In case you missed our online 20th Birthday Party on Thursday Septemr 17, 2020.
We had lots of positive messages that it was a great celebration of our collective efforts for trade justice.
Please feel free to share.
The RCEP is a massive trade deal being negotiated in secret between Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, Japan and the ten-member countries of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations). The proposed RCEP would cover 2.2 billion people. India left the negotiations in November 2019, but may re-join before it is signed in late 2020.
We need to tell all political parties in the Senate not to agree to damaging clauses in the negotiations.
Sign the PETITION to the Senate against damaging clauses in the proposed RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) and in favour of enforceable workers' rights and environmental standards.
You can print a hard copy of the Petition here, and donate to the campaign here.
See more information, including a short printable flyer here, and a longer explainer here.
September 23, 2020: As former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott now advises the British government in its trade negotiations with the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, the trade unions from the three countries have issued a united call for decent work.
September 17, 2020: Reports on the Energy Charter Treaty process to ‘modernise’ continue to demonstrate entrenched opposition to efforts to make it support the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to less than 20C.
September 15, 2020: British trade Secretary Liz Truss and Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu agreed in principle on September 11 to a free trade agreement, the UK’s first major trade deal as an independent trading nation.
The UK sees this deal forming a pathway to further market access under the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Japan will support as part of the agreement.
September 10, 2020: The Energy Charter Treaty with its Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions has become a major obstacle to the Paris Climate Agreement, and current European efforts to reform it appear unlikely to succeed. EU parliamentarians are now calling for states to withdraw from it by the end of 2020.
September 8, 2020: A study published by Friends of the Earth Australia in May exposed a serious level of pesticide residues on foods imported into Australia in the period 2017-19. The data came from Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service monthly Failing Food Reports.
September 7, 2020: The Australian Greens have called for the Australia – Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on January 17, 2020, to be reviewed by a Senate Committee following the imposition by the central government in Beijing of the National Security Law, but the government and the Labor Opposition blocked the move.
September 3, 2020: The second-largest damages claim awarded to a foreign investor against a government was US$5.8 billion, in July 2019, to the Australian subsidiary of Tethyan Copper Company against the government of Pakistan. Canadian academic Kyla Tienhaara argued in an article in the Conversation that this Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) ruling demonstrated that the global economic governance model is broken.
September 1, 2020: A new report by the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute reveals a rush of international arbitration cases against Latin American states by international investors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some cases relate to pandemic control measures, and others to ongoing cases.