ISDS Case Map
actions | resistance
Civil society organisations have called for caution as Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS) and other African, Caribbean and Pacific(ACP) countries begin the second phase of negotiations with the European Union on the proposed Economic Partnership Agreement(EPAs).
World Trade Organization talks collapsed in July 2006 over strong internal disagreements on agricultural policy. While social activists throughout the world cheered, policy-makers in the U.S. and Canada started aggressively pursuing bilateral trade accords or Free Trade Agreements [FTAs].
A Mauritian political party called Rezistans ek Alternativ (RA) has asked local MLAs to help in stopping the process of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) which, according to its members, Mauritius and fourteen other African countries have agreed to negotiate with the European Union, without realising the implication of such an agreement.
Do the Pacific Islands' negotiators genuinely hope they can negotiate a beneficial Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union or are they simply going through the motions and doing what is required of them under the Cotonou Agreement 2000? In the secretive chess game of trade negotiations it is impossible to know.
Lobby travel from Indonesian and Thai civil society in EFTA countries (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Oslo)
The conference focuses on three particular problem areas of EPAs. Are EPAs endangering food sovereignty and rural development of mostly agrarian oriented ACP states? Are EPAs in their current form undermining autonomous initiatives of regional integration? What effects are to be expected from a broad liberalisation agenda including the so called "new issues” of investments, competition and public procurement?
The EU strongly advocates that attracting more foreign investment is a solution to African development problems and that African countries therefore need to include strict investment liberalisation measures in EPAs.
The European Union (EU) is negotiating with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries for a new free trade agreement: the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The liberalisation of services and therefore opening the market for foreign investors is part of these negotiations.
The US Trade Representative has been urged by the largest US labor organization and textile group to file a complaint against Jordan for its failure to check companies from exploiting their laborers and subsequently cheating them on wages. Since the US-Jordan FTA was signed between the two nations in December 2001, this is the first time any US business group has come together with labor demanding action under the treaty.
Thailand's new NGO Network for Political and Social Reform says it wants the military-led Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy and the interim government to scrap free-trade agreements and the privatisation of state enterprises.
