However, it must be ratified by the legislatures of the signing countries. This is where the front lines of resistance to this agreement can be established. In reality, globalization is being shaped and advanced by carefully planned legal and institutional changes embodied in a series of international agreements. Virtually unreported, the latest and potentially most dangerous of these agreements is now under negotiation. To achieve this goal, the M.I.A. would ban a wide range of regulatory laws now in force around the globe.
Negotiations are already at an advanced stage.
Yet few Americans have even heard of the agreement. Whether the M.I.A. is adopted and, if so, just how far its deregulatory tentacles will extend depend on whether opponents can force the proposal from its present obscurity into the light of open debate. Although the public has been denied access to actual drafts of the agreement, reviews of O.E.C.D. working group reports and an official summary of the M.I.A.'s main features provide a clear picture of its aims and mechanisms. As proposed the M.l.A. would force countries to treat foreign investors as favorably as domestic companies. Under this new regime, corporations would find it easier and more profitable to move investments, including production facilities, to low-wage countries.