ISDS Case Map
biodiversity | biopiracy
The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC) has expressed its concern over ongoing negotiations on the Thai-US Free Trade Agreement, particularly on the issues of intellectual property rights.
While United States trade negotiators seek to strengthen intellectual property protection under the proposed Thai-US free trade area agreement, Thailand is raising the issue of genetic resources and ways to guard against biopiracy.
As the 4th round of Thailand-US free-trade negotiations start today in Montana, a key issue will be the shape of any future intellectual-property regime. The survival of Thai jasmine rice, and the people who grow it, may very well depend on whatever system is finally agreed upon.
The prospect of including in many FTAs, especially the Thai-US one, issues like intellectual property and agriculture, could have implications on the survival or disappearance of the Thai rice culture
EPAs should serve as instruments for development and poverty reduction. They must also support the deepening of intra-African trade.
Missing from the fight against CAFTA is an elite subset of the environmental movement: the international biodiversity conservation organizations. Not one of the four major groups in this field -- Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society -- has demonstrated the courage to oppose CAFTA, despite ample opportunity over the past year.
A BIMSTEC Free Trade Area agreement was signed in last February. The agreement covers trade in goods, services and investment. Negotiations are progressing well on specific issues. The Agreement would come into force from July 2006.
The Andean countries and the US have advanced on the environmental issue in their talks about a free trade agreement (FTA), Peru's chief negotiator said on Wednesday. "The United States proposed for the first time a text on biological diversity. The issue has been made an item in the article on Environmental Cooperation."
During the ninth round of negotiations of a free trade agreement between the United States and three South American nations in the Andean region -- Colombia, Peru and Ecuador -- Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo called for ”greater flexibility” on the part of Washington.
It took over a thousand and five hundred people blowing their whistle for the Thai government to come out and listen to its people. But did Mr. Nitya Pibulsongkram, head of the Thai negotiating team for the Thai-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA), actually hear them?
