Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

The United States and European Union have entered into negotiations to establish a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – a free trade agreement between the US and EU. CIEL has established itself as a leading advocate for transparency in the ongoing TTIP negotiations which have thus far been characterized by a lack of transparency, reinforcing concerns that any resulting agreement will undermine public interests, such as the right to a healthy environment.

While TTIP could—in theory—offer an opportunity to elevate regulations in the US and the EU, experience with other trade agreements, industry submissions on TTIP, and the two parties’ explicit goal of reducing perceived regulatory barriers to trade make it far more likely that TTIP will hinder progress on environmental, health and safety standards around the world. Of particular concern is the risk that TTIP will be used to weaken the stronger standards for chemicals management that exist and are being developed in the EU and in some US states, rather than to raise US national standards to achieve higher levels of protection.

To reduce the likelihood that TTIP will hinder important public health and safety goals related to chemicals, TTIP:

• must ensure that both the EU and U.S. retain the right to determine their own levels of protection for people, wildlife and the environment, and to develop measures as they see fit;
• must not include provisions for investor-state dispute resolution;
• should not provide authority to the Regulatory Cooperation Council or equivalent oversight group for the chemicals sector and other sensitive sectors;
• should not include provisions for mutual recognition for the chemicals sector and other sensitive sectors;
• should not impede the rights of states and local governments, or of governments outside the United States and E.U., to adopt new health and environmental initiatives, including their right to choose higher levels of protection for their citizens;
• should not impede regulatory efforts to address emerging issues of concern, such as endocrine disrupting chemicals, nanotechnologies, or hydraulic fracturing;
• should be negotiated in a single undertaking; and
• must be negotiated in an open, transparent and participatory manner that safeguards the universal and fundamental public interest in the outcomes of the negotiations.

 

Press Releases

• TTIP Poised to Gut US States’ Ability to Protect on Toxic Chemicals (September 2015)
• European Parliament’s TTIP Vote A Step Backward for Public Health (July 2015)
• CIEL President & CEO Carroll Muffett responds to Fast Track vote in US House of Representatives (June 2015)
• Statement by CIEL President & CEO Carroll Muffett on the Blocked “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority Bill (May 2015)
• TTIP leak: EU proposal undermines democratic values (April 2015)
• Lowest Common Denominator: EU-US trade deal threatens to lower standards of protection from toxic pesticides (January 2015)
• CIEL Statement on release of TTIP chemicals documents by European Commission (November 2014)
• Leaked TTIP draft for chemicals sector reveals a toxic partnership (October 2014)
• TTIP crosses the line on toxic chemicals for 111 NGOs (July 2014)
• Proposed Plans for US/EU Trade Deal Would Weaken Health, Consumer, Worker, Environmental Protections (May 2014)
• Chemical industry secretly manipulating US-EU trade negotiations (March 2014)

Fact Sheets

“T” for Toxic? Seven things everyone should know about the EU-US trade negotiations (aka “TTIP” or TAFTA”) and chemical regulation (February 2014):

• US Version
• EU Version – English
• EU Version – Francais
• EU Version – Espanol
• EU Version – Portugues

Related Blogs & Editorials

• US States’ ability to protect from toxic chemicals under attack on two fronts (October 2015)
• European Parliament Takes a Stand to Protect REACH (September 2015)
• Crying Wolf on Chemical Reform (March 2015)
• Lowest Common Denominator (January 2015)
• Where’s your seat at the table? (January 2015)
• EU holds public consultations on TTIP investment chapter (May 2014)
• TTIP means trading away better regulation (March 2014)
• Chemical Lobby proposes to reinvent and duplicate OECD Chemicals Program (March 2014)
• Setting the record straight on TTIP? Yes, let’s. (March 2014)
• The truth about the EU’s proposal on regulatory coherence (December 2013)
• The Trans-Atlantic Regulatory Agreement (December 2013)
• Fracking Dispute Under NAFTA Highlights Potential Pitfalls of EU-US Trade Agreement (October 2013)

Sign-On Letters

• Letter to Mr.Bernd Lange, Member of the European Parliament, over concerns that TTIP could weaken current public health and environment standards for toxic chemicals and impede the development of new standards (May 2015)
• Letter by 111 Organizations demanding exclusion of chemicals from TTIP negotiations (July 2014)
• Civil society organizations express concerns over proposals for “regulatory cooperation” between the United States and European Union under the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (May 2014)
• Opposition to the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (December 2013)

Testimony

• Comments submitted on behalf of ClientEarth, CHEMTrust, Friends of the Earth US, NRDC, Sierra Club and CIEL on the scope of United States Trade Representative’s environmental review of TTIP regarding chemicals and regulatory coherence (September 2014)
• Proposed Plans for US/EU Trade Deal Would Weaken Health, Consumer, Worker, Environmental Protections (May 2014)
• CIEL Statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, hearing on the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Achieving the Potential” (October 2013)
• CIEL to Testify Before US House Committee on Energy & Commerce on Health and Environmental Risks of US-EU Free Trade Agreement (July 2013)
• Statement and oral testimony of Carroll Muffett, President and CEO, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), as delivered to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommitee on Manufacturing Commerce and Trade (July 2013)

Last updated September 2015