ISDS Case Map
Australia
US drug manufacturers are planning a New Year's push to pressure Canberra to unwind initiatives to cut medicine prices.
Regarding the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and Thailand conflicting the provisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540 (1997)
An Australian Productivity Commission report into trade and assistance reviews found conditions attached to the free trade agreements signed with the United States and Thailand would be more restrictive than similar deals.
Australian businesses are preparing for an assault on the $200 billion US Government procurement market when the US-Australia FTA takes effect in just over a fortnight.
Australia's largest internet service providers have made an 11th-hour bid to amend the free trade agreement with the US, claiming it would expose them to an avalanche of litigation.
While the main
US goal on agriculture in many FTA
negotiations often is to secure non-SPS
related concessions such as lower tariffs,
the foreign partners often see the FTA as
an opportunity to resolve outstanding
SPS issues with the US as well as seek
accelerated new market access to the US
for their animal and plant products.
In Thailand, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) debates were heated. Farmers and critics claim that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government sold out small farmers to their own big business interests. They took to the streets in protest while Thaksin lambasted them and obscured negotiation details.
Debate has begun in the Senate on laws enabling the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement to take effect from next year.
The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the United States would create real economic opportunities in both countries for businesses, farmers, and workers, US trade representative Robert Zoellick said.
Australia has always enjoyed rigorous national food standards that were applied equally to both domestically produced and imported food. The capacity to maintain and apply these standards, however, is now being undermined by international trade agreements and procedures for settling trade disputes with a result that challenges to public health are being significantly increased.
