Malaysia and Malaysians must pay attention to the Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP) that Malaysia, being part of ASEAN may be signing. Like the TPPA, there are similar concerns here especially for workers, Malaysian communities...
This agreement again seems to be giving rights to FOREIGN INVESTORS to be able to sue Malaysia if it does anything that may cause the investor to have to expend more monies or may affect its profits in the future ...like the increasing of MINIMUM Wages, like passing laws to increase our environmental protection and protect the health of the people,...
The agreement will also affect the health of Malaysians - as it tries to keep the cost of medicine HIGH..there is an attempt to extend the copyright/patent rights for a further 2 decades - hence allowing the patent holders to sell medicine at HIGH cost...and preventing Malaysia from manufacturing and/or using generic versions of needed medicines. We must ask HOW LONG SHOULD THERE BE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION especially for medicine, seeds, etc Honestly, I believe that this should not be more than 3 - 5 years, after that people should be able to produce and use 'generic' versions...GREAT INJUSTICE when most needed and available medicine is denied to especially to the poor because the producer companies just charge too HIGH a price...
Malaysia is already suffering the effect - and the government is no longer able to afford to pay for the best of medicines for Malaysian people...and even today, the government still do not have the capacity to give patients medicine sufficient until the next doctor's appointment...and we have to repeatedly go every month to government clinics/hospitals to collect our medicines...(something that is most inconvenient when we have to take time off work, pay for the cost of transport, etc ..and it all affects our Cost of Living - best if the new government make sure that every patient gets their full supply of medicine until the next scheduled doctor's appointment)..
Some articles for your consideration about this RCEP...
RCEP agreement puts future of Thai people at risk
This trade agreement means that Thailand may not be able to introduce better labour laws.
Since the 2014 coup, we have witnessed some serious degradation of
people’s rights, from political, economic and social, as well as
setbacks to environmental protection and the livelihood of communities.
Women human rights defenders have increasingly become at risk of
violence, discrimination, and other violations. After four years under
the military regime, at least 222 rural women HRDs have faced trial in
court simply for defending their right to land, livelihood, and
community while the state continues to give concessions that impact the
communities and the environment.
SHOHEI MIYANO/KYODO NEWS VIA AP A
woman walks near the venue of a meeting of the Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP) in Kobe, western Japan, in February last
year.
While there is an urgent need for reforms and measures to protect our
public goods, the Thai government is about to enter a trade deal that
could seriously harm the reform agenda and deprive communities of the
ability to make decisions for fear of violating investors’ rights.
As Bangkok is hosting the 23rd round of negotiations for the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a proposed multilateral trade
agreement involving Asean members and six other countries is cause for
concern for Thailand’s ability to reform and improve the quality of life
of its people through various mechanisms. This is because RCEP ensures
that the signatory governments will not undertake anything that will
decrease or impact investor costs and/or present and future profits.
This means that if Thailand goes ahead with reforms, even by the
introduction of new and necessary laws and policies, the investors (be
it the corporations, its shareholders including original and subsequent
shareholders) have the right to take legal action against the government
of Thailand as provided for in the Investor-State Dispute Settlement
(ISDS) clauses currently proposed in the RCEP.
Worse still, these legal actions commenced against Thailand will not be
adjudicated according to Thai law, in Thai courts, or in Thai tribunals
but in a secret tribunal in a foreign country according to non-tangible
trade and investments rules. It will cost Thailand billions of baht to
defend such claims, and if Thailand were to lose, it may be forced to
pay billions more — and all this will be the money that Thais could have
used for improving their quality of life.
In 2015, UN experts pointed out that governments are less likely to pass
laws essential for advancing rights including women’s rights because of
a fear of being sued. In a statement, they said that the problem has
been aggravated by the “chilling effect” that intrusive ISDS awards have
had, when states are penalised for adopting regulations, for example,
to protect the environment, food security, access to generic and
essential medicines or raising the minimum wage.
There are quite a few real-world examples of what can go wrong. The Veolia group, a French multinational, is suing the Egyptian government after a rise in the monthly minimum wage, using the ISDS provisions in an investment treaty between France and Egypt. Will Thailand be able to increase minimum wages in the future?
In Peru, the mining operations of Doe Run caused environmental destruction so bad that the mining area, La Oroya has been repeatedly declared as one of the most polluted places in the world. When the Peruvian government revoked the mine’s licence, it was slapped with a lawsuit. Imagine if the Thai government is sued by Kingsgate for ceasing the operations of a mine for environmental impacts. How will this affect Thailand’s ability to introduce more stringent environmental and health protection regulations or discontinue mining operations for the benefit of the Thai people?
This trade agreement means that Thailand may not be able to introduce better labour laws, laws requiring employers to make greater contribution for social protection schemes of workers — which may include an obligation to provide creches/ daycare facilities at the workplace, better maternity/paternity rights, introduce additional paid leave for women including more maternity leave and even introducing “menstruation” leave. It will also mean Thailand will not be able to introduce laws requiring safer working environments, or even laws requiring a greater environmental protection.
Many argue that such trade agreements will enhance economic growth but are Thai people willing to sacrifice a better quality of life in exchange for such “economic growth”? One must also be concerned whether this “‘economic growth” will really ensure better equality or whether it will just end up in the pocket of a few rich and elites.
And women are always at the bottom. Women human rights defenders who defend their community resources will become even more of a target due to increasing pressures from corporations. Women are the first to lose jobs when their employers cut staff and the first to be affected when public services are curbed. This then forces them to either migrate or take up any work in order to survive.
More importantly, if the Thai state is truly concerned about the well-being of its people, especially women, it needs to ensure democratic representation and participation of the people before it enters into any trade agreement. Thailand certainly will not want to end up with its hands tied up by such agreements, ruining the chance of a future where reforms are brought to improve the livelihoods and rights of its people.
Pranom Somwong is the representative of Protection International in Thailand and a member of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law & Development (APWLD). She is a human rights lawyer and has dedicated her life to protecting people whose rights have been violated.- Bangkok Post, 21/7/2018
Press Release
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
RCEP Has Human Rights Concerns: Women’s Groups
24 July, 2018
Bangkok, Thailand
Women’s groups from the region representing farmers’ rights, workers
rights, land rights, national resource rights, indigenous rights,
minorities’ and labour rights joined the 1.5 hour civil society
stakeholder consultations with Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP) negotiating countries in Bangkok yesterday. ASEAN and
its six trading partners China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia
and New Zealand are currently holding their 23rd round of negotiation.
Civil society groups were initially promised more time to express
their concerns, however were subsequently told that they had less time.
“Is this the value of human rights and peoples’ engagements and
participation?
Civil societies, media, parliamentarians and even local
governments have been hardly given any access to this negotiation, in a
process already bereft of transparency,” said Dinda Nuurannisaa Yura,
Solidaritas
Perempuan, Indonesia. “RCEP impacts more than 50% of the
world’s population and is being negotiated without the knowledge of this
population. For many governments negotiating this, RCEP might be about
cost and benefit, about selling or buying, about letters and numbers.
However for women and many other marginalised communities, it is about
our life and death.
Trade liberalisation over the last several decades has seen women’s
wages suppressed for corporations’ maximum profits. Health care
privatisation or budget cuts in public services have led to women paying
more for them or a double burden because they cannot afford to pay for
needed health services. All this has led us to a world where just eight
men own the same as the world’s bottom half, many of whom are women,”
said Joms Salvador, Gabriela National Alliance of Women, Philippines.
While governments acknowledge that these inequalities exist and
globalisation has widened the gap between the rich and the poor, both in
developing as well as developed countries, they have also expressed
their inabilities to reverse it. “If our governments recognise that this
current system no longer works, why are we maintaining it?” added Joms
Salvador. The RCEP is also expected to contain an investment provision
known as the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) – one which has
fallen under wide criticism both within RCEP countries and globally.
“ISDS allows for corporations to sue governments when they attempt to
regulate corporations, protect the environment, provide public services,
protect public health or introduce affirmative action for women. This
is a corporatocracy, not a democracy,” said Pranom Somwong,
representative of Protection International Thailand. Businesses also met
with the negotiators separately though no information of that business
meeting was shared. Past negotiation rounds have seen businesses getting a significant amount of
more time than civil societies, sometimes, as much as an entire day.
Misun Woo, Regional Coordinator of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law
and Development (APWLD), Thailand added, “W(om)E(n) the people as
sovereign power must know what this RCEP really stands for – whether it
is to facilitate a ‘free’ trade based on people’s rights and needs; or
rather it is to maximise corporate interest and power. The current
negotiations indicate it’s for the latter as it is done in a complete
secrecy behind people’s backs while giving information and decision
making access to corporations. We must end this political, corporate
hypocrisy. Women have been at the heart of the movements to halt the
deadly advances of the WTO. We will use the same solidarity to stop the
RCEP and be the power to make decisions over our own lives and future. ”
The women’s groups strongly reject RCEP as it reinforces a
destructive development model that the existing free trade agreements
and the policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have
inflicted upon the world’s poor and particularly poor women. Women’s
groups urge governments to realise a trade agenda based on the
principles of international cooperation and solidarity that truly
advances Development Justice.
About RCEP
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a trade
agreement between ASEAN and it’s six trading partners China, India,
Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Further analysis about
RCEP’s impact on women is available here in Thai and English languages.
Watch this and this video campaigns that highlight concerns about
trading away human rights.
Source: Chiangmai City Life, 25/7/2018
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