This would be supremely dangerous if, one day, the US elected a president who wanted to shred air pollution rules or, say, Britain elected a prime minister who had a mad desire to sell off the rest of his nation's air traffic control system. How convenient for embattled chief executives. What elected congresses and parliaments dare not do, GATS would require. Under the post-democratic GATS regime, the Disputes Panel, those Grand Inquisitors of the free market, will decide whether a nation's law or a regulation serves what the memo calls a 'legitimate objective'. While parliaments are lumbered with dated constitutional requirements to debate a law's legitimacy in public, with public evidence, and hearings open to citizen comment, GATS panels are far more efficient.
Hearings are closed.
Unions, as well as consumer, environmental and human rights groups, are barred from participating - or even knowing what is said before the panel. The WTO was working from the proposals suggested in yet another confidential document also sent to me by my good friend, Unnamable Source. Necessity and Transparency', dated 24 February, was drafted by the European Commission's own 'working party', in which the UK ministry claims a leading role. In a letter to MPs, Trade Minister Caborn swears that, through the EC working party, he will ensure that GATS recognises the 'sovereign right of government to regulate services' to meet 'national policy objectives'. Indeed, the EC document contains contemptuous attacks on nations claiming 'legitimate objectives' as potential 'disguised barriers' to trade liberalisation.