Investor-State Dispute Settlement
January 9, 2018: A working group of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) recently held talks to discuss current concerns about the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) scheme, and possible reforms. UNICTRAL is one of the two bodies which provides panels of investment law arbitrators for ISDS disputes.
November 6, 2017 “The Australian Government should oppose foreign investor rights to sue governments in the talks attempting to resurrect the TPP without the US later this week,” AFTINET Convener Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
The talks will take place in da Nang, Vietnam on November 8-9, ahead of the APEC meeting to be held on November 10.
3 May 2017: Amendments to the 2003 Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement were tabled in Parliament on March 20 and are being reviewed by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. The problem with the amendments is that they largely reflect the text of the TPP,Including increases in temporary workers, removal of labour market testing for temporary workers and expansion of state government procurement commitments.
The TPP-11 still includes rights for foreign investors to sue governments for millions of dollars in international tribunals if they can argue that a change in domestic law or policy at national, state or local level will ‘harm’ their investment, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
April 8, 2014: This opinion piece by AFTINET's Convener, Dr Patricia Ranald, explains why it is so important that ISDS provisions allowing foreign investors to sue governments was not included in the Japan-Australia FTA.
Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Martin claims that the Free Trade Agreement with Japan announced yesterday does not include the controversial investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism.
08/04/2014