WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A U.S. court ruled this week the U.S. government must disclose more about its negotiation of a recent bilateral free trade agreement with Chile.
In a move that could increase public disclosure in future U.S. trade talks, a judge at the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., ruled the U.S. Trade Representative's office should release all but a few highly sensitive documents relating to inter-government exchanges during nearly two years of negotiation of the Chile agreement.
The agreement was struck Dec. 11, but still needs Congressional ratification.
Environmental groups that brought the case welcomed most of the judge's findings.
"This ruling raised the bar for transparency in future free trade negotiations like the Free Trade Area of the Americas," said Martin Wagner, director of international programs for Earthjustice.
Tuesday's ruling by Judge Paul Friedman calls for most of the documents the environmental groups were seeking to be released, rejecting a key element of the USTR's defense.
"Chile is an independent party promoting its own interests, whose communications with the USTR necessarily fall beyond the scope of Exemption 5," Friedman's ruling says. The USTR had claimed Exemption 5 under the Freedom of Information Act, which lets the government keep confidential "deliberative" documents circulating within or among government agencies.
However, the judge found the USTR could claim FOIA's Exemption 1, which lets the government withhold documents classified as sensitive to national security or foreign policy.
In the case of the Chile trade talks, those documents include several on the controversial issue of foreign investment rules and procedures. USTR officials said releasing such documents could expose interagency rivalries and weaken the U.S. negotiating stance.
Environmentalists are particularly concerned about dispute-resolution mechanisms for investment disputes akin to supranational arbitration tribunals under the North American Free Trade Agreement. They argue secretive tribunals can penalize country's for enforcing environmental regulations that restrict foreign investors.
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