Alexis I.P.

Dela Cruz 2005-41158 Banana Wars and Sovereignties Imagined or Otherwise They are simply not on the same banana. If they were, then bananas from Latin America and from former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) would not have spurred a trade policy spectacle from tariff differences in 1997. The European Communities (EC), eager to shake its conscience clean of the excesses of the days of empire, entered into the Lom Convention in 1975 with several ACP states with a view to encourage development of the economies of these countries by giving their exports preferential entry into European markets. The ACP exports constitute less than 15% of the total supply of bananas in Europe, whose markets are dominated by imports from vast banana plantations in Latin America. These plantations were mostly run by Chiquita Brands and Dole, both United States-based agribusiness conglomerates. With the 1997 decision of a dispute-settlement panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) striking down the EC policy of preferential treatment of ACP banana imports, ACP banana planters are hard-pressed to keep up with the large-scale production of their Latin American counterparts. Notwithstanding attempts at striking compromise, Chiquita remained dissatisfied with the ECs dual classification system for import licensing. The problem lies in how the WTO, with the all-too-powerful leverage of economic sanctions, has effectively, more than any other institution, undermined the sovereignty of the state. In addition, these sovereignties have yielded to the far-reaching influence of non-state actors such as Chiquita. The EC had gone at lengths to satisfy the state parties to the 1997 dispute, and despite continuing opposition from Chiquita, EC trade representatives felt it improper to change their policy once more just to satisfy a very large multinational corporation. But the real question to ask is if the EC can actually afford to keep Chiquita unsatisfied. As the dispute was submitted to the WTO for resolution, EC economic analysts asserted that under the new dual classification import licensing system (one for ACP imports and one erga omnes regime), other companies like Dole have adequately adjusted into the new import regime and that Chiquita was incurring losses elsewhere and not in the EC. To many critics of the EC policy, there was just simply no going around established WTO rules on imports. The banana wars were lost at a huge expense for ACP states for being incompatible to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). What the 1997 decision tells us is that a large-enough multinational corporation is in a critical position to influence international trade policy among states ostensibly acting in their sovereign capacities. Chiquita was able to enlist the aid of no less than the US government as counsel at the WTO proceedings. Ironically, winning the WTO dispute even presents a different problem for the US with respect to the Caribbean in particular. Geographically located at its backyard, the Caribbean has played host to a considerable US military presence. With the loss of EC trade preferences in their favor, many Caribbean nationals now finding banana exporting unprofitable turn to illegal migration and trans-insular narcotics smuggling into the US for income. Still, one couldnt help but wonder who actually won the banana wars. And at such a painful cost to state sovereignty, the increasingly global economy, in its pretense of creating a level field for all, has become a fertile spawning ground for powerful non-state actors that have become vital forces to reckon with in a states consideration of its international trade policy.