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Vietnam to lose $77 million of tax revenue each year due to free trade pacts
24-Sep-2015 Thanh Nien News
The government has estimated that it will lose around US$77 million of tax revenue annually between 2016 and 2025, when new free trade agreements take effect and eliminate a majority of import duties.
The VW scandal and what does it mean for TTIP?
24-Sep-2015 Transport & Environment
The VW cheating scandal highlights how far we are from any mutual recognition of standards, and how fundamental differences are between the rule of law in the US and in the EU.
Car industry ’buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP deal’
24-Sep-2015 The Independent
The motor industry has been accused of withholding a report that reveals US cars are substantially less safe than European vehicles - for fear that the findings would hamper the drive to harmonise safety standards as part of the controversial TTIP deal.
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Renegotiating NAFTA by the back door
23-Sep-2015 rabble.ca
For years, trade and justice activists have proposed renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to address some of the deal’s most damaging features: for example, by removing the anti-democratic investor-state dispute settlement provisions of Chapter 11, linking trade benefits to genuine protections for human and labour rights (all the more important given the deteriorating democratic situation in Mexico), and establishing a continent-wide strategy for auto investment and production.
The role of Civil Society in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME)
23-Sep-2015 http://www.stabroeknews.com/2015/fe...
Regional Integration is loosely defined as countries cooperating to achieve a common objective. The way in which countries choose to achieve these common objectives depends on the commitment and keenness of states or countries to share their sovereignty towards a common goal.
The case for free trade in the GCC
23-Sep-2015
It has been 240 years since Scottish economist Adam Smith made the then-outrageous suggestion that nations could improve their wealth by removing tariffs on imported goods. At the time, 1776, not only did these taxes — invariably more than 40 percent on certain goods — inflate prices for consumers, they often accounted for the majority of government revenues.
TPPA could empower rejected foreign investors in legal challenges
23-Sep-2015
Under a Trans Pacific Partnership deal, foreign investors in New Zealand could be able to take international legal action against a government decision such as that which rejected a Chinese company’s bid for Lochinver Station, says an Auckland Law School senior lecturer.
U.S. dairy exporter pushes for TPP deal acceptable to Congress
23-Sep-2015
Japan and other nations need to open their dairy markets further to hammer out a Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal that is acceptable to Congress, Tom Suber, president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, suggested.
Investment accords - conceptual & procedural contentions
23-Sep-2015 SUNS
Particular issues and procedures in investment treaties have proved especially contentious at both conceptual and practical levels.
International trade, investment accords, increasing controversies
23-Sep-2015 SUNS
Two recent proposals on settling investment disputes have begun to attract attention and consideration in national and international circles.
PH climate change official tells APEC: No trade without addressing disaster risk issues
23-Sep-2015 InterAksyon.com
There can be no trade agreement without addressing disaster risk and climate change issues in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippine government says.
TTIP poised to gut US states’ ability to protect on toxic chemicals
23-Sep-2015 CIEL
EU proposals for EU-US trade deal threaten democratic process for protecting people and the environment
Top US lawmakers on trade urge action on India’s treatment of IPRs
23-Sep-2015 Intellectual Property Watch
The top members of US Congress and the Senate responsible for international trade issues urged the Obama administration to push for changes to India’s handling of intellectual property rights and technology
In African Union, globalist agenda becomes clear
23-Sep-2015 The New American
The continent of Africa is being unified economically and politically under an EU-style continental regime beyond the reach of citizens. And the entire integration agenda is, in fact, being supported by powers that do not have the interests of Africans in mind.
ANALYSIS: does the Commission’s new proposal mark the end of ISDS?
23-Sep-2015 TTIP2015 Blog
Examining the key points under the new ‘International Court System’ in TTIP
Comment - Initiatives for transforming the global economy
23-Sep-2015 The Sun Daily
A number of important initiatives linked largely to the economy made public in the last few years may have a huge impact upon the future of humankind. ASEAN and China have played a pioneering role in some of them.
Labor’s FTA worker test ‘discriminates against China’
22-Sep-2015
Bill Shorten’s demand to impose new labour market testing requirements on Chinese workers who may come to Australia under the China-Australia free-trade agreement would involve actively discriminating against China compared with Australia’s other FTA partners, according to the think tank headed by former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr.
Paris Climate Summit: New report protects climate legislation from trade deals
22-Sep-2015 The Council of Canadians
A new report formulates an innovative trade deal exemption clause that allows countries to pursue environmental and climate change policy free from the chilling effects resulting from investor-state dispute settlement provisions in trade agreements.
EU commission ISDS proposal a threat to democracy and civil rights
22-Sep-2015 FFII
The European Commission has published its investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform proposal for the EU-US trade agreement under negotiation (TTIP), which institutionalises discrimination.
TFTA: Pan-African free trade area announced
22-Sep-2015 Lexology
TFTA states that its aims include harmonisation and improvement of regional trading arrangements, enhancement of trade facilitation.