UNITED STATES-PARAGUAY: Trade Off

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Carlos Montero

ASUNCION, Nov 12 1998 (IPS) - Paraguay has dropped a lawsuit against the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the execution of a Paraguayan and expects in return to be removed from Washington’s piracy blacklist, government officials said here.

Sources with the Paraguayan government pointed out to IPS the link between trade talks that ended Nov. 11 and the withdrawal of the lawsuit which Paraguay had brought before the ICJ in The Hague for the Apr. 14 execution, without proper safeguards, of Paraguayan citizen Angel Breard.

The United States had warned Paraguay in January that it had until August to resolve problems that threatened to lead to its relegation to the category of worst violators of intellectual property rights if it wanted to avoid trade sanctions.

Two days after taking office in August, President Raul Cubas obtained a three-month extension of the deadline for implementing a policy for cracking down on piracy.

The U.S. Department of State is to announce its decision next Monday on whether Paraguay will be struck off the blacklist .

Paraguayan Foreign Minister Dido Florentin said Wednesday on his return from the United States, where he met with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, that “in the past three months, 48 percent more pirated products were seized than in the five previous years”.

Florentin said he was confident Paraguay would be excluded from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s list of countries that cooperate the least in fighting the illegal copying of brand-name goods and copyright material.

Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs, Miguel Angel Britos, said on his return to Asuncion that “there are signs that we’ve been excluded” from the black list.

If Paraguay is included in the list, it stands to lose tariff privileges.

Britos said Paraguay’s probable exclusion from the list “has nothing to do with the government’s withdrawal of the lawsuit against the United States in the Hague court for violation of the Vienna Convention.”

The Bill Clinton administration apologised for the execution of Breard, of whose arrest on rape and murder charges the Paraguayan consulate was notified two years after the fact.

It was for that reason that all 15 members of the ICJ had urged the suspension of his execution and a new trial under the safeguards established by international treaties.

On Nov. 3, the U.S. lt him. Nor did he agree with Foreign Minister Florentin’s praise of “the courage of the U.S. government in admitting an error.”

Gorostiaga said Breard’s death could have been avoided, and that his family could now sue for an indemnity. Anegal proceedings agreement with the Paraguayan Foreign Ministry, which in a Nov. 4 communique stated that it considered that its demands had been met.

The very same day, Asuncion withdrew the suit brought before the ICJ on Oct. 21, thus saving the United States from a sure verdict against it, scheduled to be handed down in April 1999.

Beard’s chief defence counsel Jose Emilio Gorostiaga, took issue with the decision taken by the Paraguayan government, which had failed to consult him. Nor did he agree with Foreign Minister Florentin’s praise of “the courage of the U.S. government in admitting an error.”

Gorostiaga said Breard’s death could have been avoided, and that his family could now sue for an indemnity. Anegal proceedings were filed.

Ministry of Industry and Trade Gerardo Von Glassenapp, who had previously called on people to “pray” to ward off the imminent trade sanctions, described Paraguay’s removal from the black list as the greatest achievement of the Cubas administration in its first three months in office.

The original August deadline for Paraguay to effectively crack down on piracy was set by U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky back in January, in response to demands by industrialists who claim they lose 100 million dollars a year due to counterfeiting in Paraguay.

The U.S. Department of Commerce expects visible and firm actions by Asuncion in resolving the problem of inadequate enforcement of controls along its borders with Argentina and Brazil, in view of “alarming” levels of piracy and falsification, Barshefsky said at the time.

In the past few days, the U.S. Embassy has been pressuring the Paraguayan Ministry of Industry and Commerce to complete the draft of an anti-piracy agreement.