This is a huge document. But I don't apologise for sending it to you all.
Many of you will find much to agree with in it, many will find lots to
diagree with. Some of you may even have contributed to it. Mnay of you will
think it is irrelevant- I happen to think it does at least represent some
hope for an upsurge against global corporate rule...


CITIZENS ALTERNATIVE TREATY TO THE MAI

For over a year the proposed treaty based on international agreements
has been circulated internationally as an alternative to the MAI. This
treaty has been circulated widely throughout the international Anti-MAI
networks.It has been translated into Spanish, and is being translated into
French.It was endorsed at a recent meeting of the Federation of Green Parties
of the Americas, sent several times to the UN Missions in New York, and to
theInternational media. It was sent on the October 24, 1997 on the 52nd
Anniversary of the United Nations. It will be recirculated to the UN on
October 24, 1998 and on the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations
Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1998.

The treaty is supported by a body of international documents and
principles drawn from over 50 years of international obligations,
commitments and expectations created through the UN system. The Annex
contains the documents that have been reviewed for the drafting of this
document and
is supported by the Charter of Obligations prepared by the Global
Compliance Research Project.

Joan Russow (PhD)
National leader of the Green Party of Canada

CITIZENS TREATY OF ETHICS,
EQUITY AND ECOLOGY

Recognizing the Interdependence of Peace, Environmental Protection and
Human Rights and Social Justice (Formerly the anti-free trade citizen's
treaty for corporate and state compliance: nemesis of the MAI). Proposed
General Assembly Resolution to be circulated to governments by their
citizens

Through more than 50 years of concerted effort, the member states of the
United Nations have created public trust international
obligations,commitments and expectations in which they have undertaken the
following:
1. to Promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including
labour rights, health rights, and social justice;
2. to Enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment;
3. to Achieve a state of peace, justice and security;
4. to Create a global structure that respects the rule of law; and
5. to Ensure the preservation and protection of the environment, reduce the
ecological footprint and move away from the current model of
overconsumptive development

Concerned that trade organizations such as the World Trade Organization
(WTO) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and trade agreements
such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the
Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) undermine the work of over 50
years in creating obligations, commitments and expectations with respect to
the matters set out above;

Dismayed by the continued global urgency resulting from the failure of
member states of the United Nations to discharge their obligations arising
from conventions, treaties and covenants, to act on commitments made in
conference action plans, and to fulfill expectations arising from general
assembly resolutions.

Recalling the expectations created through resolutions of the General
Assembly, commitments made in Conference Action plans, and
obligationsincurred through Conventions:
- to guarantee "the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights
of all members of the human family" - to "prevent the scourge of war",
- to recognize "Peoples' right to peace",
- to "eliminate production of weapons of mass destruction",
- to ensure that "the use of scientific technology should be in peace and
for the benefits of humanity",
- to "reduce the military budget and transfer the savings into promoting
social programs particularly in developing countries",
- to "ensure social justice and the equitable distribution of
resources",
- to respect "the right to work for equal pay for work of equal value",
- to "ensure the rights of future generations", and
- to "respect the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose";

Noting that December 10, 1998 is the 50th Anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and that there must be no discrimination on the
following grounds:
Race, tribe, or culture, colour, ethnicity, national ethnic or social
origin, nationality, place of birth, nature of residence (refugee or
immigrant, migrant worker) status, colour, gender, sex, sexual orientation,
gender identity, marital status, form of family,disability, age, language,
religion or conviction, political or other opinion, or , class, economic
position, or other status

Recalling the commitment made by all the member states of the United
Nations in the Platform of Action at the UN Conference on Women:
Equality, Development and Peace (Beijing, 1995) and in the Habitat II
Agenda,"to ensure that corporations including transnational corporations
comply
with national codes, social security laws, and international law, including
international environmental law";


WE  CALL UPON THE MEMBER  STATES OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO UNDERTAKE THE
FOLLOWING:

1. To discharge obligations, act on commitments, and fulfill expectations
arising from Public Trust international agreements and thus:
(a) to sign and ratify those existing international conventions,
treaties, and covenants that have not yet been signed and ratified,
(b) to enact the domestic legislation necessary to implement them and to
fulfill the legitimate expectations created by General Assembly resolutions
and declarations, and
(c) to act upon commitments arising from conference action plans;

2. To establish mandatory international standards and regulations (MINS),
based on international principles and on the highest and strongest
regulations from member states, harmonizing standards and regulations
continually upwards with respect to:
a. Promoting and fully guaranteeing respect for human rights including
labour rights, health rights and social justice;
b. Enabling socially equitable and environmentally sound employment;
c. Achieving a state of peace, justice and security;
d. Creating a global structure that respects the rule of law; and
e. Ensuring the preservation and protection of the environment.

3. To demand compensation and reparations from corporations, and from
administrations that have permitted corporations to, or assisted them in,
degrading the environment, violating fundamental human rights, causing harm
to human health, especially where those actions occurred:
(a) in developed and developing countries, or
(b) on the lands of indigenous peoples or in the communities of
marginalized citizens in either developing or developed countries;

4. To revoke the licences and charters of corporations, including
transnational corporations, if those corporations have persistently:
(a) violated human rights or denied social justice,
(b) caused environmental degradation, or harm to human health,
(c) disregarded labour rights, or
(d) contributed to conflict and war, or if they fail to pay compensation
for past non-compliance with international agreements;

5. To reduce the global military budgets by at least 50% and use the savings:
(a) to guarantee:
- the right to safe and adequate food, which has been not genetically
altered or irradiated, or grown with pesticides
- the right to safe and affordable shelter,
- the right to universal health care,
- the right to safe drinking water,
- the right to a safe environment,
- the right to education, and
- the right to peace;
(b) to fund socially equitable and environmentally sound work; and
(c) to fund education and research free from corporate direction and
control;

6. To increase funding for United Nations agencies and for international,
national and regional educational institutions so that their missions will
not be undermined by corporate direction or control. All funding to the
United Nations should be conditional and dedicated to the furthering of
international public trust law, not vested interest economic agreements
such as GATT, WTO, MAI etc. Given the security council is controlled by the
nuclear armed states, the security council should be disbanded, and
rotational councils should be selected from the membership of the general
assembly.

7. To develop criteria for partnership with the United Nations so as to
ensure the exclusion of corporations and to ensure that all partners have
in no way in any of their activities  violated human rights, including
labour rights caused environmental degradation, contributed to war and
conflict, or failed to promote socially equitable and environmentally sound
employment;

8. To distinguish "civil society" from the "market" - as business activity
conducted for profit and civil society as those elements of society that
serve to guarantee human rights, foster justice, protect and conserve the
environment, prevent war and conflict, and provide for socially equitable
and environmentally sound employment -

9. To prevent the transfer to other states of substances and activities
that cause environmental degradation or that are harmful to human health,
as agreed in the Rio Declaration, UNCED, 1992;
This prohibition must cover activities such as those related to:
(a) production, importation or exportation of toxic, hazardous, or
atomic substances and wastes,
(b) production or consumption of ozone-depleting substances,
(c) extraction of resources by environmentally unsound methods,
(d) production or distribution of genetically-engineered food substances
and genetically modified organisms,
(e) production or distribution of genetically engineered crop/pesticide systems,
(f) production of greenhouse gas emissions;

10. To act upon the commitments made at recent United Nations Conferences
to move away from the overconsumptive model of development, to reduce the
ecological footprint, to move away from car-dependency, and to reject the
economic dogma that maximum economic growth will resolve the urgency of the
global situation;

11. To prohibit all trade zones that have the effect of circumventing
obligations and commitments intended to guarantee human rights, including
social justice and labour rights, or to protect, preserve and conserve the
environment.

12. To work for the unconditional forgiveness of all developing nations
debt arising from loans made prior to 1990 and for the termination of all
structural adjustment programs (saps) which seek to ensure repayment of
such debt at the expense of ordinary people, including programs which seek:
(a) the indiscriminate privatization of state-owned enterprises,
(b) the indiscriminate reduction of government expenditures,
(c) the indiscriminate liberalization of trade regimes,
(d) the indiscriminate opening of states to increased foreign investment,
especially where this entails the attraction of foreign capital by
deregulating markets and offering low wages, high interest rates, and
little or no environmental protection,
(e) the indiscriminate encouragement of producing of goods for export at
the expense of traditional crops, products and services which serve the
needs of domestic peoples, or
(f) to force a developing nation to adopt a policy of creating or
exacerbating an imbalance between imports and exports;

13. To ensure that no state relaxes environmental, health, human rights or
labour standards in order to attract industry, and that no corporation
allows a branch or subsidiary to engage in:
(a) practices that are unacceptable in the controlling corporation's state
of origin,
(b) activities that are banned or restricted in the controlling
corporation's state of origin, or
(c) manufacturing or transferring substances that are banned or restricted
in the controlling corporation's state of origin.

14. To ensure that no state shall justify trade with a country that
violates human rights, including labour rights on the grounds that such
trade will lead to a betterment of human rights, except where contined
trade is conditional on eliminating human rights abuses.

15. To establish an International Court of Compliance where citizens can
bring evidence of state and corporate non-compliance with all states'
overriding obligations and commitments to:
(a) protect and advance human rights, including health rights, and labour
rights and social justice,
(b) protect and conserve the environment,
(c) prevent war and conflict, and
(d) enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment

16. To ensure the right of citizens to sue corporate owners and officers,
in criminal and civil court, for any legally  violation of human
rights,including labour rights, denying social justice, for destroying the
environment, for causing serious harm to human health, and for contributing
to devastation through arms trade


Contacts:
Joan Russow (Ph.D.)
National leader of the Green Party of Canada
Co-ordinator, Global Compliance Research Project
1230 St. Patrick St. Victoria, B.C. V8S 4Y4 Tel/FAX (250) 598-0071,
e-mail [log in to unmask]

Caspar Davis (L.L.B)
e-mail [log in to unmask]


ANNEX

INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN EXAMINED FOR THE GLOBAL
COMPLIANCE PROJECT AND THAT FORM THE BASIS FOR THE TREATY FOR STATE AND
CORPORATE COMPLIANCE:

VIENNA CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF TREATIES

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1968
NOTE: Article 18 of the Vienna Convention Treaty stipulates that if a state
has signed a treaty there is an "obligation not to defeat the object and
purpose of a treaty prior to the entry into force; thus an obligations
could be placed on states that have signed but not ratified international
Conventions and Treaties.

HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUMENTS:

Convention Concerning Employment Promotion and Protection against
Unemployment, 1988
Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent
Countries, 1990
Convention for the Protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage,
preamble, 1972
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1979
Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1968
Convention on Consent to Marriage, 1962
Convention on the Political Rights of Women, 1953 ,
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,1948
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951
Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, 1991 Proclaimed by General
Assembly Resolution, 1975
Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons, 1971
International Cooperation in the fight against all Forms of Religious
intolerance and extremism Regional Meeting for Africa of the World
Conference on Human Rights
International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights 1966 ,
International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 ,
International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial
Discrimination, 1965 ;
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant
Workers and members of their families, 1983
International Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Measures to Improve the Situation and Ensure the Human  Rights and Dignity
of all Migrant Workers, 1982
Ombudsman Annual Report, 1991
Prep Com II Reduction and Elimination of Widespread Poverty,
Return or Restitution of Cultural Property to the Countries of Origin,1983
Slavery Convention signed at Geneva, 1926 and amended by the Protocol, 1953,
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
World Conference on human rights, 1993

ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS INSTRUMENTS:

ASEAN Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Kuala
Lumpur),1985
Canadian Government submission to Prep Com 1, for the World
Summit for Social Development, 1995
Convention for the Control of Transboundary Movements  of Hazardous Wastes
(Basel Convention), 1989
Convention for the Combating of Desertification, 1994
Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992
Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment of  Transboundary, 1991
Environmental Modification Convention of 1977
Group of Fifteen, Submission to UNCED, 1992
Law of the Seas, 1982
Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1987
(including London and Copenhagen Protocols)
Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 UNCED,1992
Seabed Treaty,1971,
The World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, 1994
Tunis Declaration, 1993, Report of the Regional Meeting for Africa of the
World Conference on Human rights
UN Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972
UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered  Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora, 1973
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992
UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), 1992
UN Conference on Humans and Environment (UNCHE),1972
Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone,1985
World Charter of Nature, 1982

PEACE INSTRUMENTS:
Antarctic Treaty  1959, in force 1961
Bacteriological and Toxic Weapon Convention, 1972 i
Bern [Geneva] Protocol II of 1977 on the Protection of  Victims of Non-
international Armed Conflicts in force, 1978
Convention IV of 1907, in force 1910 respecting the Geneva Conventions
Relating to Protection of Victims of Armed Conflicts, 1949
Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of
War,1949
Declaration on the Use of Scientific and Technological  progress in the
interests of peace, General Assembly Resolution, 1975
Environmental Modification Convention, 1977
Geneva Protocol of 1925 on Chemical and Bacteriological Warfare, in force, 1928
Hague Convention ii of 1899 with Respect to the Laws  and Customs of War on
Land and reaffirmed in Hague in 1910
Inhumane weapon Convention, 1981,
Interfaith Charter through the Internet, 1995
Moon Agreement,  1979
Nuclear-weapon Non-proliferation Treaty, 1968
Outer Space Treaty, 1967
Seabed Treaty, 1971, in force
The Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty : Prohibiting the testing of Nuclear
weapons in the Atmosphere, 1963
Treaty of Tlatco (declaring South America as a nuclear Free weapons zone.)

SOCIALLY EQUITABLE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY-SOUND DEVELOPMENT

Conference on Population and Development. 1994 (unofficial document)
Declaration on the Establishment of a new International Economic Order 1974
Programme of Action of the United Nations International Mission
Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies, 1985
Social Development Summit (Draft submissions)
UN Secretariat Plan of Action World Summit for Social  Development,
March 1995
Universal Declaration on the Eradication of hunger and malnutrition, 1974

UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIONS

Resolution 37/137 Protection against Products Harmful to Health and the
Environment, 1982
United Nations Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace, 1984
Peaceful settlement of disputes between states, UN resolution 36/110, 1981
Resolution 36/82 1981, Reduction of Military Budgets. 1981
General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/63 ,1983
United Nations Resolution 36/14 , 1981
General Resolution 3180 (XXVIII) of 17 December 1973; and General Assembly
resolution 3348 (XXIX) of 17 December. 1974
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and development, the General Assembly
Resolution, 1981
The General Assembly Global Strategy for Health for All by the
Year 2000, 1981
UN General Assembly Resolution 36/43, 1981
The General Assembly Resolution 36/28
General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/87, 1983
General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/50, 1983
Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace General Assembly resolution
39/11 of 12 November 1984
Condemnation of nuclear war General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/75, 1983
Condemnation of nuclear war General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/75, 1983
United Nations Resolution, 38/71, 1993
Condemnation of nuclear war General Assembly Resolution A/RES/38/75, 1983
GA Resolution The right to education 37/178 17 December, 1982
Relationship between disarmament and development, UN resolution 38/71, 1983
Resolution 36/82 1981, Reduction of Military Budgets. 1981
Declaration on the Right to Development Adopted by General
Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986
UN General Assembly Resolution 35/8 Historical Responsibility of States for
the Preservation of Nature for Present and Future Generations 1980

INTERNATIONAL NGO RESOLUTIONS AND DOCUMENTS:

Advanced Unedited Draft Declaration and Platform for Action, May, 15, 1995
Alternative Earth Charter, ERA Ecological Rights Association, 1991
Citizens Association to Safe the Environment- CASE, 1995
Declaration of Conscientious objection, 1994
Declaration, Summit of the Americas, 1994
Declaration made by participants in the 5th International Conference of
Pace Tax Campaigners and War tax, 1994
Earth Charter, Global Forum, 1992
First study Conference on Genital mutilation of girls in Europe, 1992
ERA Ecological Rights Association UN Declaration for Translating
Rhetoric into Action, 1992
International Union of Geological Sciences, 1994
IUCN, 1994
NGO Treaty on Militarism, Environment and Development (Global Forum, 1992)
NGO Treaty on "Overconsumption", 1992
NGO Treaty on Population, Environment and Development   (Global Forum,1992)
PAN International by PAN North America Regional Center, 1993
>PROMISES TO KEEP The Unfinished Agenda for Human Rights and Economic Justice
>in the Americas, 1994
The Imperative of Equity: the Missing Dimension of UNCED: Statement of the
South Asia NGO Summit, New Delhi, February 17-19, 1992
Women's Health in Women's Hands, 1995
Women's Action AGENDA, 1992

OTHER

Grossman, R.. Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of
Incorporation
Peaceworkers Brochure, 1995.
Responsibility. a Statement of Principles for Canadian daily newspapers, 1977

David Wood
PhD Student ('The Rural Peace Dividend')
Department of Agricultural Economics and Food Marketing
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU

Tel: 0191 222 6615




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