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News from the movements

Pakistan terminating 23 bilateral investment treaties because of ISDS
11-Aug-2021 AFTINET
Pakistan decided to review the entire BIT situation in 2013, and to develop a new model BIT.
Risks for Mexico in the renegotiation of its FTA with the European Union
11-Aug-2021 TNI
To end neoliberalism and defend energy resources, Mexico must step up and avoid at all costs the inclusion of supranational arbitration mechanisms in a renegotiated FTA with the European Union.
South’s concerns over ISDS reform process need to be addressed
10-Aug-2021 Third World Network
The broad mandate given by UNCITRAL focuses on a limited set of procedural issues that fails to address the substantive concerns over the crisis of legitimacy confronting the international investment regime, and ISDS more specifically.
XL pipeline absurd $15 billion NAFTA ISDS claim
7-Aug-2021 Public Citizen
TC Energy expects to get 15 times more money, coming from taxpayers’ pockets, than the asset losses it experienced from the revocation of a permit, that was already denied twice.
Corporate courts vs the environment
3-Aug-2021 Al Jazeera
Corporate courts were invented to protect the West’s control of the world against decolonisation. They are now undermining attempts to halt climate change.
DEPA lacks added value
3-Aug-2021 East Asia Forum
There is minimal value added by DEPA, even as a pathfinder for e-commerce proponents in the WTO and APEC. For critics of the TPP and CPTPP’s one-sided rules, DEPA reflects a wasted opportunity.
How a new trade deal could make it harder to improve life for Australians in aged care
29-Jul-2021 The Conversation
When negotiations for the RCEP began in 2012, the aged care industry in Australia was dominated by local not-for-profits. The sector is now dominated by for-profit providers, with a jointly-owned Singapore company, Opal, one of the largest.
RCEP agreement will legitimise military dictatorship in Myanmar and fails to provide benefit to Australian workers
28-Jul-2021 Mirage News
The ACTU has called on the Morrison Government not to ratify the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, which includes Myanmar’s military junta, at today’s JSCOT inquiry.
One step forward, two steps back in the struggle against anti-democratic corporate trade rules
26-Jul-2021 Inequality.org
Pakistan is the latest country to reject the system that allows private investors to sue governments in international tribunals. But Ecuador is back-tracking and the lawsuits continue to proliferate.
Can we harness the power of trade agreements to achieve our climate ambitions?
20-Jul-2021 IATP
Figuring out how to address a worldwide climate crisis using institutions and instruments developed in the past century isn’t easy.
Trade agreements privatising biodiversity
15-Jul-2021 GRAIN
For the past 30 years, industrialised countries have been forcing governments of the global South to adopt laws that privatise seeds, mainly through free trade agreements.
Unpacking an empty box? The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment
15-Jul-2021 SOMO
The recent tit-for-tat sanctions between the EU and China have cast a shadow over the deal’s future and frozen talks for the time being. But if the agreement reaches the finish line, what is at stake?
Defending access to medicines in regional trade agreements: lessons from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
14-Jul-2021 Globalization and Health
This paper examines civil society and health actors’ views of the conditions that successfully contributed to the removal of these measures in RCEP, with a focus on intellectual property and access to medicines.
More than 400 civil society organisations say: Leave the ECT by COP26
6-Jul-2021 S2B Network
More than 400 are calling on political leaders across all European countries to prioritise climate policies, to stick to their climate commitments, and therefore to initiate withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty by COP26.
US$15 billion ISDS claim against USA over Keystone XL oil pipeline cancellation
5-Jul-2021 AFTINET
TC Energy has lodged a US$15 billion Investor-State Dispute Settlement claim against the US government.
Toxic fracking vs. Slovenian democracy
30-Jun-2021 CEO
Amid the climate and environmental emergency, a British oil and gas company is threatening to sue Slovenia for requiring an environmental impact assessment for a controversial gas fracking project.
Yet another step toward intransparent, undemocratic trade
30-Jun-2021 Power Shift
EU Commission will propose to split the already problematic EU-Mexico trade agreement
Corporate power and abuse is a root cause of migration
29-Jun-2021 People’s World
To seriously address the roots and causes of migration, it is urgent to dismantle the neoliberal rules which grant excessive privileges to transnational corporations.
Conquering EU courts? Big business lobbies in secret for new legal privileges in the EU
29-Jun-2021 CEO
Business lobby groups started lobbying the European Commission to create a new parallel justice system, similar to the old intra-EU BITs, but compatible with EU law.
Publication of Australia-UK FTA Agreement in Principle and exclusion of ISDS welcome, but still much we don’t know
28-Jun-2021 AFTINET
The agreement in-principle does not give detailed information about the up to 30 chapters which are still being negotiated behind closed doors, and the full text will not be released until after it is signed.