The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) are today launching a campaign call via a new website and Twitter account. The campaign aims to ensure that the EU-US trade talks do not undermine EU chemicals legislation.
The United States and European Union are negotiating a new trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This agreement is a threat to the EU’s ability to protect people from toxic chemical exposure.
EU legislation is currently much more protective than US regulations. If chemicals are included in this trade deal, the EU could see its global leadership in protecting public health through tough laws like REACH watered down. In addition to pesticide legislation, TTIP could halt the EU’s progress on a policy to limit exposure to hormone disrupting chemicals.
What we want
The European Parliament has said that toxic chemicals should have no place in the TTIP negotiations. We agree and are calling for:
- Chemicals to be excluded from regulatory cooperation because it would provide new channels for private profit to hold power in the drafting or revision of EU laws.
- No elements of the controversial EU policy “Better Regulation” embedded in a legally binding trade agreement.
- No provisions enabling multinationals to sideline the EU courts and sue European states, the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) or Investment Court System.What we’re already doing
Today, at the start of the 13th TTIP round, HEAL, CIEL, the European Environmental Bureau and ClientEarth wrote to EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström to ask her to ensure that no elements of the increasingly controversial EU ‘Better Regulation’ agenda are codified in this legally-binding trade agreement. See Re: Call to exclude the ‘Good Regulatory Practices’ chapter from TTIP letter.
We need YOU!
We hope to bring together not-for-profit organisations to support our campaign, in particular those working in the areas of:
- Public health
- The environment
- Trade
- Toxic chemicals and pesticides
- Cancer
- Biodiversity (including those NGOs protecting bee populations)
- Women’s and children’s rights
- Not-for-profit health insurance organisations.
Contacts
A new campaign to protect EU chemical laws, HEAL, 25 April 2016.
Génon K. Jensen, Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance, Email, Tel: +32 2 234 36 40.
Lisette van Vliet, Senior Advisor, Chemicals & Chronic Disease Prevention, Health & Environment Alliance, Email, Tel: +32 2 234 36 45.
David Azoulay, Program Director, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Email, Tel: +41 22 789 05 00.
Aleksandra Terzieva, Campaign Coordinator, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Email, Tel: +32 471 93 17 08.