[asia-apec 78] 1989 PACIFIC RIM PAPER FOR POSTING - PART I

[Northwest FOE Office]

[NOTE: This 1989 paper contains useful information on Pacific Rim
issues/trade. The file is in two parts.  This is Part I. DEO]



PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE PACIFIC BASIN

[Delivered at an Institute for Global Security Studies' Seattle,
WA Conference on "The Pacific Community:  A Common Security
Agenda for the Nineties", 6-9 September 1989.

David E. Ortman
Northwest Representative,
Friends of the Earth
4512 University Way N.E.
Seattle, WA  98105
(206) 633-1661
e-mail: foewase at igc.org

I. SUMMARY

     The Pacific Rim links not just the North and South American
continents, the Soviet Union, Asia, the South Pacific Islands,
New Zealand, Australia and for the purposes of this paper,
Antarctica, but contains 46% of the world's oceans.  In fact, a
globe turned upside down and viewed from the South Pacific
reveals mostly ocean.  Resources of minerals and fisheries are
sought beneath its surface.  Pacific Rim Trade criss-crosses the
ocean in a spiderweb pattern.  Leviathans, both whales and
nuclear submarines ply its depths.  Cities, industries and
indigenous peoples inhabit its coastal zone.

    This vast water body we call the Pacific Ocean is now readily
crossed by air in a day.  Beneath such transpacific flights,
however, lies a restless and, in places, polluted sea.

    One key to protecting our Pacific Ocean from local, regional
and global pollution is educating each Pacific Rim government
about the causes of marine pollution and resource exploitation
and the responsibility to prevent activities which cause such
pollution and exploitation.  Less-developed countries need
technical training and assistance to conduct research and
monitoring.  Over-developed countries need to reexamine their
industrial and trade/lending practices which foster degradation
of the marine environment and devote increased funding to source
reduction of pollution as well as pollution cleanup efforts.

     The arms control community can no longer ignore natural
resource issues.  International environmental treaties can serve
as confidence-building measures (CBM's).  The need for
environmental security on the Pacific Rim cannot be assured by
any one country.  Resource depletion, pollution and waste
disposal know no boundaries.  Only by international cooperation
and agreements can a functioning and productive Pacific Ocean be
maintained. 

     The following discussion examines the linkages between
environmental, economic and military policies, a number of
Pacific Rim environmental threats, and a review of international
environmental agreements affecting the Pacific Rim.

II. US NATIONAL SECURITY VS. THE PACIFIC RIM ENVIRONMENT

     There are over 20 security studies institutes in ten North
Pacific countries.  In August 1987, for example, the Peace
Research Centre at the Australian National University, in
cooperation with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, held a
major international conference on "Security and Arms Control in
the North Pacific" at the Australian National University.  Of
fourteen papers which subsequently saw print, the underlying
ecological and economic development framework of the Pacific Rim
was for the most part ignored.

     Some threads can be plucked out, however, such as the view
of Klaus Knorr ("Power and Wealth", 1973), "Economic wealth is
the basis of national power, the foundation of national prestige,
and it is fundamental to the military power of the state." 
However, Paul Dibb of the Australian Defence Department points
out that states are now reluctant to embark upon war for economic
gain except to protect vital national security objectives.  And,
according to Evan Luard ("War in International Society", 1986),
rising standards of living bring about greater domestic stability
and that this is the single most important reason for the
peaceful state of Europe over the past 40 years.

     Ironically, unless protections for the environment are put
into place, efforts at arms control and reductions in regional
tensions lead toward greater economic development and
exploitation of the environment.  It is doubtful whether even the
exhaustive industrial production of military arms, plus the
physical impacts of the conduct of war itself, have had a greater
impact on the world's environment than the daily output of
"peaceful" commerce.

      In building upon a common Pacific security agenda for the
nineties, a brief review of the past is necessary.  The original
conception of the US hegemonic system, according to Prof. Bruce
Cumings, Prof. of History at the U. of Chicago ("Power and Plenty
in North-East Asia", 1988), was a product of Dean Acheson and
George Kennan.  In their view, post-World War II Japan was to be
the engine of growth in the region, drawing on a "hinterland",
including Japan's former colonies and encompassing Southeast Asia
and Indochina, that could provide raw materials, labor and
markets.  Kennan outlined the following position in 1949:  Japan
should be allowed to reestablish influence over China and Korea,

    ". . .to achieve opening up of trade possibilities,
commercial possibilities for Japan on a scale very far greater
than anything Japan knew before. . .If we really in the Western
world could work out controls, I suppose, adept enough and
foolproof enough and cleverly enough exercised really to have
power over what Japan imports in the way of oil and such other
things as she has got to get from overseas, we would have 'veto
power'on what she does need in the military and industrial field"
(emphasis added).

The US strategy in allowing Japan to achieve economic domination
was clearly to counter and moderate Soviet influence in the area.

    According to Franz Schurmann, economic development was
viewed, particularly by the Nixon Administration, as a weapon
directed at the heart of both China and Russia:

    "Peaceful coexistence could be meaningful only if Russia and
China agreed to join the world market system.  If they did, the
conservatives foresaw that conservatizing forces would set in in
both countries.  The more the militantly revolutionary countries
were involved in world trade, the more their barbaric regimes
would be civilized under the weight of international
responsibility" (Schurmann, "The Logic of World Power", 1974).

Whether the environment could bear the weight of this
international world trade was not addressed.

     The Soviet threat is still the key to understanding the
US/Japan relationship between resource exploitation, economic
development and trade, and military planning.  According to Paul
Keal of the Australian Defence Force Academy, ("Japan's Security
Policy and Arms Control, 1988), in January 1987, Japan Foreign
Minister Kuranari pledged that Japan would use its economic
resources for a 'post-war new deal' for Pacific Island states. 
This type of Overseas Development Aid (ODA) is consistent with
Japan's position that giving aid enhances security.  By and
large, however, it does not enhance the environment.  ODA is not
only a means of promoting security, it is a form of defence
burden-sharing in the Pacific that is subject to the will of the
US Government.

     For example, in January 1983, Japan agreed to transfer $4
billion dollars of loans and credits to South Korea, which the
Reagan Administration desired as a contribution to Korean
security.  The bottom line in the US/JAPAN relationship
militarily and economically remains intact forty years later: to
contain the spread of Soviet influence in the South Pacific. 
What lesson can be drawn from this?  So long as Japan relies on
US security, in order to illicit proper environmental behavior
from Japan, you must look to Washington, not Tokyo.

    Unfortunately, the peace and arms control community have, for
the most part, ignored economic development issues and Pacific
Rim trade policies, even when specifically designed by the US as
part of a military strategy to contain the Soviet Union.  They
have likewise ignored the planet's carrying capacity and failed
to analyze the contributions that international environmental
agreements can make to confidence building measures (CBMs).

III.  PACIFIC RIM TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

     According to a recent World Resources Institute Report: "NOT
FAR AFIELD: US Interests and the Global Environment" (Norman
Myers, June 1987), the US " . . . is now the world's largest
exporter and importer of both raw materials and manufactured
goods, the largest overseas investor, and the largest
international debtor as well as the largest creditor; and the
dollar remains the primary reserve currency."
     It is no wonder that trade issues, particularly Pacific Rim
Trade issues, have increasingly captured the attention of
decision makers at the national and state level. Economic
linkages are now recognized as either opportunities or threats to
our nation's security.

     The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (2 May 1986) carried an
article which began "Exports from West Coast ports are booming. .
."  Further in the article it reports, ". . .the biggest share of
the exports coming out of Seattle and other West Coast cities is
raw materials. . ."

     What makes up the Pacific Rim trade?  Such things as crude
oil, fish, logs, wood chips and pulp, coal, and minerals, to name
a few.  The basics for international trade have been viewed by
the US and our international trading partners as exploitable
natural resources.

     Example: In the heart of New Zealand's North Island is the
world's largest plantation forest.  "Our whole logging technique
in the post-war period is based on the Pacific Northwest," said
A.W. Grayburn, manager of N.Z. Forest Product's forestry
division. (Seattle Times, 11 May 1986).

     Example: Australia sells sand to Saudi Arabia. . .The sand
in Saudi Arabia isn't suitable for making concrete, and
Australia's is perfect.  Natural resources, including such things
as iron, timber, gold and land (not to mention sand), are
Australia's secret of economic survival. The nation lives off its
land, exporting resources to the world. (Seattle Times, 11 May
1986).

     Example: In the deep interior of Sarawak (Malaysia) tropical
forests, thousands of indigenous people have formed human
barricades across logging tracks in a bid to stop the destruction
of their lands by timber companies. (The Sunday Star, Malaysia,
14 June 1987).

     Example: As a report by the National Academy of Sciences
notes, "More than 10 percent of the land area of the earth is now
under cultivation.  More than 30 percent is under active
management for purposes of mankind."  (Christian Science Monitor,
31 March 1987).

     Trade policy today is focused on trade deficits, not
environmental degradation;  on trade protectionism, not
environmental protection; and on national security, not on
ecological security for the Pacific Rim.

     Isn't it time we step back and ask about the relationship of
international trade and our global environment?

     The World Resources Institute report expands on the notion
of what is the US National Interest in the global economy.  The
traditional values have been a) the integrity of the sovereign
state; b) democratic traditions: c) economic freedoms; and d)
institutional latitude.

     "To these long-established goals," this study argues, "we
now need to add a further one that compliments and reinforces the
others.  It is safeguarding the global environment, thereby
promoting sustainable development throughout the world,
especially in the Third World, to foster those economic and
political processes that will assure a secure natural-resource
base for all.  This additional goal will help maintain stability
in international relations, at a time when environmental
degradation and resource depletion increasingly threaten the
orderly conduct of international affairs."

     Within the Pacific Rim, some voices are being raised.  The
Catholic Bishops of the Philippines approved in January of 1988 a
pastoral letter titled "What is Happening to Our Beautiful
Land?".  The bishops, asserting that ecology is "the ultimate
prolife issue" point out that the ecological crisis "lies at the
root of many of our economic and political problems.  To put it
simply our country is in peril.  All living systems on land and
in the seas around us are being ruthlessly exploited.  The damage
to date is extensive and, sad to say, it is often irreversible."

     The frenzy of Pacific Rim Trade is dependent on "resources"
which are extracted, causing local environmental impacts which
contribute to cumulative regional problems.  Often, these raw
commodities are then shipped across the Pacific at an ever
increasing energy cost. The manufacturing and labor conversion
into finished products produces environmental pollution at a new
source, again contributing to cumulative problems in a different
spoke on the rim.

     One obvious resource directly linked with national security
is oil, a non-renewable resource which makes a major contribution
to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Japan, for
example, imports over 99 percent of its oil requirements, 70
percent of which come from the Middle East.  The US military
presence in the Persian Gulf continues to be a direct result of
the need to preserve and protect Japan's dependency on US
security.

     In the early 1980's, China awarded a number of major
contracts to oil firms for the exploration and development of
offshore oil.  According to Cumings, in 1982, a Department of
Commerce official argued that offshore oil "is the cutting edge
of Sino-US relations for the rest of the century. . . Any time
oilmen put iron in the water, they're talking about a long-term
operation."

     Another example is tropical timber. According to a June 1989
Issues Paper for the World Resources Institute, by J. Gus Speth,
nine of the top fourteen countries with deforestation problems
are located on the Pacific Rim.  As Speth points out:

"Why should the industrial countries be concerned?  The hunger
and ecological refugees that result from resource deterioration
raise stark humanitarian issues that demand an international
response.  But that is not all. The political and economic
interests of industrial countries are jeopardized when resource
and population challenges go unmet and this failure leads first
to economic and social stresses and then to political
instability.
"Equally pertinent for the industrial countries is the role they
unintentionally play in contributing to these problems.  Too
often, foreign investment and development aid have financed
large-scale projects that have ignored the environmental setting
and local needs."

     Sustainable development is the World Bank's newest buzzword.
 In 1983, the Secretary-General of the United Nations asked Prime
Minister (Mrs.) Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway to put together
an independent commission to examine the destruction of Earth's
natural resources.  This World Commission on Environment and
Development (WCED) was made up of 22 members, seven of which were
from Pacific Rim Countries (China, Colombia, Japan, US,
Indonesia, USSR, and Canada).  Its three objectives were: to re-
examine the critical environment and development issues and to
formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them; to propose
new forms of international co-operation on these issues that will
influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes;
and to raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action
of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes,
and governments.

     The final 400 page report was published as "Our Common
Future" and submitted to the UN General Assembly in autumn of
1987.  More than any other document, "Our Common Future" focused
on the need to make "sustainable development" central to all
planning and activities.  The WCED defined "sustainable
development" as "development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs."  Unfortunately, this view would approve of a
region switching from firewood, to coal, to oil, to nuclear
energy as each future generation attempts to "meet their own
needs".  As Michael McCloskey, Sierra Club Chairman, has warned,
" . .not a lot has yet been demonstrated about sustainability in
a modern, industrial context. 'Sustainability' is still more a
slogan - a bit of 'pasting new labels on old bottles' - than a
proven body of theory and practice ready to be applied, and most
of the development impulse now abroad is not working for anything
that can be called sustainable."

     In addition, the term "sustainable development" implies
human control, regulation, management, and manipulation.  These
are all concepts which lie outside the framework of natural
ecosystem dynamics.  A better concept to be used might be
"carrying capacity".  It at least implies the need for a greater
understanding of the underlying environment than is found in most
World Bank reports.

     What is needed is the application of the U.S. National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to trade/lending policies.  The
purpose of NEPA is to declare a national policy which will
encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between people and
their environment.  

     In June of 1989, US Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) introduced H.R.
2777, a bill to establish a national environmental policy on the
participation of the US in the multilateral development banks. 
The bill, however, does not require that environmental impact
assessments be prepared for trade agreements.

     On a global basis, the NEPA requirements for a detailed
statement on trade/lending policies and

(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's
environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term
productivity, and
(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources
which would be involved

are desperately needed.

     (For more information contact: Northwest Office, Friends of
the Earth (206) 633-1661)


IV.  INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS AS CONFIDENCE
BUILDING MEASURES
     [NOTE: The following sections have not been updated since
1989.]

     According to Barry M. Blechman, President of Defense
Forecasts Inc. in Washington, D.C., ("Confidence-building in the
North Pacific: A pragmatic approach to naval arms control",
1988), confidence-building measures (CBMs) are chiefly political
actions which develop mutual confidence and help alleviate
tensions and reduce the potential for military crises.  CBMs have
usually been defined only within the arms control arena.  It is
the purpose of the remainder of this paper to suggest that CBMs,
in the form of international environmental treaties or
agreements, can also serve, as Blechman says, "to reduce the
sources of military tensions, and by demonstrating the
willingness of states to adopt a cooperative rather than
aggressive stance".

V. LONDON DUMPING CONVENTION

     The only global agreement concerned solely with the dumping
of wastes into the marine environment is the London Dumping
Convention (LDC).  Since 1975, when it received the necessary
ratifications to go into effect (61 nations, including the US
have ratified the convention), the LDC has addressed a diverse
number of topics and concerns.  Eleven formal consultative
meetings have been held since 1976.

     The LDC preamble focuses on protection of the marine
environment.  Article IV establishes standards to be used when
dumping wastes, while Annex I lists those substances, including
high-level radioactive wastes for which dumping is prohibited.

     International protection of the marine environment was
triggered by the dumping of low-level radioactive wastes (LLW) at
sea by the US and several European countries.  From 1946-1970,
the US disposed of nearly 100,000 curies at sites in the
Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.

     In 1983, a moratorium on radioactive waste dumping was put
into place by the LDC until a set of scientific risk-related
studies was carried out.  However, rather than adding LLW to the
Annex I list, an indefinite moratorium (opposed by the US and
five other nations) was adopted.  The international environmental
community is requesting that the US support efforts to place LLW
on the LDC's Annex I "blacklist" of substances that cannot be
dumped at sea.

     Despite the LDC, former US Senator Dan Evans (R-WA), was
successful in passing a bill through the 100th Congress
authorizing a $150 million dollar study of seabed disposal of
nuclear wastes.

    In addition to continued work by the US on subseabed disposal
of nuclear waste, other nuclear waste dumping within the Pacific
Rim is still being promoted.  Japan, for example, has 36 nuclear
power plants now in operation and an additional 21 plants under
construction or in the planning stages.  Like the US, Japan has
no permanent nuclear waste repository.

    According to the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre, of New
Zealand, opposition from Pacific peoples and governments have
stopped Japan's attempts, first announced in 1979, to dump 10,000
drums (500 curies) of "low-level" nuclear waste at a site 600
miles north of the Mariana Islands.

     Currently, the London Dumping Convention allows for the
dumping of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes in the
ocean, "when weighed against land-based alternatives".  In
addition, the National Research Council of the US National
Academy of Science and the US National Advisory Committee on
Oceans and Atmospheres support deep ocean dumping of wastes in
some cases.

     Strategies for strengthening the London Dumping Convention
to prohibit dumping of radioactive waste in the South Pacific,
include adding new members to the Convention: Niue, Tuvalu,
Vanuatu, Tonga, Western Samoa, and the Cook Islands.

     While the LDC prohibits the dumping of high-level
radioactive waste at sea, Republic of the Marshall Islands
President, Amata Kabua, has for years proposed storing US nuclear
wastes in either the Bikini or Enewetok lagoons, already
contaminated from past US nuclear weapons testing.  Currently,
the US has designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only
location for site characterization for a high-level nuclear waste
repository.  The State of Nevada and many environmentalists are
doubtful that Yucca Mountain will survive an indepth study.  The
result would be another scramble by Congress to pick a site for
radioactive waste from the country's commercial nuclear power
plant program.

(For further information on this issue, contact the Oceanic
Advocates (410-531-5237).


VI. SOUTH PACIFIC REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (SPREP)
CONVENTION

     Another convention protecting the marine environment more
specific to the Pacific Rim is the South Pacific Regional
Environmental Protection (SPREP) Convention.  Adopted for
ratification in November 1986, it will enter into force after ten
nations have ratified it.  To date, the Cook Islands, the
Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands have
ratified the convention and New Zealand and Australia are
expected to ratify it in the near future.

     Under the SPREP Convention, parties are obligated to control
pollution from vessels, land-based sources, seabed activities,
airborne sources, dumping, storage of toxic or hazardous wastes,
nuclear testing, mining, and coastal erosion.  In addition, there
would be no dumping of radioactive wastes within the Convention
area.  The Convention would help set up specially protected
areas, cooperation in pollution emergencies, preparation of
environmental impact assessments, information and data sharing
and pollution damage liability regulations.

     Because of the Convention, attention has been drawn to a
number of problems affecting the region's marine environment
including agricultural runoff contaminating fisheries resources,
destruction of mangroves for development, illegal dynamiting of
coral reefs, siltation of reefs from erosion and dredging, and
overfishing.   Other South Pacific countries (including the US)
need to ratify the Convention.
(For more information on this issue, contact the Council on Ocean
Law (202) 347-3766).


VII.  LAW OF THE SEA TREATY

     The Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) is the most ambitious
and significant agreement affecting the oceans ever adopted.  To
date, 35 nations have ratified the convention out of the 60
needed.  However, the US has refused to ratify the Convention
since it was signed in 1982.

     The LOSC is a complicated management scheme for addressing
one of the most controversial marine environment problems, the
control and development of off-shore resources.  Under the LOSC,
countries gained firm international recognition of resource
claims out to 200 miles in exchange for unprecedented obligations
to protect the marine environment and to conserve marine living
species.

     The 1982 Convention also provides opportunities to develop
marine law in such areas as pollution reporting requirements and
preparation of contingency plans to respond to pollution
incidents; control of land-based and atmospheric pollution of the
oceans; the transfer of damage or hazards from one area to
another; liability for damages from marine pollution by
substances other than oil, such as ocean incineration, chemicals
in bulk, and radioactive wastes; the use of polluting
technologies and the introduction of alien species;  assessment
and monitoring of potential damages to the marine environment;
and charting and removal (or non-removal) of offshore drilling
rigs.

    It covers a broad range of topics such as marine scientific
research, navigation and overflight rights, rights of land-locked
countries, maritime boundary delimitation, piracy, semi-enclosed
areas, illicit traffic in drugs, the right to lay submarine
cables and pipelines, tunneling, artificial islands,
installations, and structures, rules applicable to warships and
other government ships operated for non-commercial purposes,
marine mammals, and dispute settlement.