Comments on: GSP Plus: Minding our business

By: undergroundview

undergroundview — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:02:08 +0000

You can look at GSP+ in both ways, of course, but it’s not so much an instrument of control as a concession given by the EU to disadvantaged or vulnerable economies, which also uphold certain principles of good government. The Government of Sri Lanka was one of the governments that received this access.

Whether the country continues to benefit depends on whether they implement the following international accords and agreements:

Conventions on Human and Labour rights – all must be ratified and effectively implemented for GSP Plus to apply:
* International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
* International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights
* International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
* Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
* Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
* Convention on the Rights of the Child
* Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
* Minimum Age for Admission to Employment (NÂ° 138)
* Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (NÂ° 182)
* Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (NÂ° 105)
* Forced Compulsory Labour Convention (NÂ° 29)
* Equal Remuneration of Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value Convention (NÂ° 100)
* Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation Convention (NÂ° 111)
* Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (NÂ° 87)
* Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively Convention (NÂ° 98)
* International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid

There are also some rules on the environment and so forth – but these don’t seem to be in dispute. (If you need more information, see this EU web page ).

These really don’t seem to be bad things, and it is in no sense a punishment for a country or its people to have such rules and mechanisms to protect its citizens.

The EU is under no obligation to give Sri Lanka preferential access to its markets – if the price of such access is simply a few principles of human rights and good governance, why should that be a problem?

Do we want inequality and discrimination?

By: iman

iman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:17:40 +0000

1. GSP+ is also a way by EU to conrol countries. and SL is in the set of countries that are now figting between economic need and soverign independence. -econonomical manupilation
2. also, it is to some extetnt a non- market solution. if SL was actually competitive it, wont have to depend on this kind of subsidiations. (open market theories would be against this ……)
3. GSP+ can be reapplied for around June 2010. so if SL doesnt get it, it can try again….
4. Question – even if the report was stating that SL have complied? can the EU conucil vote SL out of GSP+.
5. one day, when your status changes – we will anyway move out of GSP+.

By: Panglossian re-interpretations a la Dayan

Panglossian re-interpretations a la Dayan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:16:37 +0000

The only people who are responsible for the the loss of the GSP+ are those in power in the government of Sri Lanka.

They will be immune to the sting of the economic blow that this loss to the country represents, sitting fat and pretty up at Temple Trees. They will not suffer the job losses and financial insecurity of the garment worker. Just as they do not suffer the heat of the camps of the IDPs. Just as they do not suffer the lost pension of the “deserting” soldier, or the limbs lost of the foot soldier. Just as they didn’t suffer the bombs and horror of the “zero casualty” civilians. Just as they do not suffer the fate of the displaced muslims of Puttalam.

How cowed, how foolish this country is, to buy this story and then pay for it with their own blood and livelihoods. To fall for this trick. To take a slap in the face over and over again for these corpulent and virulent leaders of theirs, thinking that they are suffering for the greater good of the country. To swallow their pathetic, childish rhetoric. Blame civil society for holding up a torch to merely show what has been happening instead? A diversion; a red-herring of the greatest order.

If Sri Lanka wants the GoSL to beg for EU pennies on their behalf – go to the seat of power and ask your wise leaders to take the hit themselves, to suffer the consequences of an investigation, to potentially lose their US Green cards. If Mahinda will face a war crimes tribunal proudly for the rest of us, like the great King that he is – let him do it so that the rest of the country doesn’t have take the heat for his appalling decisions over the last year. I don’t want to throw my life down to protect his post, to protect his many bank accounts, to protect his spoilt, fat little son who gets to go to military college in the UK while the poor in the south scrape by.

There is a way to pull Sri Lanka out of this mess, and it’s not by getting civil society to lie and censor themselves in fear about what’s happening in this country.