Source: Carnegie

For Immediate Release: May 5, 2003
Contact: Carmen MacDougall, 202-939-2319, cmacdougall@ceip.org

New Issue Brief Evaluates Environmental Issues
in U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement

When President Bush signs the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement this week, he will present Congress with the first trade agreement subject to review under the terms of the U.S. Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). For the first time in U.S. trade history, Congress will judge a trade agreement in which the environment was a principal subject of negotiations. In a new issue brief, "Evaluating Environmental Issues in the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement," Carnegie Senior Associate John Audley provides an overview of the environmental aspects of the agreement and gives recommendations to Congress for its review.

In the paper, Audley lists key environment-related directives given by Congress for trade negotiations and assesses how they fared in the new agreement. New agreements should uphold domestic environmental protection policies; strengthen the capacity of U.S. trading partners to protect the environment; promote consideration of multilateral environmental agreements; improve mechanisms for resolving disputes between investors and government; and respect the Declaration on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, as adopted by the World Trade Organization. Audley raises concerns in each of these categories.

Audley gives a list of next steps for Congress. On one hand, Congress should clarify ambiguities relating to Free Trade Authority. On the other hand, it should take address issues related to the US-Singapore agreement. They include: fix the rules-of-origin loophole (which allows two Indonesian islands to get the benefits of the trade agreement without adhering to environmental protections, labor laws, and other provisions); fund the environmental agenda in the agreement; instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to address concerns relating to arbitration; and finally investigate why the agreement does not adhere more closely to the TPA's environmental instructions.

Audley concludes by questioning the level of secrecy that Congress allows the USTR when negotiating trade agreements.

Read the new issue brief by visiting www.ceip.org/trade.

John Audley directs the Trade, Equity, and Development Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before joining the Carnegie Endowment, Audley was the trade policy coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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