Addressing Root Causes of Economic Inequality Among Nations

BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Canada work to develop policies that more fully address the causes of economic inequality among nations, and consider such matters as the following:
· the strong arguments for providing free access to our markets to the world's poorest nations (with restrictions only allowed to address lower levels of carbon tax or to adopt standards for human rights, labour and environmental protection);
· creation of international bankruptcy law and a corresponding governing system, independent of lending institutions, to handle situations in which countries become unable to repay loans or loan interest.
· changes to intellectual property regimes such as agreements to provide knowledge (technological, pharmaceutical, etc.) for free to countries that could otherwise not afford it (a powerful and costeffective way to assist poor and developing nations);
· development of a program to help ensure that developing countries are treated fairly by logging, oil and mining industries; development of auction procedures that enable developing countries to get a larger fraction of the value of their resources; design of model contracts; etc.;
· the formation of a global competition law and a global anticompetitive authority to enforce it, to protect all nations from anticompetitive practice, including smaller nations that are not able to adequately enforce competitive law in their own jurisdiction;
· needed reforms of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank;
· indicating preference for multilateral trade agreements over bilateral trade agreements and the need for independent international tribunals to resolve trade disputes;
· promoting changes to tax rules so that tax deductions for money spent on royalties or other payments to foreign governments are not permitted unless there is full disclosure of what was paid and how much of the resource in question was extracted;
· promoting an international agreement recognizing traditional knowledge and prohibiting ""biopiracy"" (appropriation of traditional knowledge by forprofit corporations without adequate compensation).
· and creation of a new, more stable system for global reserves.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Canada work to develop policies that more fully address the causes of economic inequality among nations, and consider such matters as the following:
· the strong arguments for providing free access to our markets to the world's poorest nations (with restrictions only allowed to address lower levels of carbon tax or to adopt standards for human rights, labour and environmental protection);
· creation of international bankruptcy law and a corresponding governing system, independent of lending institutions, to handle situations in which countries become unable to repay loans or loan interest.
· changes to intellectual property regimes such as agreements to provide knowledge (technological, pharmaceutical, etc.) for free to countries that could otherwise not afford it (a powerful and costeffective way to assist poor and developing nations);
· development of a program to help ensure that developing countries are treated fairly by logging, oil and mining industries; development of auction procedures that enable developing countries to get a larger fraction of the value of their resources; design of model contracts; etc.;
· the formation of a global competition law and a global anticompetitive authority to enforce it, to protect all nations from anticompetitive practice, including smaller nations that are not able to adequately enforce competitive law in their own jurisdiction;
· needed reforms of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank;
· indicating preference for multilateral trade agreements over bilateral trade agreements and the need for independent international tribunals to resolve trade disputes;
· promoting changes to tax rules so that tax deductions for money spent on royalties or other payments to foreign governments are not permitted unless there is full disclosure of what was paid and how much of the resource in question was extracted;
· promoting an international agreement recognizing traditional knowledge and prohibiting ""biopiracy"" (appropriation of traditional knowledge by forprofit corporations without adequate compensation).
· and creation of a new, more stable system for global reserves.