ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Commerce has taken all-out measures to ensure implementation of all international treaties.
In this regard, the ministry from time to time takes up the issue with the quarters concerned and relevant forums; both domestic and international.
“The GSP-Plus scheme is a special incentive arrangement for good governance and sustainable development under which duty-free access to the European Union markets is granted to a few developing countries selected on the basis of objective criteria,” a well-placed source at the ministry told this scribe.
One of the criteria is that the applicant country must ratify and implement 27 international United Nations conventions pertaining to human rights, labour rights, narcotics control, climate change and good governance, and implementation of most of these obligations now rests with provinces after the devolution process.
As per the recommendations of the ministry, the federal government is taking all necessary steps to fulfil commitments regarding implementation of the said conventions. The prime minister has set up a Treaty Implementation Cell (TIC) with mandate and objectives that include overseeing the formulation of an effective mechanism in consultation with all provincial governments and relevant federal ministries and attached departments to enable the provincial governments as well as the federal agencies concerned for effective implementations of the ratified conventions.
Another objective and mandate of the TIC is to develop identical protocols for implementation which can work as effective tools for provincial and federal governments to regularly document the progress made.
The third objective is to help and guide the provincial governments for formulation of templates which can provide for reporting in prescribed and tabulated formats and generation of reports on compliance, in line with the international best practices.
The TIC coordinates among all stakeholders in four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to take necessary administrative action for implementation.
