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Title: Human rights impact assessments: A pertinent tool for informing and improving trade governance?
Author(s): 3D
Publisher: 2009, 3D
This is a report of a panel discussion that took place at the WTO Public Forum on 30 September 2009. It addressed how to conceptualise and implement human rights impact assessments of trade agreements, compared them with other types of assessments and assessed the potential of HRIAs to inform and shape trade policy and agreements.
The first speaker highlighted that while international trade has contributed to economic growth, this had often fallen short of achieving progress in poverty reduction and development. The panel discussed whether HRIAs of trade agreements could help trade to contribute to those goals more effectively and consistently. The current confusion and lack of engagement between the human rights and trade law discourse was emphasized and the potential that HRIAs could have for bridging this gap was highlighted. The panel also discussed how other types of impact assessment provide lessons for the design and conduct of HRIAs and prevent poorly constructed or biased studies that could be counterproductive. The need for more methodological work, supported by UN-bodies, was underscored. Key benefits, risks and limitations of the tool were also discussed, including a brief comparative examination of the methodology of sustainability impact assessments (SIAs). In conclusion, the link between trade and human rights was re-emphasized and the need for further work to improve understanding on linkages between the WTO and human rights, such as through HRIAs, was underscored.
This is accompanied by a background paper (also from 3D) entitled "Insights on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade Policies and Agreements".
This paper presents an outline of key issues related to human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of trade policies and agreements, based on existing literature. It offers a glimpse at existing types of HRIAs, introduces the main criteria to which HRIAs of trade agreements should respond and exposes arguments of proponents and opponents to a human-rights based approach to assess trade policies and agreements.
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