The EU wants to make adherence to environmental standards a condition for trade agreement with Brazil. Thus, the government is under pressure to fight the fires in the Amazon rain forest to be effective.
17 Chapter covers the free trade agreement between the EU and the South American trade Alliance, Mercosur. In June of 2019 it has not been signed, it is ratified it yet. For the largest round of discussions, a section in which it is not about trade or customs regulations, but criteria on sustainable development and environmental protection provides.
The EU countries use the Treaty to pressure on Brazil to exercise. You want to bring President Jair Bolsonaro to take concrete political measures against the illegal clearing of the rain forest and to fight the forest fires in the Amazon area.
Federal agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner has raised in this context, serious allegations against Brazil. With the conclusion of the EU-Mercosur agreement, the country had a sustainable forest management well-known: “If the country fails to meet this obligation, we will not sit by passively,” she said last week, the daily newspaper “The world”. Klöckner also brought the possibility to the game, in the free trade agreements already agreed upon Tariff concessions to take back.
Ireland’s Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar announced to not only vote against the free trade agreement, if Bolsonaro fails to meet his obligations towards the environment. The President of France Emmanuel Macron said the same thing and triggered violent reactions in Brasília: Bolsonaro rejected the relief Fund, the Macron him, in the name of the G7 countries had offered, as an attack on the sovereignty of his country. Nevertheless, the Brazilian head of state gave in to the pressure and ordered its armed forces, fire-fighting in the Amazon to participate.
Brazil’s President Bolsonaro consults with his Cabinet, protective measures for the rainforest
What is in the Text of the Mercosur on the environment?
In the sustainable development Chapter of the agreement between the EU and Mercosur, it does not mean that the Contracting States use their environmental protection legislation softening, in order to promote trade and investment. The Text also stipulates that the countries must acknowledge the importance of sustainable forestry and the measures to combat illegal logging and timber trade to take. In addition, the agreement reaffirms that all governments should implement the Paris climate agreement, the targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions sets.
At the same time is regulated, that, for example, formal queries, or expert panels may be convened, in order to convey, if one or more countries assume that a state’s compliance with its obligations in the protection of the environment. A state should fail intentionally, to mobilize the fire Department, or team to prevent illegal logging, to roughly boost the economy of a Region, then this would be a case for this mediation mechanisms.
Grey areas and the burden of proof
The agreement therefore provides that the contract can call for partners the protection of the environment from each other. It is also significant grey areas on the way, but, says Werner-gray, a Partner of the Brazilian law firm Pinheiro Neto, which is specializing in environmental law. No country or country-block could compel a state to specific laws or policies. Especially since the Text leaves open how such rules would be implemented. Moreover, it would be extremely difficult for the government to prove that it bypasses environmental laws deliberately, in order to gain and / or economic benefits.
So there will be no evidence that in the case of the forest fires in the Amazon measures, or exposed to, have been delayed, explained the lawyer: “There is already a group that wants to sue Brazil before the International court of justice, because the Land is guilty of an ‘Ecocide’. But where is the evidence that the Brazilian government has placed the fire knowingly or are allowed to?” It is not enough to claim, on the basis of a series of forest fires that the state protects the rain forest is sufficient.
Umweltr activists protest in front of the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin
With a view to such accusations, calls for grey to take into account the Situation of the common and different responsibilities: “In Brazil, the largest protected area in the world. No other country has to control such a large area as we are. If there are defects, we must not discuss international relief efforts that threaten our sovereignty.”
Environmental regulations with effect
Rabih Nasser, trade expert of the “Getúlio Vargas Foundation” in São Paulo, believes that the environmental requirements are more than “mere rhetoric”. Nasser, according to the inclusion of a conflict resolution mechanism in the area of sustainable development show the importance that will be assigned this topic. You have come to the conclusion that a country of the EU or Mercosur countries have violated a rule, can be sanctioned in this country by means of trade barriers.
Nasser believes that no one would like to compel Brazil to specific environmental measures, “but a country can’t ignore the rules of the agreement, to carry without the risk of losing the benefits of this Treaty – the most important ever signed by the Mercosur.”
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