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human rights

Protecting human and environmental rights in international investment agreements
9-Aug-2021 East Asia Forum
Human rights experts are particularly concerned about the asymmetric nature of the system and a lack of investors’ human rights obligations. Together with high ISDS costs and arbitral awards, they undermine states’ ability to realise economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.
Vietnam: EU Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) denounces activists’ arrests
20-Jul-2021 FIDH
The EU Domestic Advisory Group set up under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement received a concerning report of the arrest in Hanoi of two prominent civil society activists.
EU sets Uyghur and Hong Kong conditions for investment agreement
16-Jul-2021 Hindustan Times
The conditions have been listed in a draft report prepared by foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament.
Three ways that human rights impact assessment can improve consistency between economic law and human rights law
8-Jul-2021 Edinburgh University Press
A human rights-based approach to economic policy-making can result in outcomes from trade negotiations that are not only human rights-consistent but also more politically, socially and economically robust.
Corporate power and abuse is a root cause of migration
29-Jun-2021 People’s World
To seriously address the roots and causes of migration, it is urgent to dismantle the neoliberal rules which grant excessive privileges to transnational corporations.
European Parliament to vote on freezing China deal
19-May-2021 Politico
Draft calls on EU to work with US on China, and to plan deals with Taiwan.
Human rights groups call on Australia to drop pursuit of Israel trade deal over Palestine conflict
14-May-2021 The Guardian
Australian and Palestinian human rights groups have urged Australia to stop pursuing a potential free trade agreement with Israel and condemn its actions in Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Unions want major Asia trade deal scrapped
14-May-2021 https://www.thecourier.com.au/story...
Unions have blasted Australia’s plan to sign a massive free trade deal with Asia-Pacific nations over the inclusion of military junta-controlled Myanmar.
Human rights have no place in Swiss-Chinese trade deal
10-May-2021 DW
The EU and US are currently distancing themselves from China — unlike Switzerland as the country sticks to its free trade agreement with the world’s second-largest economy despite mounting domestic criticism.
EU turns from China to India on free trade
5-May-2021 EU Observer
The EU is suspending plans for a trade deal with China, while reviving those for a pact with India, in a dispute on Chinese human-rights abuses.
EU-Mercosur trade agreement: No protection of environment and people without renegotiations
3-May-2021 CIDSE
CIDSE, MISEREOR and Greenpeace published a new legal opinion that proves that in order to provide effective protection of human rights and environmental standards, the agreement needs to be renegotiated.
Europe’s China gambit
10-Apr-2021 Project Syndicate
Trade and investment agreements cannot transform China into a Western-style market economy or turn it into a democracy.
Rethinking investment law from the ground up: extractivism, human rights, and investment treaties
9-Apr-2021 IISD
For many people affected by resource extraction, it is the prevailing legal regime that dis-embeds and disintegrates, because investment treaties can protect ventures that upend their lives with little scope for voice or redress.
US suspends trade engagement with Myanmar after deadly crackdown
30-Mar-2021 The Hill
US Trade Representative announced the suspension of US collaboration with Myanmar, through the 2013 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
US and Canada follow EU and UK in sanctioning Chinese officials over Xinjiang
23-Mar-2021 The Guardian
The EU is due shortly to sign a major investment deal with China, but Germany in particular will be concerned that the sanctions may destabilise economic relations with China.
Ombudsman: Sustainability assessment should have been completed before EU-Mercosur trade deal agreed by negotiators
19-Mar-2021 EU Reporter
The European Commission should have concluded an updated sustainability impact assessment before the EU-Mercosur trade deal was agreed, an inquiry by European Ombudsman has found.
No more free rides in free trade deals
11-Mar-2021 Swiss Info
The Swiss narrowly voted in favour of a free trade deal with Indonesia on Sunday. Will future agreements also have to win popular support?
Hong Kong activists urge EU not to ratify new deal with China
11-Mar-2021 The Guardian
Hong Kong democracy activists have warned the EU it must not ratify its planned new investment deal with China at a time when Beijing is tearing up international obligations to the people of Hong Kong.
China’s labour rights issues a threat to its trade deal with EU
16-Feb-2021 Hindustan Times
In the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is expected to face intense resistance from some European lawmakers, while international unionists, who say the pact will do nothing to stop human rights abuses or protect labour rights in China, have vowed to ramp up pressure over the deal.
Norway’s youth parties call for end to China free trade talks
11-Feb-2021 Axios
The youth wings of Norway’s main political parties have signed a letter calling for the country to rescind its normalization agreement with China and stop free trade negotiations due to China’s human rights violations.