Lucas,
Start off the New Year by making some noise.
Tell your members of Congress to sign the Consumer Rights Pledge and support consumer rights, not the WTO!
If they sign the pledge, let us know by contacting us at blopez@citizen.org .
To learn more about the WTO attacks on consumer rights, read our recent email below and tune in to the podcast of Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, on the Kojo Nnamdi Show.
Happy New Year,
Beatriz and Brooke
Senior Field Organizers
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
Lucas,Will this be the last holiday season that you have a right to know where your food comes from, and how people, the environment and animals were impacted in its production?
The World Trade Organization (WTO) thinks so.
In a set of decisions this fall, the WTO ruled against our country-of-origin labels on meat, dolphin-safe labels on tuna and our ban on candy- and clove-flavored cigarettes. These are the policies we rely on to allow us to protect children's health and make informed decisions as consumers. Under current rules, the U.S. will have to water down or eliminate these policies, or face trade sanctions.*
Tell your members of Congress to get into the holiday spirit and sign the Consumer Rights Pledge.
Each policy was the result of a hard-fought, decades-long battle against corporations that wanted to deny consumers information and government officials who were in the pockets of Big Business. It is unconscionable that unelected WTO "judges" would impose yet another barrier to the public's will.
The press and Congress have been asleep at the switch. In the past, when these outrageous WTO rulings were issued, everyone saw it in the press. Not this time. That means it's up to you to raise a stink. We need to crank up the heat so the Obama administration and Congress do not just quietly follow these WTO orders and gut our laws.
And we need to make sure that they do not extend these anti-consumer rules in future trade deals, like the major Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement that the Obama administration wants to sign with a bloc of countries next summer!
It's the WTO and our other corporate power tool trade agreements that have to change--not consumers' right to know!
Contact your members of Congress and have them sign the Consumer Rights Pledge.
Thanks for all you do,Beatriz and Brooke
Senior Field Organizers
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch