"Laws Don't Work if They're Only on Paper"

Newspaper article

By: Raúl Pierri

Date: August 9, 2005

Source: Pierri, Raúl. "Laws Don't Work if They're Only on Paper." Inter Press Service News Agency (August 9, 2005).

About the Author: Raúl Pierri is a reporter with the Inter Press Service News Agency, covering Latin American issues and publishing his work in both Spanish and English.

INTRODUCTION

Latin-American economic development surged from the 1930s through the 1970s with intensive industrialization. Using programs such as "import substitution industrialization," which involved having Latin-American countries produce the same products they normally imported, the economies of Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and other Latin-American countries grew at record rates. Substituting imports for domestic products helped to boost the economy, created jobs, stimulated foreign investment, and created home industries that allowed for improvements in infrastructure. As domestic factories created products and jobs, the governments invested capital into these enterprises while placing high tariffs on imported goods, protecting native production.

While countries throughout Latin America urbanized and industrialized at different rates and times, the continent on the whole entered international markets, with finished goods competing with those produced by developed nations. Between import substitution and production for export to North America and Europe, industrialization in larger Latin-American countries changed the demographics of Latin America but also permanently altered the continent's physical landscape.

As environmental problems such as air pollution, water pollution, waste storage, public health issues, deforestation, and erosion began to plague Latin-American countries, national and international attention started to spotlight these problems. While groups such as Greenpeace traditionally focused on the natural environment, especially rainforests, marine life, and farmland nutrient depletion, over time a second aspect of the environment—the urban environment—came into play when discussing Latin-American environmental crises. International conventions such as the Montreal Protocol (1987), the United Nations (U.N.) Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the Biodiversity Convention (1992), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), and the ongoing Kyoto Protocol question worked toward finding government-corporate solutions to environmental degradation in Latin America, while preserving economic development.

Existing laws in Latin America and international agreements, if followed, would contain much of the environmental damage sustained, but convincing countries to follow their own laws and abiding by international treaties has been an ongoing source of frustration for national and international non-governmental organizations, political activists, and leaders.

PRIMARY SOURCE

The governments of Latin America and the Caribbean will not be able to curb the growing environmental destruction in the region unless they enforce the laws and international conventions they have adopted, fight poverty, and put a stop to the interference of big corporations in their public polices.

MONTEVIDEO, Aug 9 (IPS)—This was the consensus reached by 35 experts from 10 countries in the region who have gathered for seven days in Montevideo to draw up the agenda for issues to be addressed in the next Global Environment Outlook (GEO), a periodic, comprehensive environmental report organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The GEO reports are produced through a participatory and consultative approach with input from the international, regional and national levels. Three have been published so far, in 1997, 1999, and 2002, and the next is scheduled for completion in 2007.

In an interview with IPS, Ricardo Sánchez, the director of the UNEP Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, commented that the region's governments "demonstrate a certain political will for protecting the environment. They have laws, they have ministries and parliamentary commissions, but there hasn't been enough progress in making environmental policies a crosscutting issue."

The result, he said, is that "countries undertake a great many projects aimed at development that focus solely on economic growth, without taking environmental impact into account. There needs to be a greater will on the part of governments to include the environmental aspect in all sectors, in order to genuinely pursue a strategy of sustainable development," he stressed.

"It should be made clear that the most important thing is not growth at any cost, but rather growth in terms of quality, growth in those aspects that have a greater impact on people's quality of life, in balance with the ecosystems," he added.

The GEO reports are drawn up in coordination with governments, civil society and academia. They do not simply provide a diagnosis of the state of the environment, but also put forward proposals for action through public policies, Eduardo Gudynas, director of the Latin American Centre for Social Ecology (CLAES), told IPS.

CLAES, based in Uruguay, is one of the GEO collaborative centres that participate in coordinating the input for the report from the Latin American and Caribbean region.

At the Forum of Environment Ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Panama in 2003, the participants resolved to follow the recommendations put forward in the GEO reports.

The experts who are meeting in Montevideo until Wednesday have compiled a list of "grave" environmental problems facing the region: deforestation, soil degradation, water and air pollution, inadequate disposal of urban solid waste, and the situation of thousands of peoples living without access to basic public services like drinking water and sanitation.

However, one of the greatest concerns expressed at the meeting was the failure of governments to comply with their own environmental regulations, reported Edgar Gutiérrez Ezpeleta, director of the University of Costa Rica Development Observatory.

"The countries make commitments on a global level through conventions, but at the national level, they neither fulfill them nor ensure that they are fulfilled. I would say that Latin America has sufficient regulations for making proper use of natural resources in an efficient manner, but they are not applied," Gutiérrez Ezpeleta remarked to IPS.

He also stressed the danger posed by the growing interference of multinational corporations in the public policies of Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Companies negotiate with a small number of people in Latin American countries, almost always with the economy minister and the president. There is a process whereby national democracies are being transformed into what have been called 'delegatory democracies,' in the sense that only one or two people in the government take part in negotiations and adopt major decisions," he said.

"The corporations like this, because they only have to deal with one or two people. They don't have to talk with the congress or with eight different ministers," he added.

Gutiérrez Ezpeleta maintained that when governments "put financial needs before the well-being of the population, the country starts heading downhill."

"Getting caught up in the wild race to achieve economic growth or attract investment and boost exports is turning our countries into what they were during the colonial era—mere exporters of natural resources. This is neither sustainable nor just," he said.

The experts agreed that the next GEO report on Latin America and the Caribbean should highlight the importance of including the environmental component in trade and regional integration initiatives.

"There is a major challenge facing Latin America. This is a region with natural wealth unlike any other area in the world. However, it is not used in accordance with local needs, but rather the needs created by consumption in the countries of the North. This poses an enormous challenge, because while it is true that this demand brings in financial resources, it also represents a formidable potential for environmental degradation," said Gutiérrez Ezpeleta.

"This shows us that we should be seeking a new kind of integration. Not just trade-related integration, but rather integration that includes aspects like cooperation, mutual understanding and ethics, that can promote our relations with other parts of the world on the basis of trade that is more just, more equitable and mutually beneficial," he added.

The experts gathered in Montevideo also emphasised the need for governments to address environmental issues from an integrated perspective, while stepping up efforts to combat poverty.

"Environmental matters are not only environmental, because they are also linked to social, economic and institutional issues, just as economic matters are no longer simply economic, because they are connected to social and environmental questions. Everything is interconnected," stressed Gutiérrez Ezpeleta.

"And if this interconnection isn't grasped, we are going to continue fostering partial visions and short-term strategies that lead to what we have observed in Latin America: an accelerated process of environmental degradation," he concluded.

SIGNIFICANCE

Non-governmental organizations such as CorpWatch, Greenpeace, and the Center for Media and Democracy echo the United Nations Environment Programme's concern regarding the interference of multinational corporations in Latin America's environmental policy setting and adherence. These advocacy and watchdog groups point to multinational corporations such as Shell, British Petroleum, and Dole and the role each plays in creating conditions that promote economic development at the expense of the environment.

While multinational organizations claim that voluntary regulation is the key to sustainable growth in Latin America, some of the most egregious environmental problems, such as soil erosion, solid waste storage and overflow, poor water quality, urban air pollution, and deforestation require large-scale regulation and management that require a governmental approach. In response to criticism levied at multinational corporations, in 1995 the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a lobbying group of over 180 multinational corporations, formed to set voluntary policy, and to set forth corporate goals and ideas about the coexistence of economic development and sustainable business practices. The WBCSD has come under sharp criticism by groups such as Greenpeace, as well as Latin American presidents such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, for acting as public relations machines for multinational corporations, putting a veneer of environmental and social concern over policy promotion that aids corporate profits.

The WBCSD and similar organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce point to projects such as Public-Private Partnerships for the Urban Environment, a cooperative program between the U.N., academia, corporations, and WBCSD, as a success story in which partnerships across the board help to promote positive change in Latin America.

Some governments in Latin America, however, are setting policies that include environmental sustainability in their economic development plans. Argentina has worked with genetically engineered crops to increase yield and decrease deforestation. Chile has worked in recent years to reduce the environmental damage caused by mining. Most government leaders also recognize the fact that environmental degradation and economic development are intertwined with extreme poverty and the ravages of rapid urbanization; without addressing these systemic issues, sustainable development will be difficult, if not impossible.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks in asking Latin-American countries to adhere to their own laws and those set forth by international treaties and conferences comes from the non-compliance of large developed nations such as the United States. As Latin American economies shifted from import substitution industrialization to high levels of export production, the need to remain competitive on an international scale intensified. One common thread in international discussions revolves around the balance between remaining competitive with developed nations—who have already experienced the early problems of rapid industrialization—and the need to address environmental consequences of development. While sustainable growth is important, it is viewed as a luxury by many leaders as Latin America struggles to maintain economic stability.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Franco, Patrice. The Puzzle of Latin American Development. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

Martin, Juan and Jose Antonio Ocampo. Globalization and Development: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Web sites

USAID. "Latin America and the Caribbean: Environment." 〈http://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/environment〉 (accessed January 13, 2006).

The World Bank. "Market Based Instruments for Environmental Policymaking in Latin America and the Caribbean: Lessons from Eleven Countries." 〈http:// www.worldbank.org/nipr/work_paper/huber/huber2.pdf〉 (accessed January 13, 2006).