This report co-authored by T&E, Eurogroup for Animals, Fern and Human Society International undertakes an in-depth analysis of the Trade and Sustainable Development chapters in the so-called 'new style' free trade agreements between the EU and its partners.
The pressure of civil society forced the European Commission to rethink its approach on investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS), resulting in the reformed investment court system (ICS), and the current multilateral investment court (MIC). The purported added value of the MIC is to render investment protection more transparent and accountable, and put an end to the controversial ISDS. This briefing outlines T&E's position on MIC.
When the European Commission published its five-year ‘Trade for All Strategy’ in October 2015, there was hope that trade policy could be overhauled. Building on our analysis of the ‘Trade for All Strategy’ from February 2016, we have graded the Commission's achievements to date. Our overall assessment gives the Commission a D grade. Although some good progress was made, there is significant room for improvement. We acknowledge that while the Commission’s attitude is going in the right direction, application of the real deliverables remains to be seen.
Sustainable development has become one of the EU’s essential goals and is now a guiding principle for both its internal and external policies. As part of this ambition, the European Commission includes specific chapters on Trade and Sustainable Development in all free trade agreements (FTA) that it concludes with third country partners. Due to the controversy surrounding trade in recent years (for example, TTIP and CETA), the European Commission has started to recognise that there needs to be stronger coherence between trade and development policies. This paper looks at how the Trade and Sustainable Development chapters could play a crucial role in this.
This is the T&E’s response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the handbook on Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA).