Oppose the Peru and Panama Free Trade Agreements

Filed under: General — shadow @ 11:01 am

The labor, environmental, and access to medicines amendments to the Peru and Panama Free Trade Agreements made under Ways and Means Chairman Rangel s and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Levin s initiative represent significant improvements to these important provisions. Despite these improvements, however, major problems of the NAFTA/CAFTA model replicated in the Peru and Panama FTAs were not addressed.

The amended text of these FTAs represent the first time that a trade agreement contains binding obligations to adopt, maintain and enforce the terms of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. However, regarding the labor provisions, concerns remain because the FTAs allow discretion for FTA dispute settlement panels to interpret and apply the terms of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work differently than the Declaration has been interpreted and applied by the ILO itself.

Moreover, in the end even the best provisions of the amended text of these FTAs dealing with labor and environmental enforcement would be dependent on the Executive Branch for enforcement. The current administration, with a consistent record of undermining domestic labor and environmental enforcement, is unlikely to enforce the labor and environmental provisions of these FTAs and the future enforcement of the new provisions will rely on similar discretion by future Presidents.