On 29 June 2012, the European Union and the six partner countries in Central America – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama – signed an Association Agreement (the EU-Central America Association Agreement) (the “Association Agreement“). The purpose of this FTA was to develop trade and investment relations between parties. On 13 May … Read more
One month into 2018, the future of NAFTA continues to hang in the balance. The negotiating parties will reportedly convene in Ottawa for the sixth of seven planned negotiating sessions from January 23 – 29th.[1] The parties initially hoped to conclude the negotiations before the end of 2017, but US President Donald Trump indicated on … Read more
On August 16, 2017, trade representatives of the United States, Mexico and Canada will convene in Washington, DC for the first of seven scheduled rounds of negotiations in relation to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The negotiations have been covered extensively in national and international media and, given the scope of the interests … Read more
The United States will lobby for changes to the investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS”) provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) in the upcoming discussions to renegotiate the regional treaty. ISDS reform is one of several “negotiating objectives” announced last month by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (the “USTR”), the federal … Read more
After a lengthy final period of negotiation in Atlanta, it has been announced that the TPP, the world’s largest mega-regional trade and investment deal, has been agreed. The investment chapter is not yet available but is briefly summarised on USTR’s website here. As anticipated, the TPP includes substantive investment protections found in many investment agreements, … Read more
On 16 September the European Commission published detailed draft proposals for the investment chapter in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaty between the EU and the US (“TTIP”). The full text is available here. The chapter includes detailed investment protections and the establishment of an International Investment Court to resolve disputes under the … Read more
As discussed in our blog post here, the TPP is a major free trade agreement between twelve countries in the Asia Pacific and the Americas that has been under negotiation for over four years. These twelve countries are the USA; Canada; Japan; Australia; New Zealand; Singapore; Vietnam; Malaysia; Chile; Peru; Mexico; and Brunei. On 24 … Read more
On 25 March the 20 January 2015 working draft of the Investment Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was posted on Wikileaks. (There may be later drafts not yet publicly available, but this is the best guide yet to what is coming.) As discussed in our earlier article here, the investment protection and Investor-State dispute … Read more
The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US, two of the world’s largest economies, is intended to remove trade barriers, create wealth and promote investment. On 13 January, the European Commission published the results of its public consultation on investment protection and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in TTIP. Of … Read more
