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Across the board

This section contains news and analysis of sweeping developments that affect the overall push and pull towards FTAs and bilateral investment treaties. This means major trends relating to bilateralism, often with global consequences, and other cross-cutting issues. New developments arising from US politics, the WTO or South-South alliance-building, for instance, are often reported here as they tend to have systemic impacts.

last update: May 2012

Americanization of the BIT universe
9-Jun-2016     SSRN
Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (FCN) treaties are more than a historical precursor to international investment agreements (IIA) and continue to influence and inspire modern investment treaty design.
UN Treaty on transnational corporations, other business enterprises & human rights: Options for justice
31-May-2016     S2B
This report discusses options for the following aspects of the treaty: access to remedy; enforcement mechanisms; and its relationship with the trade and investment regime.
6th global to local webinar on May 24th
20-May-2016     Local Futures
The Global to Local Webinar Series addresses key issues in the global to local debate.
Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
18-Apr-2016     The Guardian
Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties.
This is a really dumb way to fix poverty
11-Apr-2016     Huffington Post
Hint: it involves taking money from poor people.
An inconvenient truth about free trade
1-Apr-2016     Bloomberg
“We have developed a politician who encourages the most dangerous kind of citizenship a democracy can know—the panicky, grasping, idealless kind.”
The era of free trade might be over. That’s a good thing.
18-Mar-2016     New York Times
In the United States, globalization is widely accepted as a contributor to both wage stagnation and the growth in inequality.
What's the problem with free trade?
16-Mar-2016     Huffington Post
Economists say that free trade allows us to take advantage of the "comparative advantages" offered by other countries. Unfortunately, low labor and environmental-protection costs are seen as a comparative advantage.
Les traités de libre-échange sont des armes de destruction massive
8-Feb-2016     L'Observatoire des multinationales
De la décolonisation au Tafta
Global economy moved one step forward, one step back in 2015
14-Jan-2016     Market Watch
The problem of TPP is with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts.