ISDS Case Map
Japan
If agriculture was off the Trans-Pacific Partnership table as far as Japan was concerned, then New Zealand did not want to see Japan around the TPP negotiating table. "It's as simple as that."
Atsushi Kono considers it the gravest threat to his family’s farm in a century of rice-growing: a free-trade initiative that could dismantle Japan’s sky-high protective farming tariffs, finally opening up the country to cheap, foreign produce.
Japan plans to propose to the European Union starting talks on a free trade agreement next spring, government sources said Thursday.
Thousands of Japanese farmers rallied on Wednesday to demand their government steer clear of a US-led free trade initiative which would open the heavily protected agricultural sector to fierce competition.
An estimated 3,000 Japanese farmers converged in Tokyo on Wednesday to protest against Japan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which would destroy Japanese agriculture and community
Japanese farmers voiced concerns Tuesday about the day's decision by the Cabinet to begin consultations with the United States and other countries to forge a trans-Pacific free-trade agreement, saying further liberalization of trade would deal them a heavy blow.
The Japanese government did not clearly state its stance in the basic FTA policy it set out Saturday and only stipulated that it will start approaching the countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks.
Japan is having trouble forging a consensus on joining an Asia-Pacific free trade initiative, a pact that business lobbies want the government to pursue but that long-protected and politically powerful farmers are resisting.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet will adopt on Nov. 9 a basic policy on free trade, including its stance on a US-backed trans-Pacific free-trade agreement, national policy minister Koichiro Genba said Tuesday.
A series of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) is threatening the livelihoods of India's fishermen on the 8,000 km peninsular coastline -- among the longest in the world -- and the diets of millions of Indians for whom fish is a cheap source of protein.
