Brussels, April 12, 2023 (PPI-OT): 10 international organisations under the advocacy leadership of The London Story call on the EU and India to place strong commitment to human rights at the core of their ongoing negotiations on a free trade agreement. In June 2022, the European Union and India resumed negotiations for “balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial” trade and investment agreements. The negotiations on trade are expected to be some of the first ones in which the EU applies its new standards on human rights and sustainability.
All of the recent EU’s trade agreements generally include a “trade and sustainable development” (TSD) chapter, but these have only included non-committal, non-binding and non-enforceable provisions in promotion of sustainable development. In June 2022, the EU announced new, more ambitious standards for TSD chapters, which include trade sanctions for breaches of core TSD provisions, and elevate human rights conventions to essential clauses, but do not include specific mention of civil and political rights.
According to the European Commission, these new standards will “be applied to future negotiations and to ongoing negotiations as appropriate”. The FTA between the EU and India currently under negotiation was launched in the same month as the new TSD standards, and must therefore seek to include these, if not more ambitious commitments, said the joint statement. The statement added that at this critical juncture in time, “we the undersigned urge the EU and India to put strong TSD commitments, on both social and economic as well as on civil and political human rights, explicitly at the core of the negotiations for the trade and investment agreements.”
“In the context of the extreme inequality in Indian society, the trade and investment agreements without strong commitments to decrease this inequality will lead to further marginalisation of informal labourers, internal migrants, Dalits (former “untouchables”), Adivasis (indigenous people), and women. Additionally, there are very serious concerns about shrinking civic spaces and systematic persecution of civil society actors, human rights defenders, journalists and academics in India through counter-terror legislation. Malicious use of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act has significantly impaired the ability of civil society to work, and Amnesty India was forced to suspend its operations in India in 2020. Between 2010 and 2020, 154 journalists were arrested, detained, interrogated, or harassed for their work, and over 40% of incidents took place in 2020 itself.”
“The government has imposed travel bans on at least 22 journalists. We urge the negotiators to seriously recognise that as these foundational human rights continue to be violated, any concessions made on human rights and their implementation during the negotiations will have detrimental consequences in India, the EU and globally.” “…we have serious concerns that the agreement will be concluded at any cost. Attacks on civic space and on freedom of press and opinion, and other gross assaults on human rights have already been systematically side-lined in the wider EU-India relationship,” the joint statement further said.
“We the undersigned therefore strongly urge the EU and India to recognise and incorporate this foundational commitment in their trade and investment negotiations, and to recognise that the agreements can only truly benefit all if securing human rights forms the overarching objective of the negotiations.” The statement was signed by Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA), Fair Trade Advocacy Office, Gerard Oonk, human rights activist, Hindus for Human Rights, India Civil Watch International, India Labour Solidarity, India Solidarity Germany, Indian American Muslim Council, Stichting The London Story, The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and The Humanism Project.
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