bilaterals.org logo
bilaterals.org logo

human rights


Free trade should follow fair elections
Should Australia be signing up, and giving the gift of a Free Trade Agreement with countries that are manifestly undemocratic and authoritarian?
European Parliament approves Colombia trade pact
The European Parliament on Tuesday ratified a free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru despite human and labor rights concerns.
Critics warn of EU free trade deal with Peru and Colombia
The EU is set to liberalize trade with Colombia and Peru. Human rights organisations fear that Latin American farmers will suffer.
FTA: the Colombian road map does not respect EP conditions
Open letter to the European Parliament from the Interantional Federation for Human Right
Death squads, murder and US corruption in Colombia
News broke this week that Francisco Santos, who served as Colombia’s VP under President Alvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010, met three times with leaders of the right-wing paramilitary organization known as the AUC. That Santos, who openly urged AUC death squads to carry out killings, was the standard bearer for Colombia’s FTA lobbying efforts is emblematic of what the FTA is all about.
TDM Call for papers "Aligning Human Rights and Investment Protection"
Transnational Dispute Management is currently preparing a special issue on "Aligning Human Rights and Investment Protection".
Canadian human rights report on Colombia a ’sick joke’
The Canadian government’s human rights report tabled in Parliament Tuesday regarding implementation of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement might as well have been a comic strip of three monkeys: "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
Human rights report on Colombia panned as ’whitewash’
Canada’s free trade deal with Colombia is again threatening to explode into controversy after the Conservative government released a report this week that was supposed to detail the agreement’s impact on Colombia’s human rights situation — but didn’t.
Guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements
The present report sets out guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements drawn up by the UN Special Rapporteur to the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter
EU stalls Ukraine trade deal over Tymoshenko treatment
Although an EU-Ukraine summit is due to open on Monday, plans for an association agreement to be signed will not go ahead due to tensions over the jailing of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, EU diplomats have said.
New EU trade agreement: Right to food in India threatened
MISEREOR, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Third World Network, Anthra and Glopolis decided to conduct their own civil society impact assessment of the proposed EU-India FTA with a focus on the right to food.
Conference on human rights and the EU-India free trade agreement
VIdeo of a conference organised by the Greens / European Free Alliance in the European Parliament on 8 December 2011
Caricom advised to end economic partnership with Europe
Caricom leaders have failed, as a group, to press European countries for reparations for the slave trade, social commentator Dr Radcliffe Robbins said yesterday. As a result, he recommends that member states abandon the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed in 2008 with Europe.
Study: Colombia anti-union violence undeterred
A new study challenges claims from the administration of President Barack Obama that Colombia is making important strides in bringing to justice killers of labor activists and so deserves U.S. congressional approval of a long-stalled free trade pact.
US wants FTA with Colombia while human rights deterioration culminates in massacre
While the United States considers a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia, the human rights situation in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia has deteriorated dramatically, culminating on the 17th of August with a massacre in the township of El Dorado.
Canada’s free trade talks with Honduras draw criticism
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues his Latin America tour amid global market chaos, he is making stops in countries he hopes will expand Canada’s trade and make it less dependent on the turbulent U.S. economy.
Human rights impact assessments: public consultation
Olivier De Schutter invites States, United Nations departments and agencies, national human rights institutions, civil society and other relevant stakeholders to participate in the public consultation on the draft “Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements.” The document seeks to set out key principles that should guide human rights impact assessments for trade and investment agreements between States.
Key says child labour not part of FTA
India’s use of child labour is unacceptable but free trade agreement negotiations are not the forum to deal with it, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key says.
Europe links Indian FTA with Kashmir solution
In a significant development, the European Parliament has linked the Kashmir dispute with the signing of the EU’s proposed Free Trade Agreement with India.
Critics call trade pact lose-lose deal for Colombian labour
Two days ago, on Jun. 7, Ana Fabricia Cordoba was killed in the Santa Cruz neighbourhood of Medellin, Colombia. Her assassination coincides with renewed efforts by free-trade advocates in Washington to pressure the US Congress to pass the long-debated US-Colombia FTA.