FTA with China: focusing on human rights

In August 2010, Swiss President Doris Leuthard and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed on the roadmap for a joint free-trade agreement. The negotiations will begin in early 2011. The agreement is expected to secure further competitive advantages for Swiss exporters.

China is already an important partner to the Swiss economy. Along with the EU, Japan and the USA, Switzerland is amongst China' four leading trading partners. In 2008, Switzerland’s goods exports to China were worth CHF 6.1 billion and its imports some CHF 5 billion. This makes it one of the few countries running a trade surplus with the Middle Kingdom. Swiss investors are also very active there. According to the business association Economiesuisse, over 300 Swiss firms together have more than 700 subsidiaries in China and employed close to 120,000 people in 2008. Economic relations are to be further expanded thanks to the free trade agreement.

Human rights left out

But trading with China has its pitfalls: there are massive human rights violations, and working conditions for migrant workers, for example, are often scandalous. Rebiya Kadeer, renowned human rights activist and President of the World Uighur Congress for example has been calling attention for years to the scandalous exploitation of single Uighur women workers in the sweatshops of the coastal region. Whoever unhesitatingly does business with a country known for human rights violations becomes an accomplice to those human rights violations.

Even WTO Chief Pascal Lamy recently admitted that trade rules could have human rights implications and that market opening creates winners and losers. When it comes to trade, the particularly sensitive issues are the right to food, health, employment and decent housing. A State that enters into agreements with a partner country must ensure that these rights are not infringed but guaranteed. Failure to do so means breaching its extraterritorial obligations to safeguard human rights.

With regard to the negotiations with China, the focus should be on the following labour and human rights:

• The core labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO). China violates several of these rights:
• The right to freedom of association and collective bargaining is not guaranteed, the formation of independent trade unions forbidden.
• China does not implement the prohibition of forced labour: at some locations the workers are locked up in factories during the day and in dormitories at night. There are also numerous labour and education camps that produce goods for export.
• China violates the ban on child labour. NGOs report that this has even increased.
• China disregards the prohibition of discrimination at the workplace: ethnic minorities and migrant workers in particular are often discriminated against. Their working conditions often do not meet even minimal hygiene and safety standards.
•  The right to food and health. Restrictive rules on the protection of intellectual property (patents) endanger those rights, because they may impede access to affordable medicines and seeds.
• Discrimination against migrant workers through the Hukou system (household registration system). Migrant workers cannot register a fixed place of residence in urban areas. This leaves them defenceless against landlords, employers and local party officials. In concrete terms, this means no access to social services and health facilities, poor working conditions, poor accommodation and no free schooling for children.
• Forced evictions. In order to build large industrial infrastructure projects, the government may resort to expropriation and resettlement. Uighur farmers, for example, are forced to sell their land for very low prices and move to mainland China.
• Discrimination against ethnic minorities such as the Uighurs and Tibetans.
• Death penalty, torture and the violation of freedom of expression. Although they may not be directly related to the Free Trade Agreement, they should still be addressed when negotiating the agreement.
  

EFTA conditions – no liability assumed

The U.S. and the EU have long incorporated conditions for the fulfilment of human and labour rights (see article on pages 4-5) into their bilateral trade agreements. The European Free Trade Association EFTA (Switzerland is a member) too realised somewhat late that it cannot simply ignore these rights. This summer it adopted model provisions for incorporating environmental and social standards into free trade agreements. The chapter on «Trade and Sustainable Development» specifically states that partner countries should respect the ILO core conventions and multilateral environmental agreements.

The provisions are not binding, however. Besides, they are limited to environmental and labour standards and exclude human rights in general. But the negotiations with China will show whether Switzerland takes requirements regarding environmental and labour rights seriously or merely regards them as bargaining chips.

Alliance Sud, the Berne Declaration, the Society for Threatened Peoples and the Swiss-Tibetan Friendship Society have jointly called on Switzerland to insist, in the trade agreement, not only on the EFTA provisions but also on binding clauses on all human rights. Before the negotiations are concluded, a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) should be made to gauge the implications of the agreement for these rights. The Parliament and interested organisations should be kept abreast of the progress of the talks in a continuous and transparent manner.

The majority of a Preparatory Commission in Parliament is also calling on the Government to ensure that the agreement with China includes not only an economic but also a social and environmental dimension. In particular, it must guarantee observance of the ILO core standards. The Commission’s decision supports the efforts of the NGOs, although they are calling not just for the inclusion of core labour standards but of all human rights.
Isolda Agazzi, Alliance Sud

Article published in Alliance Sud News no. 66, winter 2010/11

See also:FTA: Labour provisions à la carte