The United States government will hold a public hearing in late August 2010 on the US GSP issue after a June 29 announcement by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) that a petition filed by an American union, the AFL-CIO in December 2009, on worker’s rights in Sri Lanka has been accepted in the annual review on GSP.
A US embassy official in Colombo told the Business Times this week that there is no deadline for completion of the review process where in other countries, consultations have continued for several years. The official explained that it is common for the US government to initially defer a decision on whether to accept a petition while the US consults with the host country and reviews the allegations raised in the petition. “The US decided to accept the petition because it considered the allegations sufficiently credible to justify accepting the position for further review.”
The embassy official further stated that the petition which was filed by the AFL-CIO on December 30, 2009 focused solely on labor issued and the allegations in the 2008 petition that concerned child soldiers and the LTTE were dropped.
The official also said the timing of the announcement last week was unfortunate because it created a great deal of confusion with the European Union’s GSP+ programme. “As we have described, the US GSP programme and the EU GSP+ programme is entire separate and are based on different criteria,” the official stated. “The US government’s decision to review the GSP programme was based on our statutory requirements (as the review of the whole program must be done before July 1) and we have not consulted with the EU since it is an entirely different process. The UN Panel issue has nothing to do with GSP and we have not consulted with the UN on our GSP programme either.”
The official said the US would only withdraw GSP trade benefits if collaborative discussions fail to achieve progress. The US government will first review the situation through information from a planned visit to Sri Lanka in late July, a public hearing in late August and meetings with the government of Sri Lanka, unions and employers. If the US determines that Sri Lanka is not taking steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights, the US government will then begin a consultative process with the government of Sri Lanka and will seek to mutually identify means to improve the labor situation.
According to the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the US government announces the results of its Annual Review under the GSP programme every year during the end of June. Press releases on the website show that the announcement on the completion of the Annual Review in 2010 was announced on 30 June 2010 while the announcements for previous years fell on 30 June 2009, 29 June 2008 and 28 June 2007.
Furthermore, the USTR website also displays information on petitions for review of country practices which shows that a review of workers rights in Bangladesh filed by the AFL-CIO in 2008 is continuing. There are also two continuing reviews on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Russia and Uzbekistan which were filed in 2001 and 200 respectively.
The USTR press release on the 2010 Annual Review says that it analyzed petitions to withdraw or limit a country’s GSP benefits on criteria including whether a country is taking steps to afford internationally recognized standards for worker rights, whether it provides important investor protections including enforcement of arbitral awards and the extent to which a country adequately and effectively protects IPR.
In the context of the 2009 review, the USTR says it accepted petitions to review whether Sri Lanka met GSP eligibility criteria related to worker rights and whether Argentina met the criteria related to enforcement of arbitral awards. Several countries remain under review of whether they meet eligibility criteria including Lebanon, Russia and Uzbekistan regarding IPR protection and Bangladesh, Niger, the Philippines and Uzbekistan regarding worker rights.
Under the GSP programme, 131 beneficiary developing countries, including 43 least-developed countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Cambodia, are eligible to export approximately 5,000 types of products duty-free to the US.
In 2009, the US extended duty-free treatment under the GSP program to exports worth $20.3 billion from eligible beneficiary countries. Exports to the US under GSP constituted a significant share of total exports from a number of beneficiary countries, including Paraguay, Lebanon, Tunisia, Fiji, and Armenia. |
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