AFSC Position on Trans Pacific Partnership

Five Quaker organizations from Europe and the United States have expressed concern about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the controversial ‘mega’ trade deal being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. 
It is the first time that Quaker organisations, working on both sides of the Atlantic, have spoken out together about such a trade treaty.

American Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Quaker Council for European Affairs, Quaker United Nations Office and Quaker Peace & Social Witness, have sent a statement to Prime Minister David Cameron, government representatives and trade officials. They say that TTIP negotiations are prioritising the prospect of short-term economic gain over the longer-term factors necessary to human wellbeing and protection of the Earth.

The statement comes in the context of building opposition to TTIP, as controversial, confidential negotiation documents were leaked into the public domain and the French government has warned that it is considering blocking the deal.

The Quakers say that TTIP will almost certainly hamper international commitments to tackle climate change and global poverty, including the recently agreed Paris Agreement on Climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Quakers are calling for a fundamental rethinking of global trade rules and for future trade deals to be aligned with the demands of these commitments. 

The Quakers also assert mechanisms such as the Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism or Investment Court System hand too much power to large companies, making them “fundamentally antidemocratic in nature and therefore unacceptable.”

“Protections for investors included in TTIP, such as the Investor State Dispute Settlement Mechanism, threaten members’ ability to enact policies to protect people and the environment,” said Kathryn Johnson, representative of the American Friends Service Committee. “This alone is reason enough to reject TTIP as we’ve seen how these mechanisms have been used to undermine environmental, health and other policies and extract billions of dollars from tax payers.”

The Quaker statement also highlighted concerns about the lack of transparency around the deal, the negotiations for which remain largely secret. “It is impossible for civil society groups to get meaningful information about the negotiations,” said Andrew Lane, Representative at the Quaker Council for European Affairs based in Brussels. “Even more disconcerting is the uncertainty about whether or not the national parliaments of EU countries will have adequate opportunity to scrutinise the deal.  If TTIP negotiations continue it’s vital that elected representatives have proper access to information and a genuine opportunity to reject the deal if they consider it to threaten the well-being of people, or the planet.”
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The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.

Notes to editors

·         Quakers are known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Their commitment to equality, justice, peace, simplicity and truth challenges them to seek positive social and legislative change.

·         Trade for well-being, not just for profit: A shared Quaker statement on TTIP and free trade agreements can be read in full at www.quaker.org.uk/trade 

·         The Quaker Council for European Affairs brings a Quaker vision of just relationships to the European Union and the Council of Europe. QCEA has worked on trade issues and TTIP since 2013, advocating for trade deals to prioritise the well-being of people and planet, above profit.

·         The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organisation that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. This work has included decades of grassroots education and advocacy for trade policies that place human dignity, economic justice, and environmental sustainability the heart of the global economy.

·         The Quaker United Nations Office works with the UN, multilateral organisations, government delegations, and non-governmental organisations, to address the interconnections between trade, investment, intellectual property rules and how they relate to poverty, hunger and food insecurity. QUNO engages with all stakeholders from small-scale farmers to trade negotiators, providing safe spaces to explore how the food system could be made to work for the whole of the world’s population.

·         Quaker Peace & Social Witness works with and on behalf of British Quakers to turn faith into action. It is a department of Quakers in Britain, whose representative body discussed TTIP in July and December 2015 concluding that it had “deep concerns about the impact of the proposed agreement”.

·         The Friends Committee on National Legislation is the nonpartisan Quaker lobby in the public interest, and works with the United States Congress to change government policies that perpetuate all forms of injustice. FCNL has worked within interfaith and multi-sectoral coalitions to highlight to elected officials the major environmental, human rights, and labour concerns with the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), TTIP, and other free trade agreements

·         Over 3 million people across Europe have already called on the EU and US governments to stop negotiating TTIP https://stop-ttip.org/

Poor Peoples Day and Dr King's Legacy

Today is a day to reflect on the legacy of Dr. King, and for many in Atlanta it's a day to retrace the great man's foot steps from Peachtree street, down Auburn avenues, all the way to Ebeneezer Baptist Church.

This year I had the extreme honor to March as a dignitary for the second year in a row and speak at the rally at Ebeneezer. Usually AFSC organizes an anti-war contingent in the march but this years mobilizing efforts went toward supporting the efforts of Occupy Our Homes Atlanta in building a large housing justice contingent in the march.

Knowing that I was to speak in the march I spent a great deal of the last few days thinking about what brief comments I might say from the stage. It my be a cliche, but Dr King's work and writing has done more to inspire my work and life direction then anything else.

This week I've been thinking a lot about poor peoples campaign, the last campaign Dr King organized. In November 1967 Dr King and the SCLC organized the campaign to address economic injustice and housing for the poor in the United States, the aim was to rebuild America's cities. The Poor Peoples Campaign didn't just focus on poor black people but addressed all poor people. Dr King labeled the campaign as "phase two" of the civil rights movement- setting goals like gathering activist to lobby Congress for an "Economic Bill of Rights", Dr King also saw an crying need to confront a Congress that demonstrated a hostility toward the poor yet provided an over abundance to the military industrial complex.

Under the "Economic Bill of Rights" the Poor Peoples Campaign asked for the federal government to prioritize helping the poor with an antipoverty package that included housing and a guaranteed annual income.

Martin Luther King Jr wanted to shut down Washington DC. Poor Peoples Campaign was to be the longest running protest in the nations capitol. Dr. King intended to dramatize the suffering of the nations poor by bringing them to the capitol. Poor people would live together on the national mall, between the capitol and the Lincoln memorial- and engage in widespread civil disobedience. King wanted to force the federal government to deal with poverty.

After Kings assassination the King family, along with the SCLC, decided to go on with the campaign to honor King. On May 12th, 1968, the first wave of protesters showed up. One week later Resurrection city was built on the Washington Mall, a settlement of tents and shacks to house protesters. Demonstrators were sent to various federal agencies to protest and spread the message of the campaign. Sadly the campaign lacked the leadership and momentum Kings involvement might have brought.

The combined setbacks of RFK's assassination, and a series of bad press further limited the campaign success. Failing to force a response from lawmakers, the poor peoples campaign closed camp on June 19th 1968.

It should come as no surprise that many veterans of the civil rights saw the Occupy movement as an extension of Dr King's work and legacy.