ISDS Case Map
biodiversity | biopiracy
A group of Thai non-governmental organisations led by FTA Watch yesterday launched a campaign against the Surayud government over its plan to sign a free-trade pact with Japan tomorrow. The Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement will cause tremendous damage to a massive number of farmers and allow a foreign country to take over the country's biological resources, while only a few exporters would benefit, they said.
Four anti-free trade groups will today seek an emergency order from Thailand's Supreme Administrative Court to stop the signing of the free trade area (FTA) agreement with Japan next week. They are the Khao Kwan Foundation, the Bio Thai Foundation, the Consumers' Foundation and the Aids Access Foundation.
Thai Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram told a powerful Japanese business association on Monday that Thailand would not renegotiate on any issues in the controversial economic agreement with Japan.
Despite an earlier announcement that all signing and negotiating of free trade agreements would be halted, the government of Gen Surayud Chulanont bit its tongue yet again, with the issuing of a cabinet resolution on Feb 20 stating its readiness to go ahead with the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement (JTEPA).
The Thai cabinet yesterday instructed officials negotiating the Thai-Japanese Free Trade Agreement not to sign any deal without further talks with Tokyo to clear the air on issues like toxic waste imports and the patenting of micro-organisms.
Khao-Kwan Foundation chairman Day-cha Siripatra said the country would lose several hundred billion baht a year if the government allowed Japan to patent micro-organisms.
With maize trade scheduled to be fully liberalized under NAFTA in 2008, many farm groups are
calling for a renegotiation of the treaty's agricultural provisions to prevent further
damage. This analysis examines the room for alternative policies in Mexico under
existing economic and environmental agreements, including NAFTA. It concludes that
the Mexican government retains access to many useful policy instruments that could
promote rural livelihoods while arresting the losses of important maize diversity. What is
lacking is the political will to make use of them.
The Thai Foreign Ministry is lobbying hard for the National Legislative Assembly's support for a free trade area (FTA) agreement with Japan
Activists have called on Thailand's National Legislative Assembly to remove trade in waste and micro-organism patenting from the Japan-Thailand Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
