ISDS Case Map
culture
The atmosphere is ripe for starting talks with the United States for a tariff-free trade scheme, which, if realized, may change this country's overall industrial picture as never before. But an FTA with giant, advanced economies, like America's, requires a very careful approach.
The chairman of the bishops' International Policy Committee Monday offered a Catholic perspective on a pending free trade agreement, suggesting that the United States and several Andean nations could simultaneously promote human dignity and fair and sustainable development.
Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe says the Australian government has buckled to United States pressure over free trade.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy seeks to slash the screen quota to the number of days demanded by the US before proceeding with the stagnating Korea-U.S. bilateral investment treaty (BIT) and free trade agreement (FTA) talks.
The United Nations cultural body adopted an international treaty Thursday to protect cultural diversity. This a moral victory, but the real test is whether developing countries will resist US pressure to commit their audiovisual and information services to bilateral trade agreements.
The long-running dispute over Korea's screen quota system is moving onto new ground: the quota's supporters are rallying around the final draft of a Unesco convention that would exclude the cultural industries in all of the organization's member states from free trade agreements or World Trade Organization bylaws.
Security has been so dominant in the past in Seoul's relations with Washington, its sole military ally, that other crucial agenda items have often failed to draw adequate attention from top South Korean policymakers.
The US Trade Representative (USTR), raising doubts about South Korea's commitment to a bilateral free trade agreement, pressed the Asian trading partner Tuesday to be "unambiguous" in supporting it.
The free trade agreement with the United States threatens Thailand's ecological biodiversity and cultural uniqueness, researchers warned yesterday. Visut Baimai, director of the Biodiversity Research and Training Programme, said he feared the FTA would accelerate deforestation to grow profitable single-crop plantations. This, he said, could undermine both the ecosystem and sustainable economic development.
The long-standing screen quota issue is a major stumbling block to a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) between Korea and the US, according to a senior US government official.
