On July 25th and 26th 2013, the workshop “Alternatives to the International Investment Protection Regime and to the Dispute Resolution System between TNCs and States” was held in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The workshop was organized by Jubilee 2000 and Red Ecuador, and organized by the Latin American Network on Debt, Development and Rights (LATINDADD), the Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development (PIDHDD) and the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), under the auspices of the National Ministry of Development and Planning (SENPLADES), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control of Ecuador.
The event brought together representatives of social organizations, continental networks of social movements, academics and representatives of government institutions of Ecuador, to discuss the perverse impacts of the international system of protection of investments and the unjust international dispute settlement mechanisms designed to favor multinationals against nation states and communities.
We denounced the negotiation and signing of new free trade or investment agreements, whether at the bilateral or multilateral level, by Latin American and Caribbean governments. In this regard we oppose the membership of several governments in the Pacific Alliance, as well as the participation of others as observers. We also reject the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership for being an expression of imperial policy to prevent the integration of our region.
We call for the withdrawal of our countries from the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) following the path of Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela, so that we do not continue to allow transnational corporations to sue our governments at private arbitration centers.
We express the need to promote a new international regime for foreign investment that favors human rights, and the rights of nature, over commercial law. Likewise we call for the acceleration of the creation of dispute settlement mechanisms that are under construction within UNASUR. It is essential that this process of discussion enables and enhances the participation of social organizations that ought to be part of the construction of the new regional architecture.
We also welcome the sovereign initiative of the Government of Ecuador to move forward in the process of “denunciation” of Bilateral Investment Treaties it has supported in the past. We hope that this policy by the current government of President Correa will culminate with notifying Germany, UK, France and Sweden of the denunciation of such treaties, for which there is already the approval of the Constitutional Court and the National Assembly, on the grounds that none of these treaties remain valid because they are neoliberal instruments harmful to Ecuador, as well as for the rest of the continent.
We support the decision of the government of Ecuador to develop a citizen audit of Bilateral Investment Treaties. We, the Latin American social movements participating in this international workshop, promise to accompany and support this effort with our expertise and the development of proposals.
We agree to open up and extend the invitation to other organizations to build together a strategy that allows us to empower ourselves as organized social movements in conducting a citizen audit of BITs. We will encourage the participation of our representatives in the structure of the Commission of the Audit and will develop a plan of action that includes research, awareness-raising and incorporates the struggles and experiences of other countries against corporate power.
Also, we welcome the initiative of the Government of Ecuador in convening this past April 1 the Ministerial Conference of Latin American Countries Affected by Transnational Interests, which took important resolutions for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to liberate ourselves from the current investment protection regime and dispute resolution mechanisms, with initiatives like the creation of an International Observatory. We consider that together with juridical and legal implications, the observance of socio-economic, environmental and human rights aspects must be included.
The International Observatory will be a fundamental tool for discussions by civil society and for the involvement of people socially, economically and environmentally impacted by these investments.
In this regard, we call on government endorsers of the declaration (of the above said conference) to create the necessary mechanisms for effective participation of social movements on the continent, and also to create an institutional framework that ensures transparency, accountability and access to information.
We the social movements opt for a new emancipatory and civilization model,
It’s time to say enough to corporate power,
It’s time for the emancipation of our peoples from transnational power,
Participant Organizations
