ISDS Case Map
culture
Most observers realise the existence of a parallel economy in Pakistan and the integral role that it plays in the overall financial system. The underground piracy economy is estimated at billions of rupees, providing employment to thousands of people. So no one is complaining. No one except the corporations and Uncle Sam.
The prospect of including in many FTAs, especially the Thai-US one, issues like intellectual property and agriculture, could have implications on the survival or disappearance of the Thai rice culture
US Trade Representative Rob Portman on Friday said Korea must resume import of U.S. beef and lift a screen quota that disadvantages Hollywood films if it wants to start negotiating a free trade agreement with Washington.
South Korea will discuss the possibility of a free trade pact with the United States at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers' meeting.
One of many vexing questions remaining to be worked out by negotiators of the draft convention for the
protection of the diversity of cultural products and artistic
expression will be the relationship between the proposed convention and existing
and future trade and investment treaties which may apply to cultural
industries and which might impose restrictions on government cultural
policies.
The stage is being developed for a fast-track free trade agreement (FTA) between the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and 25-member European Union. Possibly, the EU has felt the urge to sign an FTA with the GCC now that the US has moved to reach bilateral agreements with individual GCC states.
The Bush administration's plan: to negotiate a series of trade agreements that would eventually fuse one of the world's most economically and politically unstable regions into a giant free-trade zone.
Ambassador Mekouar's stop in Los Angeles is part of an aggressive effort to inform US businesses about the Free Trade Agreement.
The experience of the countries that have been put under the neoliberal policies and the FTA, the results of the economic opening imposed by the Government of President Gaviria, the process of negotiation between Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the USA, puts in evidence that the right to democratic and popular consultation and resistance is justified.
US trade strategy is shifting: USTR may be willing to make concessions to countries that want to require local content or ownership in 'traditional' AV sector, ie film and radio; however, no such requirements will be allowed in the category of 'electronic commmerce.' This is because USTR (and MPAA) expect all cultural content (films, television, music) to be transmitted digitally in the near future.
