An Environmental Justice Critique of Comparative Advantage: Indigenous Peoples, Trade Policy, and the Mexican Neoliberal Economic Reforms

The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened biological diversity in Mexico, and imposed additional stress on the environment in the United States. Despite these negative impacts, NAFTA continues to serve as a template for trade agreements in the Americas. Unless this template is fundamentally restructured, future trade agreements may replicate throughout the Western hemisphere many of the economic, ecological and social dislocations experienced under NAFTA. Using Mexico as a case study, the article examines the impact of trade liberalization on indigenous peoples and on the environment. Critiquing Mexico\u27s neoliberal economic reforms through the framework of environmental justice, the article highlights some of the theoretical and practical limitations of the theory of comparative advantage, which serves as the justification for the free market economic policies promoted by international trade and financial institutions. The article urges policy-makers to integrate trade, human rights, and environmental policy instead of criminalizing immigrants or militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border. The article concludes by using the paradigm of environmental justice to outline the elements of a more equitable and sustainable approach to international trade law and policy that supports the livelihoods of indigenous and rural communities and protects the planet\u27s finite natural resources

Beyond Eco-Imperialism: An Environmental Justice Critique of Free Trade

The article contributes to the trade and environment literature by assessing the claim that industrialized country proposals to integrate environmental protection into the WTO trade regime constitute environmental imperialism - the imposition of industrialized country values and preferences on less powerful nations. This claim is usually based on two distinct premises. The first is that environmental protection is a luxury that poor countries can ill afford. The second is that wealthy countries have played a leadership role in the protection of the global environment. The article questions these assumptions. It argues that environmental protection is essential to well-being of the poor, and that wealthy countries have achieved economic prosperity by shifting environmental degradation to the global commons and to the developing world. The article re-defines environmental imperialism as the over-utilization of the world\u27s limited pool of natural resources and waste sinks. It concludes that the industrialized world has indeed engaged in environmental imperialism and that trade liberalization threatens to accelerate this process. Developing countries are therefore justified in asserting that environmental trade restrictions are hypocritical in light of developed countries\u27 failure to address their own far more ecologically damaging behavior. The article proposes several legal strategies designed to scale back industrialized countries\u27 over-consumption of the world\u27s resources and to support grassroots resistance to environmental degradation. The article calls for close scrutiny of proposals to reconcile trade and environment to make sure that they promote environmental justice and do not merely reinforce industrialized countries\u27 economic and political dominance

Trade Liberalization, Food Security and the Environment: The Neoliberal Threat to Sustainable Rural Development

This article examines the historic and contemporary roots of chronic malnutrition and environmental degradation in the developing world. It chronicles the patterns of trade and production that contribute to this problem from the colonial period until the present, and analyzes the role of contemporary trade, aid and development practices in ameliorating or exacerbating the problem. The article argues that the neoliberal economic reforms imposed on developing countries through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) exacerbate hunger and environmental degradation by reinforcing pre-existing inequities in the global trading system that relegate many developing countries to the export of primary agricultural commodities as a means of generating the revenue with which to purchase food and manufactured goods. This economic specialization erodes food security by depressing domestic food production and by subjecting the export earnings needed to finance the import of food and other necessities to fluctuating world market prices for agricultural commodities and to the declining terms of trade for agricultural products. This economic specialization also degrades the environment by replacing biodiverse agroecosystems with monocultures that require massive application of pesticides and fertilizers. Furthermore, the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and World Bank, in conjunction with the reforms required under the WTO, have created a double standard in international agricultural trade that requires relative market openness in the developing world while permitting lavish subsidies and import-restrictive tariffs in industrialized countries. This double standard has depressed the export earnings of developing countries and has resulted in the widespread pauperization of small farmers in the developing world due to the influx of cheap subsidized food from developed countries. The article concludes with several recommendations designed to promote food security and sustainable rural development

Trade Liberalization, Food Security and the Environment: The Neoliberal Threat to Sustainable Rural Development

This article examines the historic and contemporary roots of chronic malnutrition and environmental degradation in the developing world. It chronicles the patterns of trade and production that contribute to this problem from the colonial period until the present, and analyzes the role of contemporary trade, aid and development practices in ameliorating or exacerbating the problem. The article argues that the neoliberal economic reforms imposed on developing countries through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) exacerbate hunger and environmental degradation by reinforcing pre-existing inequities in the global trading system that relegate many developing countries to the export of primary agricultural commodities as a means of generating the revenue with which to purchase food and manufactured goods. This economic specialization erodes food security by depressing domestic food production and by subjecting the export earnings needed to finance the import of food and other necessities to fluctuating world market prices for agricultural commodities and to the declining terms of trade for agricultural products. This economic specialization also degrades the environment by replacing biodiverse agroecosystems with monocultures that require massive application of pesticides and fertilizers. Furthermore, the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and World Bank, in conjunction with the reforms required under the WTO, have created a double standard in international agricultural trade that requires relative market openness in the developing world while permitting lavish subsidies and import-restrictive tariffs in industrialized countries. This double standard has depressed the export earnings of developing countries and has resulted in the widespread pauperization of small farmers in the developing world due to the influx of cheap subsidized food from developed countries. The article concludes with several recommendations designed to promote food security and sustainable rural development

An Environmental Justice Critique of Comparative Advantage: Indigenous Peoples, Trade Policy, and the Mexican Neoliberal Economic Reforms

The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened biological diversity in Mexico, and imposed additional stress on the environment in the United States. Despite these negative impacts, NAFTA continues to serve as a template for trade agreements in the Americas. Unless this template is fundamentally restructured, future trade agreements may replicate throughout the Western hemisphere many of the economic, ecological and social dislocations experienced under NAFTA. Using Mexico as a case study, the article examines the impact of trade liberalization on indigenous peoples and on the environment. Critiquing Mexico\u27s neoliberal economic reforms through the framework of environmental justice, the article highlights some of the theoretical and practical limitations of the theory of comparative advantage, which serves as the justification for the free market economic policies promoted by international trade and financial institutions. The article urges policy-makers to integrate trade, human rights, and environmental policy instead of criminalizing immigrants or militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border. The article concludes by using the paradigm of environmental justice to outline the elements of a more equitable and sustainable approach to international trade law and policy that supports the livelihoods of indigenous and rural communities and protects the planet\u27s finite natural resources

Climate Change, Food Security, and Agrobiodiversity: Toward a Just, Resilient, and Sustainable Food System

The global food system is in a state of profound crisis. Decades of misguided aid, trade and production policies have resulted in an unprecedented erosion of agrobiodiversity that renders the world’s food supply vulnerable to catastrophic crop failure in the event of drought, heavy rains, and outbreaks of pests and disease. Climate change threatens to wreak additional havoc on food production by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, depressing agricultural yields, reducing the productivity of the world’s fisheries, and placing pressure on scarce water resources. Furthermore, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are occurring at a time of rising global food insecurity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the number of chronically undernourished people in the world reached a peak of 1.02 billion people in 2009 – a figure that represents one sixth of humanity. This article examines the underlying causes of the crises in the global food system, and recommends specific measures that might be adopted to address the distinct but related problems of food insecurity, loss of agrobiodiversity, and climate change. The article concludes that the root cause of the crises confronting the global food system is corporate domination of the food supply and the systemic destruction of local food systems that are healthy, ecologically sustainable, and socially just. The article argues that small-scale sustainable agriculture has the potential to address the interrelated climate, food, and agrobiodiversity crises, and suggests specific measures that the international community might take through law and regulation to promote the transition to a more just, resilient, and sustainable food system