[CTC] Japanese Farmers Run Anti-TPP Ad in the Washington Post

Tue Apr 24 12:33:01 PDT 2012

Eyes On Trade: Announcement of Flawed 2012 Model BIT Shows Agenda  
Motivating Obama TPP Talks (plus 1 more posts)

Announcement of Flawed 2012 Model BIT Shows Agenda Motivating Obama  
TPP Talks
Posted: 20 Apr 2012 10:50 AM PDT
The Obama administration released the 2012 Model Bilateral Investment  
Treaty this morning. Here's our response:

Announcement of Flawed Investment Rules Show Agenda Motivating Obama  
Trade Talks

Statement of Lori Wallach, Public Citizen

Instead of the reforms promised by  candidate Obama, the Obama  
administration’s ‘new’ Model Bilateral Investment Treaty released  
today is the same in all major respects as the deeply flawed ‘old’  
Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and the investment chapters of  
U.S. free trade agreements.

Like the old U.S. investment model, the new text will allow companies  
to challenge public interest regulations outside of domestic court  
systems  before  tribunals of three private sector trade attorneys  
operating under minimal to no conflict of interest rules. These  
arbitrators can order governments to pay corporations unlimited  
taxpayer-funded compensation for having to comply with policies that  
affect their future expected profits, and with which domestic  
investors have to comply.

By revealing a fundamentally unchanged BIT (after pushing three Bush  
trade deals in 2011 based on the same flawed model), the  
administration is exposing the anti-public interest agenda motivating  
the nine-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. In those  
negotiations, countries like Australia (who have been attacked in BITs  
by Philip Morris over their plain packaging tobacco policies) have  
criticized the U.S. model of investment rules.

At a time when multinationals like Chevron are using BITs to evade  
justice and get out of environmental remediation obligations, it is  
unthinkable that an Obama administration – post BP oil spill, post  
Wall Street crash – would privilege the rich at the expense of the 99  
percent.

Illegal log trade flourishes under U.S.-Peru trade deal
Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:45 AM PDT
Our colleagues over at the Environmental Investigation Agency have  
just published a comprehensive study in the trade in illegal logging  
certificates in Peru in the years since the US-Peru FTA was signed. As  
they write:

By crossing public information on (a) the “supervision” inspections  
conducted by the Supervisory Body for Forest Resources and Wildlife  
(OSINFOR for its Spanish initials) on a series of timber concessions  
with (b) the documentation for CITES export permits for cedar and  
mahogany, EIA identified more than 100 shipments containing illegally  
logged CITES wood that were exported to the US between January 2008  
and May 2010 – that is, more than 35% of all such shipments with CITES  
permits that left Peru for the US during this period.

Peru’s primary exporter, Maderera Bozovich, exported shipments under  
152 CITES permits during this time, at least 45% of which included  
wood of illegal origin. It is likely that more supervisions in the  
field would discover that these percentages are actually higher.

The FTA contained a new Annex on Forest Sector Governance, which was  
put in place because Peru was (at the time of negotiations on the  
deal) one of the world's primary sources of cedar, mahogany and other  
endangered species. (Longtime Eyes on Trade readers will recall that  
the forestry annex was a major reason cited by key Democrats for their  
support of an otherwise fundamentally flawed trade deal, back when a  
minority of Democrats joined with a majority of Republicans to pass  
the deal back in 2007.) A provision of the annex reads that Peru is  
obligated to:

"Provide criminal and civil liability at adequate deterrent levels for  
actions that impede or undermine the sustainable management of Peru’s  
forest resources. Such actions shall include:

(i) Threats or violence against, or other intimidation of, government  
personnel engaged in enforcement of Peru’s laws, regulations and other  
measures relating to the harvest of, and trade in, timber products;
(ii) Knowingly creating, using, presenting or providing false  
information on any material document relating to enforcement of Peru’s  
laws, regulations and other measures relating to the harvest of, and  
trade in, timber products, including forest management plans, annual  
operating plans, applications for permits/concessions, and  
transportation documents;
(iii) Obstructing an investigation, verification, or audit conducted  
by government personnel engaged in enforcement of Peru’s laws,  
regulations and other measures relating to the harvest of, and trade  
in, timber products;
(iv) Knowingly harvesting or purchasing timber or timber products from  
areas or persons not authorized under Peruvian law; or knowingly  
transporting timber or timber products taken from areas or persons not  
authorized under Peruvian law; and
(v) Providing to a government official, or receiving as a government  
official, compensation, whether monetary or in kind, in exchange for  
particular action taken in the course of that official’s enforcement  
of Peru’s laws, regulations and other measures relating to the harvest  
of, and trade in, timber products."

While there is no statistical evidence that trade in endangered timber  
has increased, or that deforestation has increased, EIA is concerned  
(as I understand it) that the lack of accountability represented by  
the forged documents that do not line up to the actual origin of the  
trees sold and exported from 2008-10 could be an indication of deeper  
forestry abuses beneath the statistical surface or down the line.  
They're calling on the Obama administration to audit Peru's forestry  
practices, as a first step that could lead to actual retaliation under  
the FTA.

The FTA has been a fundamentally disruptive force in Peruvian life,  
disrupting presidential elections and now offering U.S. multinationals  
with tools to evade justice and environmental clean-up  
responsibilities. See this excellent report by the Sunlight  
Foundation's Keenan Steiner for more on this latter point, which makes  
mention of our March 2012 report on a recent so-called investor-state  
case under the U.S.-Peru FTA. The Obama administration is set to lock  
in and expand these rules under the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade  
deal, which both Peru and the US are in and which is also supported by  
presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

The significance of the EIA reports (you can check out EIA's 2010  
study on the same topic) is that the best part of the FTA (the  
forestry sector annex) is delivering more information and attention to  
forestry, but has not yet led to fundamental change on the ground. To  
deliver that change, we'll have to see actual enforcement. Now, the  
ball's in Obama's (or Romney's) court. Will they deliver?

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