Job Vacancy –Trade Justice Analyst/Campaigner

February 13, 2019: Chakravarthi Raghavan, an esteemed author of several books on the WTO, and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, former United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development, have issued a sharp warning to developing countries about the e-commerce initiative recently launched at Davos by a group of rich country governments, including Australia.

February 10, 2019:  AFTINET's submission to the JSCOT Inquiry on Australia joining the WTO Government Procurement Agreement argues that the government has not presented any independent assessment of the costs and benefits of Australia joining the agreement, that would justify Australia's accession.

Chinese and US trade negotiators meet in Washington again next week to try to reach an agreement to avoid a massively escalated tariff war from March 1. Without a deal, US punitive tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese imports will go up from 10 per cent to 25 per cent, and China is likely to respond in kind. The US is blocking appointments to the World Trade Organisation appeals body, and threatening to leave the 164-member WTO.

February 4, 2019: US mining company Kappes, Cassiday & Associates’ (KCA) made a US$300 million arbitration claim last December against Guatemala to the World Bank´s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) over alleged violations of the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR).

January 31, 2019: The Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), a grand alliance of seventy-five US and EU consumer organisations, has issued a strong critical statement about the intention of 76 WTO member governments to negotiate binding rules for e-commerce that would not protect consumer rights.

January 29, 2019: The elite business and government World Economic Forum meeting last week was a perfect setting for Australia and 70 other mostly industrialised country governments to announce exclusive plans for an e-commerce trade deal that was rejected after fierce debate by the majority of the 164 WTO members who met in Argentina in December.

January 23, 2019: Yesterday the ABC reported that Clive Palmer has moved ownership of his company to New Zealand, claimed to be an NZ company, and threatened to use an Australia-New Zealand trade agreement to sue Australian taxpayers for $45 billion because he claims the Western Australian government intends to pass legislation that would disadvantage his company.

January 22, 2019: The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union President Andrew Dettmer yesterday welcomed the announcement of an ALP national procurement policy that will enable Commonwealth government purchasing of $50 billion per year. He said it would create more local manufacturing jobs and training in regional Australia, and congratulated union members who campaigned for the policy.