TRADE AGREEMENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Transcription

1 TRADE AGREEMENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS MARIA WALTER FES Geneva Report Geneva, September 2012 Panel Discussion on Trade Agreements and Human Rights on Wednesday, 12 September 2012, Geneva, Palais de Nation. Speakers: Beate Andrees, Head, Special Action Program to Combat Forced Labour, ILO Harry Wu, Founder, Laogai Research Foundation, USA Thomas Braunschweig, Head of Trade Policy Program, Berne Declaration, Switzerland Moderation: Matthes Buhbe, Director, Geneva Office, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung On Wednesday, September 12 th, the Friedrich- Ebert-Stiftung hosted in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Declaration of Berne a side event to the 21 st session of the Human Rights Council. The panel discussion Trade Agreements and Human Rights was led by Matthes Buhbe, Director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office and completed by an ILO member and Head of Special Action Program to Combat Forced Labour Beate Andrees, Founder of the Laogai Research Foundation Harry Wu, and Head of the Trade Policy Programme of the Berne Declaration Thomas Braunschweig.

2 First of all, the panellists were given the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work regarding trade agreements, human rights and forced labour. Beate Andrees described the ILO Convention against forced labour as one of the least contested conventions, but also one of the least understood. There is a universal recognition that forced labour needs to be eliminated by the national and international community. But there is still no consensus about what counts as forced labour and what not. It is therefore a priority of the ILO program to explain what forced labour is today, not only in the colonial past. Going with that, it is even harder to measure forced labour since there is no clear definition. Forced labour today is on the one hand state imposed labour like prison or military work. On the other hand also bonded labour like in Asia or Africa and known as contemporary form of slavery as well as human trafficking. There was a first ILO study on forced labour in 2005 with the finding of an approximate number of 12.3 million people working in forced labour. A recent study in 2012 estimated the number at 20.9 million people, including children, men and women. 90% of them were working in the private economy, 10% were forced to work for governments. Yet in case of governments use of forced labour, statistics were known to be very bad as the governments in question were keeping those numbers secret. Key sectors are agriculture, manufacturing, fishing, mining, construction work and care and domestic work. The highest numbers of victims per inhabitants of a country were found in South Eastern Europe. Using the absolute numbers of victims the most forced workers were found in Asia with 11 million cases. Beate Andrees concluded therefore that more research on forced labour needs to be done in the future. Forced labour is the cheapest work an employer can get. Most member states of the ILO are already tied to bi- and multilateral treaties about or including forced labour. The second panellist Harry Wu was an actual victim of forced Labour in a Laogai 1 camp in China. Wu was born in 1937, arrested in 1960, sentenced to life because he spoke out against the communist government s human rights violation in relation to Hungary, but was released in Wu immigrated to the US in 1985 as a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkley. The research he did on China about Laogai resulted in the findings of more than 1000 labour camps throughout the country. In 1990 Wu was invited by the US Congress to testify and talk about his experience in the Laogai 1 Laogai means reform through labour. Page 2

3 camp in China. For Chinese people, said Wu, working two shifts a day were common. Everybody had to work, in case forced by the police. Being in a Laogai not only meant labour all day, but also being brainwashed if the person was not already on the communist line. Laogai began to become a common word in the Chinese language. In 1994 the Chinese party officials stopped using Laogai, but replaced it by prison. Nevertheless Laogai was added to the Oxford dictionary in the early 2000 s. The difference between prisons in other countries and Laogai is, according to Wu, that in prisons you can keep your beliefs and political view, but not in Laogai. Turning to the importance of international trade, he pointed out that although US law forbids the import of products produced under forced labour since 1930 there are constantly such products on the market. Wu brought some of these cases to US courts to fight forced labour. The third panellist Mr. Thomas Braunschweig was talking about human rights and trade agreements specifically focusing on Switzerland. Most countries are involved in bilateral treaties and regional trade agreements, even more today as the Doha Round of multilateral negotiations at the WTO finds itself in a deadlock. In total, Switzerland has signed 26 trade agreements, mostly in partnership with EFTA 2. Furthermore, there are planned and ongoing negotiations with emerging and developing countries like Malaysia, Viet-Nam or countries from Central America. But until recently, there was no special focus put on human rights within these treaties by the Swiss government. Their approach was more a sectional one. While human rights are treated in the Foreign Ministry, trade issues are the business of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Human rights were only included in the preambles of trade treaties but therefore not legally binding. With the effort of the EFTA countries to develop a model chapter on sustainable development, human rights clauses could become standard in future trade agreements. He also made the economic case for prohibiting products using forced labour to entree the Swiss market: Cheap products produced under forced labour could push out their own products or products produced under fair conditions. After these statements by the three panellists the floor was open to the audience to discuss the mentioned points or ask questions. A participant from the South Centre took the opportunity to ask the panellists whether bilateral treaties are working regarding eliminating forced labour if the states are not acting accord- 2 EFTA = European Free Trade Association Page 3

4 ing these treaties. Furthermore, how are states reacting to the fact, that forced labour is not peremptory defined and the monitoring of the whole production chain is nearly impossible so that there are still products on the market, which are in pieces produced under forced labour. Thomas Braunschweig reacted to this question by emphasising the importance of monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms to overcome forced labour. There is a need for monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms to overcome forced labour. Beate Andrees agreed to that point and stepped made clear that the opportunities given by free trade agreements are not a solution to stop forced labour but should be understood as a starting point. Following this, all panellists were given the time to conclude their arguments and statements in a final round. Thomas Braunschweig started with the emphasis on the link between trade agreements and human rights. Trade agreements have an impact on the enjoyment of human rights in a positive or a negative way. Therefore human rights have to be firmly incorporated into trade agreements. To do so, human rights impact assessments (HRIA) should be carried out before concluding the deal in order to identify the relevant human rights issues and to take measures to protect and improve the human rights in the concerned countries. According to Mr. Braunschweig, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, has recently developed guiding principles on HRIA for trade agreement, which can assist in designing such an exercise. For Mr. Wu China just cares about its own stability which means to protect communism, but not human rights. This is the wrong approach, says Wu. The respect for human rights promotes real stability. He wondered why China was part of the Human Rights Council since they do not tell the truth about the conditions in their own country and do not tell the truth to their own people. Beate Andrees final statement was pointing to the fact, that people working in forced labour still have no voice. These people need to be heard. She was asking, why forced labour is still taking place today. She mentioned the example of Brazil, which is already monitoring their supply chains and taking actions in form of sanctions against producers violating the standards. So there are programs by now, but they need to be used. Mr. Matthes Buhbe closed the panel discussion with some final words, thanking the panellists and all participants. Page 4

5 On the Author Maria Walter is currently interning at the FES Geneva Office. She is working on her MA degree World Society and Global Governance at University of Lucerne, Switzerland, and holds a BA degree in European Ethnology and Social Science from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the ones of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung or of the organization for which the author works. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Geneva office 6 bis, Chemin du Point-du-Jour 1202 Geneva Switzerland Tel Fax: info@fes-geneva.org Page 5