bilaterals.org logo
bilaterals.org logo
  1. Negotiations

:: Across the board ::


This section contains news and analysis of sweeping developments that affect the overall push and pull towards FTAs and bilateral investment treaties. This means major trends relating to bilateralism, often with global consequences, and other cross-cutting issues. New developments arising from US politics, the WTO or South-South alliance-building, for instance, are often reported here as they tend to have systemic impacts.

last update: May 2012

From globalization to ecological and solidarity reshoring
12-Feb-2021     AITEC
In Brussels, the virus of free trade and the impunity of multinationals is far from receding. But social and ecological relocalization seems to us the only alternative that could embody a desirable collective horizon.
Human rights, environment and climate protection before profits
25-Nov-2020     S2B Network
Three principles to reshape trade and investment to overcome the crisis.
Martin Khor – a life spent fighting for a just global economy
5-Oct-2020    
Economist and journalist Martin Khor, whose life was cut short by cancer on 1 April 2020, was a standout figure in the struggle for a radical transformation of global economic relations.
Corporate trade deals: A history of resistance
24-Sep-2020     The World Transformed
From the Seattle protests against the WTO, to the defeat of TTIP and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the attempt to impose corporate trade deals has often created moments of crisis for the system.
Indo-Pacific guidelines: Germany’s new China plan
3-Sep-2020     Pledge Times
Berlin wants to diversify its relations, position itself more broadly, conclude further free trade agreements – also in order to no longer be so dependent on Beijing.
Creating a feminist alliance for trade justice
14-Jul-2020     Open Global Rights
Trade liberalisation is incompatible with women’s human rights and gender equality when corporations exploit women’s cheap labour as a source of comparative advantage.
USTR Lighthizer says bilateral trade pacts conflict with multilateral trading system
10-Jul-2020     Reuters
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the world needed either a multilateral system to govern global trade or a series of bilateral agreements, but the two were in conflict with each other.
Trade development agreement between Venezuela and Turkey becomes effective August 21
8-Jul-2020     MercoPress
A new trade deal between Turkey and Venezuela, officially titled “Trade Development Agreement,” will enter into force on August 21.
How capitalism and other viruses are ravaging the Global South
19-May-2020     Jacobin
The economic hegemony exerted by the trade regime — and related financial structures — mirrors and extends old colonial patterns of exploitation and dispossession. Its policies represent our “normal.”
What global trade deals are really about (hint: it's not trade)
11-May-2020     TEDx Talks
Haley Edwards breaks down the history of trade and explains how the idea of global trade has transformed in the past decades.