October 31, 2002 - As the Ministers of Trade of the Americas meet in Quito to discuss the implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), we, the student organisations of the Americas, will be mobilising on campuses and in our communities in opposition to the latest intensification of FTAA negotiations.

We see the FTAA, and the global trade liberalisation imperative of which it is a part, as a narrow approach that will not bring positive contributions to building a common future for the people of the Americas or to the global commons.

There is ample evidence that the FTAA poses a serious threat to the public education systems of all members of the Organization of American States (OAS), in particular to those that are still struggling to develop comprehensive and accessible public programmes and building democracy.

Behind the OAS's rhetoric that the FTAA will provide an opportunity for the nations of the Americas to expand their economies and build democracy, there is a legacy of failed trade liberalisation experiments in all sectors, including the education sector.

The most significant trade liberalisation project to-date, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), like the agreements of the World Trade Organisation, has catalysed a race to the bottom, threatening local investment priorities, livelihoods, public services and social supports, human rights, democracy, and sustainable economic and social development.

If implemented, the FTAA would be the largest free trade zone in the world, with some 800 million people and a combined economic output of $11 trillion. Its rules would constrain governments from setting standards for public health and safety, environmental protection, safeguarding workers, and for public investment, including education at all levels. Governments attempting to resist this privatisation and exploitation would face severe financial penalties and ruined economies. The FTAA also poses a serious threat to access to medical treatment, including treatment for those living with AIDS, and will undermine international agreements that call for the promotion of national health outcomes over the enforcement of patent rules.

The free trade model has so far failed to fulfill the basic conditions of democracy and development. The OAS could have proposed an agreement that would minimise socio-economic inequalities, protect workers and the environment, and enhance the public services and infrastructure upon which we all rely, but it has failed to do so.

Not only do we reject the notion that the FTAA will help create a level playing field for trade in the hemisphere, but we question the very legitimacy of the negotiation process. Negotiations take place behind closed doors and consultations turn out to be exercises in public relations.

Where we have taken democracy into our own hands, broad support for measures that improve our collective well-being is clear. The initial results of a series of popular consultas on the FTAA, in partnership with movements of workers, women, indigenous people, local business and industry, and others across the hemisphere show overwhelming opposition to the FTAA.

We understand this opposition not as a rejection of trade, but as an endorsement of a set of common values and aspirations that would be destroyed by the FTAA.

Like NAFTA, with its Chapter 11 "investor-to-state provision", the FTAA contains clauses that give un-elected investors the rights of governments.