Thomas Ruddy sought a clarification of the relationship between the
Sustainability
Impact
Assessment (SIA) process and the Commission-wide
Impact Assessment process for a paper he is writing. Such a
clarification is to be found in the Commission's brand-new Handbook for Trade Sustainability
Impact Assessment on page 11, of which hardcopies were presented
at the meeting.
Furthermore
University of
Manchester contractor Colin Fitzgerald explained the criteria by which
he "assesses the impact" of an impact assessment:
outputs/outcomes and impacts. They were similar to the criteria upon
which for Thomas Ruddy's study will be based:
the first level is: to what
degree
are
results of the IA reflected in practice, the controversial issue of
the degree to which negotiators take IAs into account in their work; and
the second level examined
is: to
what degree
does or would, as the case may be, the practical application of the IA
serve
sustainable development.
French trade minister Christine Lagarde went to the European Parliament
to defend her stance on the slow reform of the Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) that she has imposed on Mandelson, as reported on EU Politix.
University of
Manchester co-contractor Clive George made the provocative suggestion
that rather than an environment chapter in a trade agreement, we need a
trade chapter in a sustainable development agreement. Thomas Ruddy
suggested further in the discussion that conference participants might
investigate the link between the SIA and the EU Sustainable Development
Strategy (SDS) being debated next door at the European Economic and
Social Committee ESC before the Spring Council Meeting to begin
tomorrow.
In the Commission's Handbook for Trade Sustainability
Impact Assessment,
Rupert Schlegelmilch had suggested establishing a "framework" or
toolkit, but "not a one-size-fits-all methodology", between
the Commission and multilateral organizations working on IA (page 40).
Rupert Schlegelmilch reported that the Chinese representative to the
event, Hu Tao from SEPA, confirmed that China too is beginning to apply
SIA to its trade policy-making.
The idea of an international framework apparently enjoys support from
UNEP, as UNEP officials Husein Abaza (Geneva) and Charles Arden-Clarke
(Paris) described in a final synthesis panel, and as
documented
in this UNEP note
mentioning these Websites, www.iied.org/Gov/spa
and www.seataskteam.net
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