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States must stop prioritizing investment over human rights – UN experts
UN experts today called on States to ensure that international investment agreements do not provide a “safe harbour” for investors to abuse the human rights of individuals and communities.
Modernisation of the association agreement between the European Union and Chile
30+ MEPs on the EU Commission to not conclude negotiations of the EU-Chile trade deal before Chile’s constitutional process is over.
Multinational corporations and COVID-19: Intellectual property rights vs. human rights
Transnational companies today rely more than ever on IPR to structure their global value chains, writes Peter Rossman
JSCOT Committee report on RCEP supports implementation
AFTINET’s submission to the JSCOT RCEP argues that the RCEP has serious flaws and should be renegotiated and amended to address these flaws.
Protecting human and environmental rights in international investment agreements
Human rights experts are particularly concerned about the asymmetric nature of the system and a lack of investors’ human rights obligations. Together with high ISDS costs and arbitral awards, they undermine states’ ability to realise economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.
Vietnam: EU Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) denounces activists’ arrests
The EU Domestic Advisory Group set up under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement received a concerning report of the arrest in Hanoi of two prominent civil society activists.
EU sets Uyghur and Hong Kong conditions for investment agreement
The conditions have been listed in a draft report prepared by foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament.
Three ways that human rights impact assessment can improve consistency between economic law and human rights law
A human rights-based approach to economic policy-making can result in outcomes from trade negotiations that are not only human rights-consistent but also more politically, socially and economically robust.
Corporate power and abuse is a root cause of migration
To seriously address the roots and causes of migration, it is urgent to dismantle the neoliberal rules which grant excessive privileges to transnational corporations.
European Parliament to vote on freezing China deal
Draft calls on EU to work with US on China, and to plan deals with Taiwan.
Human rights groups call on Australia to drop pursuit of Israel trade deal over Palestine conflict
Australian and Palestinian human rights groups have urged Australia to stop pursuing a potential free trade agreement with Israel and condemn its actions in Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Unions want major Asia trade deal scrapped
Unions have blasted Australia’s plan to sign a massive free trade deal with Asia-Pacific nations over the inclusion of military junta-controlled Myanmar.
Human rights have no place in Swiss-Chinese trade deal
The EU and US are currently distancing themselves from China — unlike Switzerland as the country sticks to its free trade agreement with the world’s second-largest economy despite mounting domestic criticism.
EU turns from China to India on free trade
The EU is suspending plans for a trade deal with China, while reviving those for a pact with India, in a dispute on Chinese human-rights abuses.
EU-Mercosur trade agreement: No protection of environment and people without renegotiations
CIDSE, MISEREOR and Greenpeace published a new legal opinion that proves that in order to provide effective protection of human rights and environmental standards, the agreement needs to be renegotiated.
Europe’s China gambit
Trade and investment agreements cannot transform China into a Western-style market economy or turn it into a democracy.
Rethinking investment law from the ground up: extractivism, human rights, and investment treaties
For many people affected by resource extraction, it is the prevailing legal regime that dis-embeds and disintegrates, because investment treaties can protect ventures that upend their lives with little scope for voice or redress.
US suspends trade engagement with Myanmar after deadly crackdown
US Trade Representative announced the suspension of US collaboration with Myanmar, through the 2013 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
US and Canada follow EU and UK in sanctioning Chinese officials over Xinjiang
The EU is due shortly to sign a major investment deal with China, but Germany in particular will be concerned that the sanctions may destabilise economic relations with China.
Ombudsman: Sustainability assessment should have been completed before EU-Mercosur trade deal agreed by negotiators
The European Commission should have concluded an updated sustainability impact assessment before the EU-Mercosur trade deal was agreed, an inquiry by European Ombudsman has found.