Collective complaint against CETA to the European Committee on Social Rights under the European Social Charter

[Ville-Veikko Hirvelä]

Dear all


FYI find here attached a collective complaint to the European Committee on Social Rights about how Finland's measures and proceedings to formulate, negotiate and process the CETA-agreement to become approved have neglected Finland's human rights obligations.

This complaint was sent yesterday to the European Committee of Social Rights  signed by ATTAC Finland, Friends of the Earth Finland and Global Socialwork Finland.
(I have removed here their hand-written signatures to reduce the filesize and many annexes which were only in Finnish.)


More info about the complaint procedure you can find from the European Committee of Social Rights (under the Council of Europe human rights system) website:

https://www.coe.int/en/web/turin-european-social-charter/collective-complaints-procedure1

I think it would be useful if such groups from other European countries, who have a right to make a complaint to the European Committee of Social Rights, could send their own complaints on CETA to the European Committee of Social Rights.

(Finland has granted the Finnish NGOs the right to lodge complaints against the government's inadequate application of the European Social Charter. Other countries have not extended the right to complain so wide as Finland, but also many other countries have recognised the rights to make a complaint to some organisations)

While the Finnish government proposes to give the CETA 'investment court' the power to judge and give verdicts over democratic acts and laws as 'breaches' of the investment protection, Finland has not ensured that this power could not weaken its ability to secure human rights as required by the European Social Charter. The government has neglected respect for human rights and due legislative consideration which would require transparent public assessment and review of the human rights impacts of CETA and corresponding 'investment court system' arrangements.

The Finnish government has not conducted any assessment of CETA's impacts on human rights, on which Finland has obligations. Neither has the government addressed the concerns of the civil society groups in Finland over CETA, which are presented in this complaint. Instead the government has appealed to the 'clarifications' which the EU commission has provided on CETA.

As the EU does not have the same human rights obligations as Finland, its clarifications do not address the need to respect Finland's human rights obligations and hence do not address our concerns on how the approval of CETA would impair the capacity of Finland to fully protect and fulfil human rights compliant to its obligations.

As the situation is quite similar in many European countries as in Finland, it could help to make the European Committee of Social Rights to consider the issue if there could be more organisations from different countries sending their complaints.

ville-veikko