Internet shutdowns in Asia have become frequent and persistent, an ominous sign of shrinking public space for debate and discourse. The shutdowns have become an irresistible option for governments of all stripes and ideological affiliations. Democratic India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines are prodigious offenders. So are Asia’s more repressive regimes, notably China.

In their defence, governments have offered real and imagined threats to national security as reasons for shutting down the pipes. It is useful to examine these claims as well as to objectively frame the issue. Are internet shutdowns in Asia legitimate and can be defended and explained as threats to national security? Or should we take a broader approach where international law, norms, values, rights and indeed economic stability could be invoked to curb this invidious practice?

Let’s start with the shutdown in Kashmir, where Indian authorities clamped down on internet access for a straight 165 days, described by rights group Access Now as the ‘longest shutdown ever in a democracy’. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that the shutdown had huge economic costs, estimated at over £1.9 billion.

The economic cost of the continuing surveillance and shutdown in China’s Xinjiang province is likely to be higher. But India is a democracy and could be a role model, which is why the recent assertion of Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravishankar Prasad is worrying. He asserted in Parliament that the Indian citizen’s right to the internet was not a fundamental right. ‘While right of internet is important, security of the country is equally important…Can we deny (that) the internet is abused by terrorists…?’.

The minister’s primary defence of the shutdown – that the internet was being abused by terrorists and others to foment unrest – has some merit. Our starting point therefore is that big tech platforms should be doing a significantly better job in monitoring content and in removing material designed to provoke violence and hatred. This is the original sin and Asian governments are right to worry about messaging platforms, for example, becoming preferred channels for venom and hate speech.

To date, the big tech firms have made the right noises about monitoring and moderating content, but they have not gone far enough, providing governments with the excuse to routinely shut down access. To be blunt, self-regulation of the platforms is not working and tougher global regulation, enforcement and sanctions, possibly via the G20, would help.

At the same time, better policing of the platforms will not resolve the issue entirely because governments regard internet shutdowns as a useful way to restrict human rights and to consolidate political control and surveillance over citizens. The international community – including nation-states, NGOs and the private sector – needs to come together and embrace two overarching principles:

First, digital access is a fundamental human right and integrated into global declarations and norms.

Second, to protect fragmentation and Balkanization of the internet, the digital pipes which carry data across national boundaries should be embedded into international law as being part of the global commons (just like oceans are under maritime law). This would raise the bar on countries which frequently restrict digital access to their citizens.

Sensible though these recommendations might seem, it is obvious that many Asian governments would be loath to sign up to global declarations which would limit their policy options at home. There is an economic dimension to internet shutdowns, as the Kashmir case makes clear, which could be addressed by naming and shaming, just as the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force does for countries falling foul of money laundering regulations. Recommendations include:

• Digital access should be included in the UN’s Human Development Index.
• The World Bank’s closely followed Doing Business Index (DBI) should score countries favourably based on their commitment to offering unimpeded access to the internet. China and India watch the DBI rankings very closely and will be forced to pursue a more liberal approach if their rankings fall precipitously.
• Since internet shutdowns have a clear economic cost, particularly in payments and financial services, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should make an annual determination of member countries (as part of its surveillance mandate) of the impact of shutdowns on economic activity and financial stability.

Finally, all Asian governments have declared a public commitment to drive financial inclusion by providing digital access and identity to the poor and vulnerable. This mandate is at odds with frequent internet disruptions. A small vendor in Kashmir, Xinjiang or elsewhere in the region has limited or no recourse when the pipes are shut down. Central banks in the region need to step in by offering some level of protection, just like deposit insurance coverage.

It is clear that many of these recommendations would be rejected outright by many Asian governments. They regard internet shutdowns as part of their policy toolkit to deal with external and internal threats to national security. In pursuing such a rigid approach, governments are wilfully curbing their citizens’ space for debate and ignoring a much broader issue of rights to digital access.

Armed with a hammer, it is tempting for governments to regard the internet as a nail. The international community and citizens’ groups have an obligation to make such hammering very expensive.

Bangladesh's recent gains in economic and social indices, set against its record of corruption and poor civil rights, has at times been termed the ‘Bangladesh Paradox’. Yet this label is overly simplistic; the current situation proves that these trends can coexist.

The Awami League government, in power since 2009, has increased political stability, delivered unprecedented economic and social advances, and adopted a counter-terrorism strategy to stamp out extremist groups. At the same time, it is criticized for curbing civil rights and failing to hold credible elections. However, as the two previous regimes have demonstrated, the rights situation is unlikely to improve even if the Awami League were replaced.

How did worsening rights become a feature of the state irrespective of its political dispensation? An unresolved contest between political and non-political state actors may hold the key to that puzzle. The perils of the current dispensation have recently manifested in weakening economic indicators, which jeopardize the very stability and social progress for which the country has garnered much praise.

Does the Indonesian government adequately protect human rights?

It does and it does not; it really depends on the context. Indonesia looks good among its neighbours in Southeast Asia in terms of protection of civil and political rights, and to some extent economic, social and cultural rights, although room for improvements exists.

But one of the promises of the current president, Joko Widodo, during his 2014 campaign was about international criminal justice, which involves rights for many victims of past cases of human rights abuses in Indonesia. In that sense, it does not protect these rights, including the rights to justice, truth, reparations or guarantees of non-recurrence.

For example, in the case of the conflict over independence for East Timor in 1999, there were many gross violations of human rights. However, there has never been any sort of effective judicial process to address gross violations of human rights, and crimes against humanity in particular.

In 1965–66, during the government’s violent anti-communist operations, 500,000 people or more were killed. Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights was tasked with conducting an investigation into this period within its limited mandate, but it led to nothing; there have never been any prosecutions relating to these crimes.

The election promise of the current president was to deal with a number of these past human rights cases, and this promise has not been met at all. His opponent in 2014, Prabowo Subianto, was a former military general involved in alleged past human rights abuses, so it was politically expedient to make such a promise. But it has not been pursued in office.

In 2000, Indonesia established its own Human Rights Court. What is your assessment of its record?

Some human rights activists suggested that the establishment of the Human Rights Court took place under international pressure following the independence of East Timor. To avoid international scrutiny, for example the creation of an ad hoc international tribunal, the government established this court.

Based on the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor in 2000, it was indeed recommended that an international human rights tribunal be set up. Indonesian government rejected the proposal with strong assurances that it would provide justice for atrocities committed by its nationals. So it is fair for some to see the establishment of Indonesia’s Human Rights Court as a political move by the government at that time, in order to avoid scrutiny by the international community.

When it comes to performance, the Human Rights Court actually investigated and prosecuted cases relating to atrocities in East Timor. There were around 100 suspects identified, and 18 were put on trial. Out of these 18, only one trial, of Eurico Guterres, ended in a conviction for crimes against humanity. However, the Indonesian Supreme Court cleared Guterres of all charges in 2008. So the Human Rights Court did take steps, but the net result amounted to essentially nothing. Impunity remains.

So it has not lived up to its mandate, but there is another factor, which is that the founding law of the Human Rights Court does not accommodate international standards of criminal justice. It only covers two of the four categories of crime as outlined in the Rome Statute – crimes against humanity and genocide. It also does not provide adequate protection for victims and witnesses. So there are issues not only with the performance of the Human Rights Court but also with the legislation establishing it.

Why hasn’t Indonesia become a party to the Rome Statute to join the ICC?

The main opposition came from the military, because they were afraid of being targeted by the ICC. There was also a lot of discussion about Indonesia’s ‘sovereign right to prosecute’.

But what those opposing failed to understand is that the ICC is bound by temporal and territorial boundaries, meaning that it will not intervene if the state in question is able and willing to prosecute. So I think accession to the Rome Statute has not taken place because of this misunderstanding.

I think another factor since this was initially raised is there is a focus on other issues. Indonesia is an emerging country economically; there is a focus on building infrastructure. So many in government feel like they are done with the past. But for the millions of victims of past crimes and their families, the past is not done.

So it’s very important at this point in the country’s history to revisit the commitment to international criminal justice to be able to contribute to sustainable peace and development.

What steps could the Indonesian government take to improve how it handles these issues?

The establishment of the Human Rights Court was an important starting point, but clearly there has to be significant reform, both in terms of the substantive law underpinning it and its procedures.

Clearly the domestic laws need to be reformed, but also, an effort needs to be made to improve the courts capacity in terms of manpower and logistical support. This is why the government needs to restart the discussion about becoming a party to the Rome Statute. Through the outreach programme of the ICC, this would give the Human Rights Court the capacity, in terms of manpower and logistical support, to tackle past human rights violations in Indonesia, which the Human Rights Court is currently lacking.

Only if these two steps are taken – reforming the domestic Human Rights Court and restarting discussion about becoming a party to the Rome Statute – will the Indonesian government be able to say it has made progress on international criminal justice.

The Indonesian government is actually running for a seat on the UN Security Council for the period of 2019–20. So I think it is an urgent discussion that the Indonesian government needs to have before it makes another pledge to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security. It is difficult to have sustainable peace without justice.

The specific objectives were to:

• create a platform for Chinese international law academics working on international human rights law issues to present their thinking and exchange ideas with counterparts from outside China;
• build stronger understanding within the wider international law community of intellectual debates taking place in China about the international human rights system and China's role within it;
• support networking between Chinese and non-Chinese academics working on international human rights and related areas of international law.

The roundtable forms part of a wider Chatham House project exploring China's impact on the international human rights system and was inspired by early discussions with a burgeoning community of Chinese academics thinking, writing (mainly in Chinese) and teaching about international human rights law.

For China University of Political Science and Law, one of the largest and most prestigious law schools in China and perhaps the only university in the world with an entire faculty of international law, the initiative is part of a drive to forge partnerships beyond China in the international law field.

The roundtable had a total of 22 participants, 10 Chinese (from universities and other academic institutions in Beijing and Shanghai) and 12 non-Chinese (from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States).

All discussions were held in English under the Chatham House Rule.

The specific objectives were to:

• create a platform for Chinese international law academics working on international human rights law issues to present their thinking and exchange ideas with counterparts from outside China;
• build stronger understanding within the wider international law community of intellectual debates taking place in China about the international human rights system and China's role within it;
• support networking between Chinese and non-Chinese academics working on international human rights and related areas of international law.

The roundtable forms part of a wider Chatham House project exploring China's impact on the international human rights system and was inspired by early discussions with a burgeoning community of Chinese academics thinking, writing (mainly in Chinese) and teaching about international human rights law.

For CUPL, one of the largest and most prestigious law schools in China and perhaps the only university in the world with an entire faculty of international law, the initiative is part of a drive to forge partnerships beyond China in the international law field.

The meeting in Beijing was hosted by CUPL and involved 20 participants, 10 Chinese (from universities and other academic institutions in Beijing) and 10 non-Chinese (from Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States).

To ensure continuity while also expanding the experts network being built, the second meeting included a mix of participants from the first meeting and some new participants.

All discussions were held in English under the Chatham House Rule.

The specific objectives were to:

• create a platform for Chinese international law academics working on international human rights law issues to present their thinking and exchange ideas with counterparts from outside China;
• build stronger understanding within the wider international law community of intellectual debates taking place in China about the international human rights system and China's role within it;
• support networking between Chinese and non-Chinese academics working on international human rights and related areas of international law.

The roundtable forms part of a wider Chatham House project exploring China's impact on the international human rights system and was inspired by early discussions with a burgeoning community of Chinese academics thinking, writing (mainly in Chinese) and teaching about international human rights law.

For CUPL, one of the largest and most prestigious law schools in China and perhaps the only university in the world with an entire faculty of international law, the initiative is part of a drive to forge partnerships beyond China in the international law field.

The meeting in Geneva was co-hosted by the Graduate Institute Geneva and involved 19 participants, 9 Chinese (from six research institutions in Beijing and Shanghai) and 11 non-Chinese (from eight research institutions in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States).

To ensure continuity while also expanding the expert network being built, the third meeting included a mix of participants from the first two meetings and some new participants

All discussions were held in English under the Chatham House Rule.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrates its 70th anniversary against a backdrop of fractured global politics and the rise of nationalist forces that reject many of the values the Declaration espouses.

What strategies, tools and networks are civil society and other actors developing to adapt to this complex environment for human rights work?

And what role does the Declaration and the human rights treaties it has inspired play in shaping responses to current global challenges such as deepening inequality, new forms of technology and climate change?

There is growing attention to human rights in debates on economic inequality. In the UK, concerns about the disproportionate impact of economic policy on vulnerable groups have been raised recently by the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights – who issued a statement criticizing the Conservative government’s austerity policies – as well as in a report from the UK government’s independent Equality and Human Rights Commission. These reports echo global concerns about fiscal policies, poverty and extreme economic inequality.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which celebrates its 70th anniversary today – and the human rights treaties it inspired do not expressly address income and wealth gaps. But international human rights law is playing an increasing role in addressing economic polarization. Those concerned about inequality should consider how, especially over the past 25 years, the principles of socioeconomic rights have been clarified by courts and other human rights mechanisms. 

While the focus in the Global North has historically been on civil and political rights, such as the prohibition on torture or the right to fair trial, international human rights law does set out economic and social rights. For example, Article 23(4) of the Declaration – which is replicated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other treaties – calls for the right to collective bargaining in employment. Weakening protection in this area has been raised as a partial cause of the current escalation in income inequality. 

Human rights law also guarantees rights, including to education, healthcare and social security, that have redistributive potential and so have the potential to mitigate inequality.

Human rights law recognizes that fulfilment of economic and social rights, unlike civil and political rights, can be limited by the resources available to different states, and this conditionality – along with a lack of guidelines to assist with implementation and monitoring – has historically shielded fiscal policies from human rights scrutiny. However, attitudes have shifted.

For example, international human rights law has come to embody a commitment to tackling substantive inequalities which impair human dignity.  This requires the state regulate markets, and redistribute resources, in order to prevent discrimination against disadvantaged groups such as the poor. 

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other human rights bodies assert that states have an immediate obligation, even during times of resource constraint, to ensure the fulfilment, without discrimination, of the minimum essential levels of socioeconomic rights, for example essential subsistence and basic shelter. Thus, austerity measures that scale back the enjoyment of rights may breach human rights standards. In order to justify such measures, governments need to first demonstrate they have considered ‘less restrictive’ avenues, including taxation options.

Although the application of human rights standards to economic policy is an emerging area, human rights campaigners have been successfully leveraging these protections to address the causes and consequences of the inequality crisis. 

For example, in case No. 66/2011 the European Committee of Social Rights overturned austerity measures that would have brought wages under the poverty level, citing breaches of labour rights and protections against discrimination. In Brazil, a coalition of civil society actors successfully used human rights standards to legitimize their critiques of a 2008 tax reform bill that would have given additional tax breaks to the wealthy while withdrawing resources for social services.

Beyond legal enforcement, framing concerns within the architecture of human rights can shift power to rights-bearers and move debates on tackling extreme inequality from the policy sphere into one where the state has a duty for which it is accountable. While the state bears primary responsibility for realizing human rights, non-state actors such as businesses have responsibilities to respect human rights. Thus, human rights can also help communities to recast the scope of the crisis to one of shared responsibility.

While human rights have seen many normative developments and advocacy successes since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the last 70 years also offer several lessons and strategies to adopt going forward. 

As highlighted at a recent Chatham House event, the continued emphasis on civil and political rights in the discussion about human rights is at odds with the lived experience of individuals and communities worldwide, who may not feel their economic and material concerns are reflected in campaigns for human rights.

There will need to be a greater emphasis on adapting messaging to be more inclusive and to build alliances between disparate groups. Human rights analysis will also need to move beyond documenting the impact of systemic issues towards tackling root causes and creating a positive vision for economic inclusion and governance.

The idea that trade agreements should be subject to human rights impact assessment has been gathering momentum in recent years. This idea springs from concern – particularly on the part of trade unions and civil society organizations – that states are not presently doing enough to anticipate and address the human rights-related issues that arise from their trading arrangements with other countries.

This meeting will coincide with the launch of a research paper on human rights impact assessment by Dr Jennifer Zerk. It will bring together experts from law, trade policy, human rights impact assessment practice and civil society to take stock of progress so far and consider the future prospects for human rights impact assessment as a risk-analysis and policymaking tool in the trade context.  

The meeting will explore the key risks and benefits of the human rights impact assessment of trade agreements. What legal, political and practical challenges have been encountered so far? In what ways could communication, stakeholder consultation and follow-up of findings be improved? And what is needed to build political and stakeholder support for these kinds of processes?  

This meeting will be followed by a reception. 

With international trade discourse taking an increasingly transactional and sometimes belligerent tone, it would be easy to overlook the quiet revolution currently under way to bring new voices into trade policy development and monitoring. The traditional division of responsibilities between the executive and legislature – whereby treaties are negotiated and signed by the executive, and the legislature does what is necessary to implement them – may be undergoing some change.

Growing awareness of the implications of trade and investment treaties for many aspects of day-to-day life – food standards, employment opportunities, environmental quality, availability of medicines and data protection, just to name a few – is fuelling demands by people and businesses for more of a say in the way these rules are formulated and developed.

Various options for enhancing public and parliamentary scrutiny of trading proposals have recently been examined by two UK parliamentary select committees.[1] The reason for this interest is obviously Brexit, which has presented UK civil servants and parliamentarians with the unusual (some would say exciting) opportunity to design an approval and scrutiny process for trade agreements from scratch.

Doubtless, EU authorization, liaison and approval procedures (which include a scrutinizing role for the European Parliament) will be influential,[2] as will the European Commission’s experience with stakeholder engagement on trade issues.[3] The recommendations of both UK select committees to include human rights impact assessment processes as part of pre-negotiation preparations[4] echo calls from UN agencies and NGOs for more rigorous and timely analysis of the human rights risks that may be posed by new trading relationships.[5] Again, EU practice with what it terms ‘sustainability impact assessment’ of future trade agreements provides a potential model to draw from.[6] 

However, process is no substitute for action. Human rights impact assessment is never an end in itself; rather, it is a means to a positive end, in this case a trade agreement which is aligned with the trading partners’ respective human rights obligations and aspirations. It bears remembering, though, that the idea of assessing trade proposals for future human rights risks is a relatively recent one. Do we have the tools and resources to make sure that this is a meaningful compliance and risk management exercise?

Thus far there is little evidence that human rights impact assessment and stakeholder engagement exercises are having any real impact on the content of trade agreements.[7] This is the case even in the EU, where practice in these areas is the most advanced and systematic.[8]

There are several possible reasons for this. First, the methodological challenges are enormous. Aside from the crystal-ball gazing needed to forecast the social, economic and environmental effects of a trade intervention well into the future, demonstrating causal links between a trade agreement and a predicted adverse impact is often highly problematic given the number of other economic and political factors that may be in play.[9]

Secondly, there are many challenges around the need to engage with affected people and listen to their views.[10] The sheer number of possible impacts of a trade agreement on different individuals and communities, as well as the range of rights potentially engaged, makes this a difficult (some would say impossible) task. Some prioritization is always necessary.

This makes for difficult decisions about who to engage with and how. Perceived bias or an apparent lack of even-handedness – favouring business compared to civil society, for instance – can sow mistrust about the true aims of such a process, undermining its future effectiveness as participants begin to question whether it is genuine or worthwhile.[11]

The challenges are even more acute where impact assessment practitioners are tasked with investigating potential human rights impacts in other countries. Even if it is possible to get past the inevitable political sensitivities,[12] the sort of in-depth consultations required will be beyond the budget and time constraints of most assignments.[13]

There are good reasons why trade policy should be subject to greater public and parliamentary scrutiny, and why there should be more opportunities for public participation in the formation of new trading regimes. By building more opportunities for stakeholder consultation at these stages, we can acquire perspectives on trade that are not available from other forms of assessment and analysis.

However, policymakers should be wary of overstating the benefits of existing procedural models. Human rights impact assessment processes are still struggling to provide compelling analyses of the relationships between trade agreements and the enjoyment of human rights, let alone a roadmap for policymakers and trade negotiators as to what should be done.[14]

And financial and practical barriers to participation in stakeholder engagement exercises mean that, at best, these will provide only a partial picture of stakeholder impacts and views.

Experiences with human rights impact assessment of trade agreements so far demonstrate the need for realism about two things: first, the extent to which one can sensibly anticipate and analyse human rights-related risks and opportunities in the preparation stages for a new trading agreement; and, second, the extent to which problems identified in this way can be headed off with the right form of words in the treaty itself.

Both recent UK select committee reports place considerable faith in the ability of pre-project transparency and scrutiny processes to flush out potential problems and prescribe solutions. Of course, there may be cases where frontloading the analysis in this way could be useful, for instance where the human rights implications are so clear that they can readily be addressed through upfront commitments by the parties concerned, whether by bespoke or standardized approaches.

More often, though, for a trade agreement running many years into the future, human rights impacts and implications will take time to emerge, suggesting the need for robust monitoring and mitigation frameworks designed with longevity in mind. Ideally, pre-signing approval and assessment processes would lay the groundwork for future action by both trading partners, either jointly or separately (though preferably both).

To this end, as well as developing ideas for more robust substantive provisions on human rights, policymakers should consider the institutional arrangements required – whether pursuant to the trade agreement or by complementary processes – to ensure that human rights-related risks identified during the planning stages are properly and proactively followed up, that emerging risks are tackled in a timely fashion, and that there are opportunities for meaningful stakeholder contributions to these processes.

Notes

[1] UK Joint Committee on Human Rights (2019), ‘Human Rights Protections in International Agreements, Seventeenth Report of Session 2017–19’, HC 1833 HL paper 310, 12 March 2019, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201719/jtselect/jtrights/1833/1833.pdf; and House of Commons International Trade Committee (2018), ‘UK Trade Policy Transparency and Scrutiny, Sixth Report of Session 2017-2019’, HC 1043, 29 December 2018.

[2] European Parliament and Directorate General for External Policies (2019), Parliamentary scrutiny of trade policies across the western world, study paper, March 2019, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2019/603477/EXPO_STU(2019)603477_EN.pdf.

[3] European Commission (2019), ‘Trade policy and you’, http://ec.europa.eu/trade/trade-policy-and-you/index_en.htm.

[4] See UK Joint Committee on Human Rights (2019), ‘Human Rights Protections in International Agreements’, para 12; and House of Commons International Trade Committee (2018), ‘UK Trade Policy Transparency and Scrutiny’, paras 124–34.

[5] OHCHR (2003), Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Human Rights, Trade and Investment, 2 July 2003, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/9, Annex, at para 63; UN Economic and Social Council (2017), ‘General Comment No 24 (2017) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities’, UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/24, 10 August 2017, para 13; and UN General Assembly (2011), ‘Guiding principles on human rights impact assessment of trade and investment agreements’, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, UN Doc. A/HRC/19/59/Add.5, 19 December 2011.

[6] European Commission (2016), Handbook for Sustainability Impact Assessment (2nd ed.), Brussels: European Union, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2016/april/tradoc_154464.PDF.

[7] Zerk, J. (2019), Human Rights Impact Assessment of Trade Agreements, Chatham House Research Paper, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/human-rights-impact-assessment-trade-agreements.

[8] Ibid., pp. 11–13. For a detailed explanation of the EU’s approach to human rights impact assessment, see European Commission (2016), Handbook for Sustainability Impact Assessment.

[9] Zerk (2019), Human Rights Impact Assessment of Trade Agreements, pp. 14–21.

[10] Ibid., pp. 21–22.

[11] Ergon Associates (2011), Trade and Labour: Making effective use of trade sustainability impact assessments and monitoring mechanisms, Final Report to DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion European Commission, September 2011; and Gammage, C. (2010), ‘A Sustainability Impact Assessment of the Economic Partnership Agreements: Challenging the Participatory Process’, Law and Development Review, 3(1): pp. 107–34. For a civil society view, see Trade Justice Movement (undated), ‘Trade Justice Movement submission to the International Trade Committee inquiry into UK Trade Policy Transparency and Scrutiny’, https://www.tjm.org.uk/resources/briefings/tjm-submission-to-the-international-trade-committee-inquiry-into-uk-trade-policy-transparency-and-scrutiny, esp. paras 23–32.

[12] Zerk (2019), Human Rights Impact Assessment of Trade Agreements, pp. 20–21.

[13] Ibid., pp. 21–22.

[14] Ibid.

This essay was produced for the 2019 edition of Chatham House Expert Perspectives – our annual survey of risks and opportunities in global affairs – in which our researchers identify areas where the current sets of rules, institutions and mechanisms for peaceful international cooperation are falling short, and present ideas for reform and modernization.