The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) is a network of community organisations and individuals that has campaigned since 2000 for a fairer and more democratic global trade system, based on human rights and environmental sustainability.

Our successes include:

• Pressuring government to publish previously secret information about trade negotiations, enabling community groups to debate them.

• Raising awareness of the social impacts of trade agreements through community education, submissions to government and media debate.

• Reducing public support for the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) from 65% to 34%.

• Defeating some of the worst proposals in the AUSFTA, like threats to GM food labeling, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and giving corporations the right to sue governments over trade agreement rules.

• Being part of global campaigns that  defeated harmful proposals in the World Trade Organisation.

• Influencing the Productivity Commission 2010 report on Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements, which recommended against giving corporations the right to sue governments in trade agreements, against giving pharmaceutical companies more intellectual property rights in order to charge higher prices for medicines.

• Influencing government trade policy announced in 2011, which rejected the right of corporations to sue governments in trade agreements,  adopted  the Productivity Commission recommendations not to extend intellectual property rights, and pledged to preserve the right of governments to regulate the price of medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.