Africa: Use Trade Law for Human Rights

Africa: Use Trade Law for Human Rights

(Washington, October 25, 2001) The United States is not doing enough to
implement the human rights criteria of the African Growth and
Opportunity Act (AGOA), Human Rights Watch said today.

The first U.S.-Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum, to be held
in Washington on October
29-30, is required by the AGOA, which
Congress passed in 2000. In letters addressed to Secretary of
State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Human
Rights Watch said the U.S. government had not used human rights criteria
contained in the legislation to improve human rights performance in the
beneficiary countries.

“The Congress created a useful tool for promoting human rights in
Africa, but the U.S. government
isn’t using it,” said Janet Fleischman, Washington Director for the
Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch does not take a position on whether or not particular
states should be eligible for benefits under the AGOA law. But the
legislation includes labor rights and human rights criteria, and
requires that beneficiary countries not “engage in gross violations of
internationally recognized human rights.”

Human Rights Watch cited several cases where the U.S. State Department
itself has documented abusive practices by recipient countries, but the
U.S. government has not made clear how those findings will affect trade
relationships with those countries, as the AGOA requires.

A copy of the letter is available at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/powellafrlet.htm.

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