Free Trade Agreement - time to criticise big brother

Regrettably, this is not just an aberration by our FTA counterpart. Recently, when the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted to adopt a new treaty that protects cultural rights worldwide, the United States was conspicuous in opposing it.

The treaty allows nations to maintain, adopt and implement policies they deem appropriate to protect the diversity of cultural expressions on their territory.

The US grounds for rejecting the treaty seemed to be grounded in economic pragmatism. "This convention invites abuse by enemies of democracy and free trade," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is said to have told UNESCO members in a letter in October.

On the environmental front, the US, along with Australia, remains the only other industrialised nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol on climate control.

In terms of humanitarian law, after influencing significantly the form of the Rome Statute constituting the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US refused to ratify it, while simultaneously requesting, and in some cases coercing various nations dependent on aid, to sign the so-called “section 98 bilateral immunity agreements” favouring US personnel. In doing so, the US acted contrary to Article 18 of the Vienna Convention, which obliges signatories to refrain from undermining treaties that they decline to ratify.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that America has continued to refuse - along only with Somalia in the entire UN system - to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Nor did the US permit the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate, fully, the allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay (where David Hicks and other Australian prisoners had been held).

Of particular concern also is America’s role in relation to preventing the proliferation of arms. After playing an important leadership role just over a decade ago in securing a rigorous international inspection regime for chemical weapons, the US has gone some way in eroding that good work. Thus, US leaders continue to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons, the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

Australian leaders were once reknowned and respected for their ability to provide frank, fearless and robust advice in international circles. With the US-Australia FTA soon to come into force, that fair dinkum approach is needed more than ever.

What message does it send to the world when we unquestioningly enter into an agreement with a country who seeks to change the rules of the international game in order to win?

If we are acting justly, with faith in our cause and truth on our side, then we will succeed: they are sufficient for our purpose and fairly crafted to ensure a legitimate outcome.