ISDS Case Map
Andean countries
While the Andean trade talks drew little attention in the United States, several hundred negotiators, business advisors, lawmakers and journalists from the three Latin American countries came to Miami, a sign of just how important these negotiations are in the region.
The United States, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have agreed on what the customs procedures and competition policy should be in their proposed free-trade area, but thorny issues such as agriculture still remain before the deal can be finished, negotiators for the countries said Friday.
The battle over a free trade agreement with Central America spilled over Tuesday in Miami to the Andean nations of South America.
Trade talks with three Andean countries get underway in downtown Miami, but for free-trade supporters the key issue in town is still the Congressional vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
The Andean countries and the US have advanced on the environmental issue in their talks about a free trade agreement (FTA), Peru's chief negotiator said on Wednesday. "The United States proposed for the first time a text on biological diversity. The issue has been made an item in the article on Environmental Cooperation."
During the ninth round of negotiations of a free trade agreement between the United States and three South American nations in the Andean region -- Colombia, Peru and Ecuador -- Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo called for ”greater flexibility” on the part of Washington.
Negotiators working on a free trade agreement between the United States and the three Andean countries of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru made "strong advances" in the latest round of talks in a number of areas -- including market access and dispute settlement -- but still have much work to do on agriculture, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Americas Regina Vargo said.
Medicine patents are threatening unity among Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in the negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with the United States
Washington's refusal to recognise the right of Andean countries to demand compensation for the commercial use of their biological resources is standing in the way of negotiations for free trade between the United States, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
The fifth annual World Social Forum will take place Jan. 26-31 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre amidst an upsurge in Latin American sub-regional integration efforts, bolstered by the obvious failure of the project to create the hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
