US Senate paves the way for TPP Fast Track as UN Human Rights experts demand release of TPP text and human rights impact study

“A procedural vote in the U.S. Senate has paved the way for the TPP Fast Track Bill to be passed through the Congress this week. This means the U.S. Congress will not be able to amend the text of the TPP. A date is then likely be set for the long delayed meeting of TPP Trade Ministers to resume their secret negotiations to try to finalise the negotiations,” Dr Patricia Ranald Coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) said today.

“But community opposition to the TPP in many countries has been reinforced by a call from 10 UN human rights rapporteurs for a halt to further TPP negotiations and release of the full text so that proper human rights impact assessments can be done. They say the TPP could have detrimental effects on human rights to health, clean environment improved labour standards and an independent judiciary.

The UN experts also criticised the secrecy of the TPP talks and the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions which allow foreign corporations to sue governments if they can argue that changes in law or policy “harm” their investment. They argue that this would have a chilling effect on governments’ ability to protect health, environment and other public welfare policies,” said Dr Ranald.

“This underlines the concerns of many Australian health, consumer and other community organisations that the TPP could have a negative impact on many areas of human rights, including access to medicines and limitations on the ability of future governments to regulate on environment health and other public interest issues. The TPP text should be released now to enable a full human rights impact assessment of the TPP,” said Dr Ranald.

“A Senate Inquiry into the Australian trade agreement process due to report tomorrow received an overwhelming majority of submissions criticizing the secrecy of negotiations and called for the text of trade agreements to be released for public and parliamentary scrutiny before they are signed,” added Dr Ranald

The UN expert call has been joined by Oxfam America, and prominent human rights activists from Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Chile, Peru and Mexico. See quotes below.

ENDS

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