{"id":133006,"date":"2014-07-24T17:19:04","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T17:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=133006"},"modified":"2014-07-24T17:19:04","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T17:19:04","slug":"leaked-document-reveals-us-eu-trade-agreement-threatens-public-health-food-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/leaked-document-reveals-us-eu-trade-agreement-threatens-public-health-food-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked Document Reveals US-EU Trade Agreement Threatens Public Health, Food Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON – A\u00a0draft chapter of the U.S-EU trade agreement<\/a>\u00a0leaked today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reveals public health and food safety could be at risk, according to an\u00a0accompanying analysis<\/a>. The leaked chapter concerns Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) issues\u2013those surrounding food safety and animal and plant health\u2013in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated. Only TTIP negotiators and security cleared advisors, mostly corporate representatives, can read and comment on draft negotiating texts.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0IATP analysis<\/a>\u00a0accompanying release of the leaked document, \u201cThis leaked draft TTIP chapter doesn\u2019t tell us everything about where negotiations are headed on food safety, but it tells us enough to raise serious concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

While key details have not been disclosed to the public or remain to be negotiated, the chapter clearly indicates negotiators continue to subordinate SPS regulations to the object of maximizing trade. The text, for example, supports the U.S. approach to not require port of entry food inspections and testing, meaning food contamination outbreaks will be harder to trace to their origin, and liability harder to assess\u2013a win for U.S. meat and food companies that could jeopardize food safety for consumers. Further, the text indicates the trade agreement could make it more difficult to restrict imports from countries with animal or plant diseases, such as Mad Cow Disease or plant fungus outbreaks.<\/p>\n

The leaked chapter does acknowledge animal welfare but lacks enforceable language, meaning a U.S. state or EU member state could pass mandatory laws or rules on agriculture animal welfare, but such mandatory measures could not be used to prevent import of products from abused animals. Alternatively, unenforceable trade policy could further the misguided \u201cRight to Farm\u201d legislation under consideration in several states.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile many key details regarding things like GMOs are still hidden, it\u2019s clear public health is losing out to corporate interests in a big way,\u201d said IATP\u2019s Dr. Steve Suppan, author of\u00a0the analysis<\/a>. \u201cMoreover, it\u2019s an affront to democracy that the public need rely on leaked documents to find out how these agreements could affect health and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

The draft chapter would set up a Joint Management Committee to discuss concerns about U.S. and EU SPS regulations. But the draft provides very little information about how this committee or the yet to be negotiated TTIP Oversight Body, to which the Committee reports, would function if discussions did not resolve concerns about the effect of regulations on trade. It is not clear whether the Oversight Body would refer unresolved SPS concerns to the proposed and very controversial Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism. The ISDS would have a private tribunal of trade lawyers, not a public court of law, decide whether U.S. or EU SPS rules, laws or enforcement measures violated TTIP. If the tribunal decided in favor of the complaining investor, the tribunal would determine the compensation that the EU member state or U.S. governments would have to pay investors for loss of anticipated benefits under TTIP.<\/p>\n

Read the\u00a0IATP analysis<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0complete leaked chapter text<\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/p>\n

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IATP works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.\u00a0Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy<\/a><\/p>\n

Contact:<\/div>\n
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Andrew Ranallo<\/div>\n
Communications Associate, IATP<\/div>\n
(612) 870-3456<\/div>\n
andrew@iatp.org<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – A\u00a0draft chapter of the U.S-EU trade agreement\u00a0leaked today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reveals public health and food safety could be at risk, according to an\u00a0accompanying analysis. The leaked chapter concerns Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) issues\u2013those surrounding food safety and animal and plant health\u2013in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,955],"tags":[694],"class_list":{"0":"post-133006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-health","10":"tag-ttip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}