ISDS Case Map
RCEP
The package comprises four components -- market for goods, services, investment and also intellectual property rights.
Trade ministers from 16 countries that are negotiating for an Asia-wide free trade pact began a two-day meeting in Singapore.
Organizations denounce that RCEP is moving forward without respecting minimum transparency and public participation standards.
The Centre does not appear to be comfortable with the general drift of negotiations in the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The meeting is important as the 16-member bloc now needs specific political guidance to move the negotiations further.
New Zealand Labour-led government's ‘Trade for All agenda’ is somehow meant to re-engender confidence without addressing any issues.
Newsclick and Peoples Dispatch discuss the context in which the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is being negotiated.
The 23rd round of the 16-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks over 10 days in Bangkok managed to resolve two more chapters, one on customs procedures and trade facilitation and one on government procurement.
Labor unions and workers’ rights advocates fear that the secretive RCEP agreement will further erode workers’ rights in the Asian region, while strengthening the hands of investors who may be able to sue governments for changing laws such as setting minimum wages, that would erode their profitability.
The escalating trade war between the US and China has prompted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to call for accelerated negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade framework involving ASEAN and six partner countries.
