Brussels, 25/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - Echoing calls by the European Parliament in a resolution adopted on 17 April, the Worldwide Human Rights Movement (known by its French acronym, FIDH) and the Vietnamese Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) want a safeguard clause on human rights to be included in the forthcoming free-trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam, which could be concluded by the end of the year.
The request made by the ecologists (Greens/EFA) and extreme left-wing (GUE/NGL) to the European Parliament, which adopted it last week, calling for the future agreement to be made conditional upon concrete progress in human rights and for a suspension clause to be included in case of serious violations, is a “important victory for human rights, but a partial one”, the two organisations state (our translation).
“Without guarantees for the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media, without the right to form independent unions and civil society organisations, free trade between the EU and the single-party state of Vietnam will only harm the Vietnamese people and endanger sustainable development”, they warn. Vietnam holds more than 200 political prisoners - the highest number in Southeast Asia - many of whom were arrested and imprisoned for having spoken in favour of property rights and environmental rights and having opposed so-called “development” projects which would have a negative impact on local communities.
As the Parliament has called upon it to do, the Commission will carry out an assessment of the agreement's impact on human rights in Vietnam, in line with the guiding principles of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, FIDH and VCHR stress, adding that this assessment, which will be carried out before the conclusion of the agreement, should be carried out by an independent body and that its aim should be to “attenuate the potentially negative impact of trade and investment policies on people”.
On the other hand, the two NGOs are critical that important measures proposed by the Greens and the GUE/NGL at the European Parliament were not adopted, such as banning an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism and introducing a clause guaranteeing that the protection of investments will not take priority over the state's human rights obligations. (EH)