "Consumer Disclosure Laws: plus other regulations that have been fought for on "Consumer Safety Regulations" to be overturned. )
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US | Mon May 18, 2015 1:47pm EDT--Reuters
The dispute stems from a 2009 U.S. requirement that retail outlets use labels such as "Born in Mexico, Raised and Slaughtered in the United States" to give consumers more information about the safety and origin of their food.
Canada and Mexico are readying trade sanctions against the United States after they won a meat labeling dispute on Monday, increasing pressure on the U.S. Congress to scrap the laws.
The World Trade Organization upheld a complaint by Canada and Mexico about U.S. laws requiring retailers to label meat with the country where the animal was born, raised and slaughtered, saying they discriminated against imported livestock.
Republicans, who have a majority in Congress, have signaled they may act to repeal the laws as early as this week, but consumer groups and many Democrats say they provide essential information for shoppers.
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But R-CALF USA, a small but vocal lobby group for U.S. cattle producers, said Congress should stand firm and not surrender "U.S. sovereignty.
Consumer group Public Citizen pointed to a 2014 survey showing nine in 10 Americans supported the rules.
"Todays WTO ruling ... effectively orders the U.S. government to stop providing consumers basic information about where their food comes from," said Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach, adding that it showed the danger of free trade deals' undermining consumer safeguards.
U.S. Trade Representative Chief Counsel Tim Reif said the office was considering all options and would continue to consult with members of Congress and the public.
(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Additional reporting by Theopolis Waters in Chicago; Editing by Susan Heavey and Lisa Von Ahn)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/18/us-usa-meat-idUSKBN0O31G820150518
msongs
(67,406 posts)who will tell international corporate whores to stuff it. where can we find such a president?
djean111
(14,255 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Too much danger of contaminated food.
Koinos
(2,792 posts)Rice from Fukushima Prefecture with no country of origin labeling. Such labeling would definitely hurt sales in the US.
bananas
(27,509 posts)From the article in the OP:
polly7
(20,582 posts)These agreements are garbage, and I have no idea why our gov'ts keep creating new ones that allow overruling laws, except that corporations must be valued above all else. People are just tools now to keep them running.
NAFTA Is Starving Mexico
Free trade has starved Mexico and stuffed transnational corporations.
As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in food poverty (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.
About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food.
A 2008 NAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico had to pay $58.4 million to CPI. The government paid up on January 25, 2011. CPI posted $3.7 billion dollars in net sales the year of the decision. The fine paid by the Mexican government could have provided a years worth of the basic food basket to more than 50,000 poor families.
http://fpif.org/nafta_is_starving_mexico/
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt
By EDELO, Creative Time Reports
The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty (with Video)
December 30, 2013
In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTAs implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.
Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexicos natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: What is it that we do want? The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-nafta-drove-mexicans-poverty-and-sparked-zapatista-revolt?akid=11347.44541.RWB6aQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=19
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the countrys environmental laws, according to a new study.
The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per cent of claims since 2005 have been brought against Canada, and the number of challenges under a controversial settlement clause is rising sharply.
snip~
Thanks to NAFTA chapter 11, Canada has now been sued more times through investor-state dispute settlement than any other developed country in the world, said Scott Sinclair, who authored the study.
snip~
There are currently eight cases against the Canadian government asking for a total of $6 billion in damages. All of them were brought by U.S. companies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
The study notes that although NAFTA proponents claimed that ISDS was needed to address concerns about corruption in the Mexican court system, most investor-state challenges involve public policy and regulatory matters. Sixty three per cent of claims against Canada involve challenges to environmental protection or resource management measures.
Currently, Canada faces nine active ISDS claims challenging a wide range of government measures that allegedly interfere with the expected profitability of foreign investments. Foreign investors are seeking over $6 billion in damages from the Canadian government.
These include challenges to a ban on fracking by the Quebec provincial government (Lone Pine); a decision by a Canadian federal court to invalidate a pharmaceutical patent on the basis that it was not sufficiently innovative or useful (Eli Lilly); provisions to promote the rapid adoption of renewable energies (Mesa); a moratorium on offshore wind projects in Lake Ontario (Windstream); and the decision to block a controversial mega-quarry in Nova Scotia (Clayton/Bilcon).
Canada has already lost or settled six claims, paid out damages totaling over $170 million and incurred tens of millions more in legal costs. Mexico has lost five cases and paid damages of US$204 million. The U.S. has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.
More: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023210314
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give national treatment rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesnt provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTAs proportional sharing clause, we cant ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a service and an investment under NAFTA. The agreements so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canadas water.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
KoKo
(84,711 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)I noticed the announcer said it was pure, 100% North American beef. I thought to myself that doesn't necessarily mean beef raised in the United States.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)count in the world we now live in.
Just know your place, you have certainly been PUT in your place many times now, by the WH. You do not know what is good for you. THEY do. You are just being EMOTIONAL and you are IGNORANT because you don't know what THEY KNOW.
Just trust them!
And there are actually people who are defending the TPP which is about to make these little problems look like peanuts.
Maybe just let it all happen, it happens only because we always have those who will defend anything their favorite 'leader' tells them to defend.
Same thing with the Iraq War.
Maybe OUR position ought to be to just sit back and watch it all crumbling down and then have the pleasure of saying 'I told you so'. At least that would be something I suppose.
Meantime BOYCOTTS WORK. But so much effort to do that. So now I will buy meat only from our local farmers. Why fight for people who fight you all the way out of loyalty to one politician or another? Really, unless the people unite, this is unstoppable.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)that could come under the "lack of proper labeling" that would expose all of us to health implications,safety issues, useage issues and the lack of regulation that would come because one can't identify who made the product.....it is Chilling.
So many worked so hard for Decades to get Consumer Rights recognized to know what they are consuming, feeding their families, using for home repairs (Lead Paint and Asbestos Removal, etc.) and faulty Cars, Imported Home Appliances that Malfunction and On and On.
Even a Laptop Computer we bought from Toshiba came with a warning that the "Power Cord" contained Lead! They warned us but if we had a Toddler who chewed on that cord...or we handled it without washing hands going to and from work we would be exposed. But, because Toshiba put a "warning tag" on the cord....we couldn't have sued them if any of us got sick or had health problems and it was from constantly packing that cord and taking it to and from work and travel. We aren't sick or dead yet...but that's because we are careful with that cord.
There have been Appliance recalls for overheating causing fires, etc. when GE and other formerly USA Companies outsourced their products to other countries. The complaints get settled but the results linger and they don't change their policies.
And, our Media doesn't spend much time on "Consumer Complaints" anymore. It's more about how much the Criminal Company paid in Fines and not what they are doing to FIX the Problem.
Sorry this is a RANT...but...I wonder how many of us over 45 are noticing the Quality Decline in EVERYTHING WE BUY these Days.....???