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International Trade Should Protect Human Rights

States cannot ignore their human rights obligations when they negotiate trade agreements is the message sent today by Rights & Democracy to trade ministers meeting in Buenos Aires in Argentina, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Ottawa, March 29, 2001 ? States cannot ignore their human rights obligations when they negotiate trade agreements is the message sent today by Rights & Democracy to trade ministers meeting in Buenos Aires in Argentina, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

"We live in a world where it is more serious to break trade rules than it is to violate human rights," today said Warren Allmand, President of Rights & Democracy as he released: A Human Rights Framework for Trade in the Americas. This new report identifies key issues being negotiated in the FTAA that threaten human rights, including the right to health and to education.

The report, which has been sent to the 34 trade ministers set to meet in Argentina next week, proposes a series of reflections and recommendations aimed at building consistency between trade and human rights. Governments must ensure that the trade agreements they negotiate are consistent with the international human rights instruments to which they are bound.

The authors argue that states negotiating trade agreements have to ensure they are not signing on to new obligations that contradict or undermine the commitments they have made under other international treaties such as the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The only way to do this is to strengthen the international human rights legislative framework and ensure its primacy over trade accords.

Mr. Allmand pointed to the consensus developed by governments at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 that the protection and promotion of human rights is the first responsibility of governments and therefore must have precedence over other economic policy objectives.

The report urges trade ministers involved in the FTAA process to suspend negotiations until an independent committee of experts report on the possible negative impacts of the agreement on human rights, particularly the rights to self-determination, to development, health, food, education, core labour standards, participation in cultural life, decent standard of living and the protection of the environment, all the while taking into consideration the impact on women and indigenous peoples.

Some of the key points raised in the report:

• Any services agreement should allow each country to regulate its own public services, particularly in areas covering the basic human rights of health and education. States must be allowed to ensure non-discriminatory access for all to these services;


• Intellectual property agreements must accommodate the needs and interests of indigenous peoples and protect traditional knowledge, as well as ensure access to essential medicines and new technology for all;


• The dispute settlement procedure must be open, transparent and accessible to the public;


• The investment chapter must strike an appropriate balance between private and public interests, and facilitate the right to development of poor communities;


• Agriculture provisions must protect the rights of small farmers and ensure that governments can guarantee food security for their citizens.

Lucie Lamarche of the Universit? du Qu?bec ? Montr?al and Diana Bronson, Coordinator of the Globalization and Human Rights Programme at Rights & Democracy are the authors of the report, which has been done in partnership with the International Federation of Human Rights, the Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo and the International NGO Coalition on Trade and Investment. The Inter-Church Committee on Latin America and the Ligue des droits et libert?s also support the findings.

An abridged popular version of the paper is available in leaflet format and will be widely distributed at the Peoples' Summit of the Americas in Quebec City from April 16 to 21.

The report is also available in French and in Spanish