An open letter to the sixteen governments negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
31 August 2016
An open letter to the sixteen governments negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)
According to the guiding principles for negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) you aim to achieve ‘a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial partnership agreement’ among the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN’s free trade agreement (FTA) Partners, covering trade in goods, trade in services, investment, economic and technical cooperation, intellectual property, competition, dispute settlement and other issues.
These matters all affect the daily lives of the peoples of all sixteen countries involved in these negotiations [1] — access to affordable life-saving medicines, stable good quality work, the viability of small farms and businesses, financial stability, indigenous knowledge, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, and much more.
The diverse communities who are affected by such an important negotiation need to know what is being proposed and have effective opportunities to express their views and concerns, and provide analysis and advice to the negotiators.
Six of you — Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam — have already recognised the importance of stakeholder engagement during the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations by including a stakeholder process as part of the negotiating rounds that you hosted. That was still not adequate, especially given the secrecy of the negotiating texts, and stopped before the agreement was concluded.
We understand that commercial interests have been invited to share their views with you during previous RCEP rounds. Yet the RCEP process has remained closed to civil society. It was not until the twelfth round of negotiations that stakeholders, other than commercial interests, were given even a limited opportunity to express our concerns.
We had assumed that engagement with stakeholders in Perth and at the next round in Auckland would continue into the future and expand to something at least akin to the TPPA. But in the latest round the door was shut again. The exclusion of civil society will only heighten suspicion and concern about what is being negotiated.
We therefore call on you to provide an effective opportunity for stakeholder interaction in all future rounds with advance notice of when and where they will be held, and release the working texts at the end of each round to allow a full assessment and informed debate to begin about the implications of RCEP, even at this late stage in the negotiations.
Signatory civil society organisations :
| Organisation | RCEP country |
|---|---|
| Electronic Frontier Foundation | Global |
| GRAIN | Global |
| International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) - Peasant Commission | Global |
| International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) | Global |
| LDC Watch | Global |
| Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law & Development (APWLD) | Regional |
| Building and Wood Workers’ International Asia-Pacific | Regional |
| Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) | Regional |
| Public Services International, Asia-Pacific | Regional |
| Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance | Regional |
| Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) | Regional |
| People’s Health Movement Australia | Australia |
| Public Health Association of Australia | Australia |
| Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network | Australia |
| Social Action for Change | Cambodia |
| Women’s Network for Unity | Cambodia |
| Cambodian Grassroots Cross-sector Network | Cambodia |
| Cambodian Labour Confederation | Cambodia |
| The Messenger Band | Cambodia |
| United Sisterhood Alliance | Cambodia |
| Rainbow Community Kampuchea | Cambodia |
| Forum Against FTAs | India |
| Thanal | India |
| Alliance for a Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture | India |
| Save our Rice Campaign - India | India |
| Tamilnadu Organic Farmers Federation | India |
| Vithu Trust | India |
| Serikat Perempuan Indonesia | Indonesia |
| Indonesia for Global Justice | Indonesia |
| Kolektif Anarkonesia | Indonesia |
| Institut Perempuan | Indonesia |
| Ahimsa Society | Indonesia |
| Federation of Indonesian Labours Struggle (FPBI) | Indonesia |
| People’s Action against TPP | Japan |
| Pacific Asia Resource Center, PARC | Japan |
| Positive Malaysian Treatment Access & Advocacy Group (MTAAG+) | Malaysia |
| Consumers’ Association of Penang | Malaysia |
| Sahabat Alam (Friends of the Earth) Malaysia | Malaysia |
| Cooperative Comittee of Trade Union | Myanmar |
| It’s Our Future | New Zealand |
| Mana Movement | New Zealand |
| New Zealand Council of Trade Unions | New Zealand |
| Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas or Peasant Movement of the Philippines (KMP) | Philippines |
| Resistance and Solidarity against Agrochem Transnational Corporations (RESIST) | Philippines |
| Sentro ng Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa | Philippines |
| Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services | Philippines |
| Knowledge Commune | South Korea |
| IPLeft | South Korea |
| The International Trade Committee of the MINBYUN | South Korea |
| Korean Federation of Medical Groups for Healthrights (KFHR) | South Korea |
| People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy | South Korea |
| AIDS ACCESS Foundation | Thailand |
| Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) | Thailand |
| BioThai Foundation | Thailand |
| Drug Study Group | Thailand |
| Ecological Alert and Recovery – Thailand (EARTH) | Thailand |
| Foundation for AIDS Rights | Thailand |
| Foundation for Consumers | Thailand |
| Foundation for Women | Thailand |
| FTA Watch | Thailand |
| Indigenous Women’s Network of Thailand | Thailand |
| Renal Failure Patient Group | Thailand |
| Rural Pharmacy Association | Thailand |
| Thai Holistic Health Foundation | Thailand |
| Thai Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (TNP+) | Thailand |
| The Women’s Network for Progress and Peace | Thailand |
| Vietnam Network of People living with HIV (VNP+) | Vietnam |
Notes:
[1] Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Viet Nam
