European Commission continues to refuse to address the human rights impacts of its trade agreement with Vietnam

 

 

Catherine ABSALOM - FIDH

Thursday, 8 October 2015

 

(Paris, Brussels) In their latest submission to the EU Ombudsman, dated 30 September 2015, FIDH and its member organisation, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR), reiterated their call for the EU Commission (EC) to conduct a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) and introduce the necessary clauses and safeguards before finalising the EU-Vietnam free trade and investment agreement (FTA).

FIDH and VCHR detail the reasons why, if finalised without conducting a HRIA and without introducing the necessary human rights safeguards, the FTA would be concluded in flagrant violation of EU law. FIDH and VCHR also call upon the other EU institutions to demand that the EU fully comply with its obligations.

Despite recognising in its memo dated 4 August 2015 having reached a deal that has “never before been achieved with a developing country”, and that is going “largely beyond […] any other FTA that Vietnam has concluded”, the EC still refuses to assess the impact of the agreement on human rights. It argues, in its opinion to the to the draft recommendation of the EU Ombudsman Ms. Emily O’Reilly that a Human Rights Impact assessments (HRIA) is not necessary because the “mix of instruments” it uses to deal with human rights in Vietnam fulfils the “very same overarching purpose of an HRIA” and is sufficient to address the negative impacts the FTA may have.

The EC problematically proposes to rely on dialogues, démarches, development cooperation, and provisions that “are normally included in FTAs”, despite these tools having shown their limitations in practice and falling far short of providing appropriate mechanisms to measure and respond to the potentially negative impacts of the FTA.

In their 30-page submission to the Ombudsman on 30 September, FIDH and VCHR demonstrated the EC’s failure to inform the Ombudsman’s procedure and, more broadly, the democratic debate. FIDH and VCHR have clearly documented how superficial the EC’s analysis of the human rights impacts of the FTA is. The submission details the reasons why the solutions proposed by the EC are inadequate to address the new challenges the future EU-Vietnam FTA will pose for human rights, as well as some of the problematic provisions of the FTA and similar agreements. The submission also provides specific recommendations to enhance the human rights safeguards and to revise the agreement. Such safeguards notably include human rights flexibilities, redress and accountability mechanisms for affected communities, and a modification of the substantive provisions regarding investment protection.
Read the complaint

FIDH

VCHR - Vietnam Committee on Human Rights

 

Return to main page