Submissions on ISDS to Korea FTA Senate inquiry

The proposed Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement (KAFTA) was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and report on March 27, 2014, by the Shadow Spokesperson for Trade, Senator Penny Wong.

AFTINET is particularly concerned about the inclusion of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in this agreement. Including ISDS in KAFTA means that Korean investors will be able to sue our governments if they adopt laws or policies that could ‘harm’ their investment. It is claimed that “safeguards” in the agreement will protect environmental or public health polices from being subject to ISDS, but these same safeguards have not been effective in other agreements.

AFTINET has made a submission to the inquiry and we are encouraging our members and supporters to make a submission calling for a rejection of KAFTA on the basis that it includes ISDS provisions. We have drafted a document containing some key points on why ISDS should not be included in the agreement.

You can use the submission you made to the Senate inquiry on ISDS with slight changes to refer to the Korea FTA.

The text of KAFTA is available on the DFAT website.

Submissions should be submitted online at: https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/pages/index.aspx or sent by email to fadt.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached PDF or Word document. You must include your full postal address and contact details.