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News from the movements

“Free trade deal”, what? Chinese sue Australia over Darwin Port
6-May-2026 Michael West Media
The Chinese owner of Darwin Port suing the Australian government shows why ‘free trade’ deals must not include investor rights to sue governments (ISDS).
EFTA–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement: The climate implications for Switzerland
5-May-2026 Public Eye
Une nouvelle étude d’Alliance Sud et Public Eye montre que les émissions de CO2e liées à l’accord pourraient augmenter de 112 % rien que pour les produits agricoles.
Fossil fuel phase-out conference: governments cite ISDS as a barrier to just transition
5-May-2026 AFTINET
Australia and 56 other governments, representing around one third of global GDP, met last week in Santa Marta, Colombia, and agreed to map out practical ways to phase out fossil fuels at the first global diplomatic forum to assess practical steps to do so.
Resisting Big Tech empires (and their trade rules)
30-Apr-2026 bilaterals.org
A clear message emerged from a recent conference: digital trade rules are entrenching Big Tech’s power grab over the digital economy. Those rules must be resisted.
10 key takeaways on the India NZ FTA
30-Apr-2026
The resulting agreement is a short-term political trophy because it was negotiated under a shield of secrecy and spun by supporters before anyone had access to the text. Now we can analyse the detail, the downsides of the deal are laid bare.
Scrap India-New Zealand FTA – An onslaught on Indian agriculture
29-Apr-2026 All India Kisan Sabha
By signing the Free Trade Agreement with New Zealand, the Indian government has surrendered the interests of farmers before the demands of global finance.
The IP laws that stop disenshittification
29-Apr-2026 Jacobin
Laws included in trade deals protect US companies’ rent extraction schemes and stop us from fixing or improving our own devices — from phones and tractors to insulin pumps. Repealing them will save billions and hit Trump’s donor class.
Letter to the Government of Colombia and President Gustavo Petro Urrego
28-Apr-2026 Institute for Policy Studies
A new multi-organization letter to Petro and his government urges them to take the Santa Marta Conference as an opportunity to reject free trade agreements and investment protects systems that put profiteers over communities.
Trade deal with US harming farmers’ interests, says AIKS leader
27-Apr-2026 The Hindu
All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) president Ashok Dhawale has alleged that India’s trade agreements with the United States have turned into a curse for farmers, severely impacting the agricultural sector. The trade deals had weakened domestic agriculture, while rising input costs such as fertilizers, pesticides, diesel, and seeds made farming increasingly unviable.
Rethinking global trade in a time of geopolitical tensions
24-Apr-2026 Nyeleni
Countries and social movements are rising to demand a renewal of genuine multilateralism—one based on cooperation rather than oppression, and on participatory democracy rather than opaque representation.
ISDS is a threat to our collective future
24-Apr-2026 European Trade Justice Coalition
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) threatens a just transition from fossil fuels and the urgent need for a social and ecological transformation for people and the planet.
European ISDS Scorecard
22-Apr-2026 Power Shift
The European ISDS Scorecard ranks 30 European countries across 10 indicators that capture the scale of each country’s treaty network, its policy direction, and the real-world use and financial impact of ISDS by its investors.
Investor protection blocking climate action
16-Apr-2026 SOMO
From 24-29 April 2026, Colombia and the Netherlands are co-hosting the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta. The goal is urgent and widely shared: to accelerate a just and orderly phase-out of coal, oil and gas.
The EU-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Investment Protection Agreements
15-Apr-2026 Fern
The EU-Indonesia CEPA and IPA aimed to enhance trade and investment while promoting "sustainable" palm oil. However, reduced tariffs on forest-risk commodities and lack of community safeguards highlight the urgent need for strict enforcement of EU due diligence regulations to protect forests and local communities.
Europe must address ISDS as a systemic barrier to a just transition
14-Apr-2026 CAN Europe
Current discussions around fossil fuel phase-out create a key opportunity to make progress on addressing this barrier. Civil society organisations are calling on European governments to explore and act on collectively disengaging from ISDS.
Australia-EU FTA text only partly released: some positives but full analysis after full text released in September
14-Apr-2026 AFTINET
The general framework of the agreement is to remove tariffs and minimise regulation for business, with exceptions intended to preserve government rights to regulate in key areas.
Statement from the Stop ISDS campaign to the government of President Gustavo Petro
13-Apr-2026 Stop ISDS campaign
Members of the “Stop ISDS” campaign express our support for Colombian government’s announcement on March 26, 2026, regarding Colombia’s withdrawal from the investment arbitration regime to protect transnational investors.
Colombia leads global south countries’ exit from ISDS
10-Apr-2026 PSI
Colombia’s president has announced that the country will exit the International Investment Arbitration System (ISDS). This comes in the wake of an ongoing effort against ISDS and for the exit of countries in the Global South from these mechanisms.
The e-commerce plurilateral reveals the backdoor strategy to adopt JSIs
8-Apr-2026
Arguably, the most significant outcome from the World Trade Organization’s “reform” ministerial conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon in March 2026 was the adoption by a sub-group of 66 Members of a plurilateral agreement on electronic commerce.
One year of Trump tariffs prove corporate profits always came before the public interest
3-Apr-2026 Common Dreams
The 2026 NTE Report makes it clear that the Trump administration’s primary motivation behind its trade policy is to protect the profits of big US companies.