Speaker Name: Hien Nguyen Thi, APLWD Women Interrogating Trade & Corporate Hegemony (WITCH) programme
Hello everyone. My name is Hien Nguyen from Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD). APWLD is the leading network of feminist organisations and individual activists in Asia and the Pacific. I am speaking today on behalf of our 265 members representing groups of diverse women from 30 countries in Asia and the Pacific. Over the past 34 years, APWLD has actively worked towards advancing women’s human rights and Development Justice.
Our region, the largest and most diverse in the world, is currently reeling under the impact of climate crises, intensifying natural disasters, growing conflicts and militarisation, rising fundamentalisms, conservatism and resurfacing of ethnoreligious nationalisms. This is in addition to the onslaught of the last three decades of macroeconomic regimes of neoliberalism – all of which threaten gender equality and women’s human rights.
Human Rights Assessment
We, women from the Asia Pacific, many of which are members of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) believe that trade agreements, economic policies and frameworks should be equitable, just, inclusive and in line with human rights. Our time requires the global community to urgently envision and chart out a different trade and economic model that is based on care, solidarity, and human rights, to protect the peoples and the planet, redistribute power, resources and wealth between men and women, and between rich and poor and between countries. They should promote sustainable livelihoods with rights and dignity for all women, including rural, indigenous, migrant, workers and urban poor women. In order to achieve that, all trade agreements and economic frameworks should carry out a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) to assess how the legal obligation of states under this agreement can affect the human rights of the people in the state concerned. It is not creating a new obligation for states, merely to ensure that states identify and comply with their existing obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. Human Rights Impact Assessment can take the form of both ex-ante assessments (undertaken before or during the negotiation of a trade agreement, or prior to implementation) and ex-post assessments (undertaken on a trade agreement after a period of implementation).
Secondly, about the environment
In all their diversities, women, girls and children are disproportionately and differently impacted by climate change. Patriarchy, fundamentalism, globalisation and unjust traditional social systems increase their vulnerability and enhance discrimination and inequality. The promotion of “carbon capture, utilization, transport, and storage across the region” (CCUS) is a known false climate solution most favoured by big polluters. CCUS lets fossil fuel companies bank on the promise of a technology that does not yet exist as intended while letting them continue emitting greenhouse gases. Moreover, the corporates are crowding the climate arena with their profit intent and false unsustainable solutions that are gender blind, impractical, costly and resource intensive. There is a strong need to counter corporate capture of climate solutions and create space for women-led, affordable, cost-effective, environmentally sustainable and just feminist climate solutions. Indigenous knowledge and management of natural resources is a key foundation of building feminist just climate solutions. Feminist just climate solutions are critical in addressing the current climate crisis to ensure that women are empowered, informed and resilient to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts.
Lastly, transparency and accountability
Mechanisms for transparency and democratic participation in trade and investment policy formulation and implementation should be made available by governments and intergovernmental organisations to ensure the participation of women’s groups and other sectors–such as indigenous, farmers, and migrants–affected by trade and investment agreements in decision-making. These mechanisms must put the interests of marginalised sectors and affected communities at the forefront, while at the same time should not allow undue influence from corporations.
We demand the immediate release of the agreed IPEF text for independent evaluation and scrutiny by the people, our elected representatives, and relevant public bodies. Failure to do so will continue the affront to democracy and deepen public scepticism about claims regarding the value and positive impacts of IPEF.
Watch the video here.
