International Trade Committee on March 27th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Amnesty International, Mr. Neve.

[Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada, Amnesty International]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, committee members.

Amnesty International appreciates this opportunity to be here and share some views and recommendations with respect to the TPP. Clearly I'm not here on behalf of Amnesty International because we are an organization that is focused on trade or trade policy or trade priorities. We don't have expertise or views on those issues. We have clearly very solid global expertise with respect to human rights and a growing body of work that looks at the relationship between human rights and trade, trade policy, business practices. That will be the area of my focus today.

When we turn our mind to something like the TPP, obviously we begin by thinking about the countries that are involved or potentially involved, a list, which of course with the TPP, continues to grow. In addition to the original four, now eight others are actively negotiating, and to our knowledge we have at least 10 others who have varying degrees of official or likely interest in becoming involved in the TPP. Amnesty International has varying degrees of concern with respect to human rights protection in every single one of those 22 countries.

I want to start my remarks by briefly highlighting some of those concerns in four of the countries, not because they're the worst or any other particular reason. In many respects these are countries where Amnesty has focused on some connections or implications with or for Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I'll stop you for a second. Just to clarify, I understand that you're speaking on behalf of Amnesty International. Yes? Okay. You said you weren't speaking on behalf of Amnesty International with regard to TPP, I think.

[Alex Neve]

No, I was highlighting that obviously we are not a trade association; we're an organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, that's what I thought you said. I was just clarifying.

Go ahead.

[Alex Neve]

I just wanted to make clear what our focus and expertise is.

In Vietnam in recent years the repression of government critics and activists has worsened significantly. With severe restrictions now on freedom of expression, association, and assembly, numerous peaceful dissidents, including bloggers and songwriters, among others, have been sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials. Members of ethnic and religious groups in the country are targeted for human rights violations, and there are now more than 500 people on death row in Vietnam.

One of those imprisoned is a well-known and popular blogger who goes by the name Nguyen Van Hai. I want to take a moment to talk about his case because there is a Canadian connection. His daughter is a Canadian citizen living in Vancouver. Coincidentally, I heard from her this morning and we shared the latest concerns about his plight.

Her father Nguyen Van Hai is a founding member of what's known as the independent Free Journalists Club of Vietnam. He's been sentenced to a 12-year prison term, which is to be followed by a further five-year term of house arrest upon his release, all of that after a trial that lasted only a couple of hours, a trial at which his family was harassed and detained to prevent them from even attending, and a trial that was unfair in every way possible.

His prison conditions have been harsh and intolerable and there is mounting concern about his health. In her note to me this morning, she shared just briefly a few updates. She noted that he's now jailed in an isolated area, and as she described it, “cannot step out of his cell”. He is like a caged animal. Food is brought to him and he cannot eat with any of the other prisoners because they are worried that information about his plight will get out of the prison. But very notably in the note today his daughter stressed to me, as if she knew I was going to be in front of this committee, that in her family's view, business links and global economic pressure offer the best means to get her father out of prison.

Mexico faces serious challenges to the rule of law and respect for human rights. The alarming security situation in many parts of the country and the consequences of militarized combat, organized crime, and drug cartels have increased insecurity and violence dramatically in many regions, leaving many communities unprotected and at risk from all sides of these conflicts. Enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention continue. Human rights defenders and journalists, who often try to support victims and expose abuses, face increasing attacks. Women, indigenous peoples, and migrants face discrimination and violence.

In Colombia, despite peace talks, human rights violations and abuses continue, especially against indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant farmer communities; women; human rights defenders; and land claimants. There is a particularly dire crisis facing indigenous peoples in the country, starkly confirmed and documented in a ruling from the country's own Constitutional Court that has found that one-third of Colombia's indigenous nations are at risk of extermination. The factors that lie behind this human rights crisis are many, including relentless targeting by all sides during decades of armed conflict, and more recently, the impact of a massive influx of foreign mining companies, including many from Canada, into indigenous territories.

As for China, authorities in China maintain a stranglehold on political activists, human rights defenders, and online activists, subjecting them to harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance. Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians who practice their religion outside officially sanctioned channels, as well as Falun Gong practitioners are tortured, harassed, arbitrarily detained, and imprisoned. Harsh crackdowns continue against Uighurs and Tibetans.

Again, there are Canadian connections. A Canadian citizen, Huseyin Celil, of Uighur origin, is serving a life prison term after a deeply unfair trial. Canadian entreaties to Chinese officials on his behalf have been rebuffed and ignored.

Brothers, sisters, and children of Chinese democracy activist and political prisoner Wang Bingzhang, all of whom are Canadian citizens, continue to press for his release. His daughter Ti-Anna Wang, a Canadian citizen, had travelled to Geneva last week to press her father's case at the UN Human Rights Council, and in doing so, in open session at the council, was openly photographed—including photographs of her laptop screen—in a very intimidating fashion by agents clearly linked with the Chinese government.

That is, to say the least, obviously the briefest of overviews of human rights concerns in just four countries in the region.

I want to highlight that Amnesty International takes no view on the degree or nature of trade and investment that Canada should pursue with any of those four countries, or any of the list of current or potential TPP partners. But we do consider it essential that Canadian trade, investment, policy, and agreements, including the TPP, very deliberately pay serious attention to human rights.

Trade and investment and the business activities that are fostered and generated by trade and investment, if pursued responsibly and sustainably, can obviously be of great benefit to human rights protection, helping to improve livelihoods, to open up opportunities for employment and empowerment for marginalized groups within society, to lead to greater access to education and skills development, and many other benefits.

Trade and investment and business activities can also, however, be of great harm on the human rights front when pursued irresponsibly or recklessly. That is particularly so when there are no standards or there are weak standards in place to hold companies accountable for the human rights consequences of their activities.

We obviously want to ensure that Canada's trade, investment, and business presence and activities maximize the former—human rights promotion—and minimizes, ideally avoids, the latter—human rights violations. With that in mind, therefore, allow me to make a three-part recommendation as to a crucial policy step that we believe Canada should take before and as we move forward in finalizing new agreements and arrangements in the trans-Pacific region and elsewhere.

First is to clearly enunciate that regard for internationally protected human rights is to be a pillar of Canada's strategies for pursuing increased and freer trade and investment in the trans-Pacific region and worldwide. We very much regretted the fact that the new global markets action plan, released last fall, did not do so. The action plan, in fact, has no reference to human rights, let alone any measures or mechanisms that would help advance human rights protection.

Second, in negotiating Canadian membership in the TPP or any other deal, ensure that there is explicit reference to the relevance and applicability of binding international human rights treaties both in the agreement itself and in domestic legislation implementing the agreement.

Third, establish in law a requirement that the TPP, and all trade and investment agreements, will be subject to comprehensive, independent human rights impact assessments both before coming into force and at regular intervals thereafter. Such assessments must be released publicly. There must be an expectation and requirement that shortcomings identified through the assessment will be addressed and that progress to alleviating those shortcomings will also be reported publicly.

In that regard, let me wrap up with a few words about both the potential and the disappointment of the approach taken to assessing and reporting on the human rights impact of the free trade deal between Canada and Colombia, one of the countries thought to have active interest in becoming part of the TPP—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Time is very tight, so make it quick.

[Alex Neve]

Okay.

There has been disappointment with the first two rounds on how that human rights assessment has been carried out. We had held out hope that there would be a better approach this year. That was crushed last week when we learned how consultations were to be conducted for this year's review, consultations having been opened up for a mere six working days, consultations not in any way being publicized or announced widely, including in Colombia, and the announcement not even being made available in Spanish.

The experience with human rights and the Canada-Colombia deal is instructive for the TPP process. The very positive piece is that it really highlights that assessing the human rights impact of trade agreements is indeed possible and that governments do recognize, as Canada and Colombia did, that there is an important connection between human rights and trade. The problems and shortcomings in how the human rights assessment has been handled with respect to this particular deal, though, highlight that a better methodology, a better approach and stronger commitment are needed.

We certainly hope that Canada will demonstrate human rights leadership in the TPP process, building on and substantially improving that process. It's good for human rights. We think it's also good for business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, thank you.

Madam Liu, the floor is yours.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Neve.

The time is short, but in your testimony to the committee today you've given us a brief overview of how human rights standards might be variable among the 12 countries that are part of the TPP and the countries that also have an interest in the TPP.

Also, as you mentioned, three days ago your organization made it known publicly that the Conservative government had limited the online consultation process to only six working days for the Canada-Colombia FTA human rights report, also without any public announcement. Is it fair to assume that six days is enough time for organizations to prepare a submission to a consultation of this nature?

[Alex Neve]

Not only Amnesty International but many organizations spoke out and expressed considerable disappointment that there was such a limited consultation period and that it wasn't even publicly announced in any respect. You'd have to have had the wherewithal to find the announcement deep within the department's website to even know it was under way. Also, for something that primarily needed to be an exercise facilitating input and information coming forward from individuals and communities on the ground, those who had the first-hand human rights experience to share, it was not even made available in their language, Spanish, so that was obviously a considerable disappointment.

As a result, every organization and activist I know who follows this information felt that it was an impossible consultation process to take seriously and to contribute to, and therefore they will not be participating in it.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

On that note, about how many groups do you believe would have been able to put in submissions in the short period of time?

[Alex Neve]

To my knowledge there was no group that felt it would have been able to put something together in that short a period of time.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That's certainly something of great concern. What do you think compelled DFAIT to hold consultations in such a manner on something so crucial as human rights?

[Alex Neve]

We don't know the answer to that. Of course, because we don't know why a decision was taken to offer something that was so limited and really, I think at least to outside appearances, therefore meaningless, the conclusion that groups are left to draw is that there wasn't real interest in hearing from the grassroots on-the-ground organizations that had information to share. I hope that's not the case. I hope there could be some other kind of explanation, but without an explanation and such a flawed process, people understandably draw those kinds of conclusions.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Understandably they are very upset by the process.

Can you speak to whether or not Amnesty has been consulted by DFAIT on human rights implications of the TPP, particularly for countries such as Vietnam, which may have human rights standards that are lower than Canada's?

[Alex Neve]

We have not had any outreach from the department with respect to human rights perspectives on the TPP, and that's one of the reasons we certainly very much welcome the opportunity to be here today.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Further on the TPP, on Tuesday a witness told the committee about DFAIT's online consultation mechanism. Is it fair to say that given the way the government has handled the consultation process on the Colombia FTA human rights report that Canadians don't have complete faith that the government is truly consulting in good faith?

[Alex Neve]

Certainly our organization wasn't aware of whatever online process has been under way with respect to the TPP. I wouldn't want to speak for other members of civil society. There may be other organizations that were aware of it and that have participated, but we weren't.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You mentioned the importance of Canada producing comprehensive human rights impact assessments when we speak about trade agreements. What would make these human rights impact assessments truly comprehensive? Could you just describe to us perhaps the process and the content that these assessments would need to have?

[Alex Neve]

Well, the real answer to that is an entire lecture that I deliver, which obviously you don't have the time to hear. But it's safe to say there are some very well-developed methodologies, including those by UN experts, that are now well accepted and recognized as providing a comprehensive approach with regard to the range of human rights that are assessed, the scope of consultation, and the frequency and regularity of assessments that are carried out. There's some flexibility around that depending on the deal, depending on the scope of the deal, and depending on the countries that are involved, but there is a lot of information to draw on.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

If, through our chair, you could just table a document perhaps summarizing the crucial elements of that, the committee would greatly appreciate that.

[Alex Neve]

Sure, I could do that.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

As we see clearly in the case of Colombia, the parallel agreements on environment and human rights risk are not actually being applied. In your opinion, would that equally be the case in the TPP, and more generally, what is the position of Amnesty International on parallel agreements?

[Alex Neve]

With the Canada-Colombia deal it isn't so much that there's a parallel agreement. What we have is a secondary addition to the deal. It happened quite late in the process and it was added both to the deal itself and also to the implementing legislation, which is of course very important because that gives it some domestic legal teeth. This is a binding national legal requirement now.

That feels to us to be actually an important way to go on something like this because it does anchor it in law that there's a legal obligation and expectation, which therefore lays out clarity around when it's going to happen, who's supposed to conduct it, and those sorts of things.

So that's the kind of approach we would recommend with respect to something like the TPP as well, that there both be measures taken to bring human rights into the agreement itself.... There are a lot of free trade agreements that have this, not so many Canadian free trade deals but others, especially European Union ones, that have provisions that even just specifically highlight and recognize the applicability of international human rights treaties. It's not seen as a separate body of law that has no relevance to this treaty. It's right there in the treaty and recognized as having applicability. That's a very good starting point.

But then, to give it some meaning, we think that the best practice is to go this route of requiring human rights impact assessments. That's what gives the tools and the opportunity to truly study and understand the human rights implications and consequences of a particular trade deal, and coming out of that, to identify the recommendations that will address the concerns.