ISDS Case Map
CAN
Andean Community
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.
Encouraged by its successful preferential trade agreement (PTA) with Mercosur countries, India is trying to increase its influence in the Latin American and Caribbean region by exploring possibilities of PTAs with the Andean community, Chile and countries in the Central America Integration System (SICA).
Although Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. financial aid after Iraq and Israel, it still remains a mystery nation to the majority of taxpayers.
This report looks at major Customs Unions, Free Trade Areas, and economic
association agreements around the world, with particular attention to any clauses
covering social issues, core labour standards and trade union participation.
Access to genetic resources in South America's Andean region, which holds a quarter of the planet's biodiversity, is a point of discord in the free trade agreement that the United States has been negotiating with Colombia, Ecuador and Peru since May.
South America's two large trade blocs, the Mercosur and Andean Community of Nations (CAN), have signed an agreement to phase out all import tariffs over the next 15 years, with a view towards eventually creating an immense free trade zone in the region.
The United States is prepared to drop Ecuador and Peru from a proposed U.S. free- trade pact with the Andean region if investment disputes with those countries threaten a deal with Colombia, a top U.S. trade official said on Wednesday.
The free trade agreement the United States plans to negotiate with the Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru should contain an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, witnesses at a Trade Policy Staff Committee hearing on the Andean FTA said March 17.
It is not appropriate for the country to sign an FTA with the US because this would result in the State having less control over reviewing transnational corporations and promoting and consolidating privatization.
Tariffs on agricultural products and definitions of intellectual property rights, particularly for pharmaceuticals, are shaping up as the most contentious issues in the free trade negotiations between the United States and three Andean nations, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
