Pacific

Pacific states have signed 72 trade and investment agreements, 39 of which have been concluded by Australia alone.

Most of Australia’s free trade deals contain investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, including those with ASEAN and New Zealand (AANZFTA), China (ChAFTA), India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico or Turkey.

Following a dispute with Philip Morris over an anti-tobacco law, Australia claimed it would refrain from engaging into new investment agreements with ISDS. However Australia’s more recent agreements such as ChAFTA, the Indonesia FTA, the Hong Kong FTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) include ISDS.

The Philip Morris vs. Australia case is the most well-known dispute to date. When Australia introduced plain packaging for all tobacco products in 2011, Philip Morris initiated a claim against Australia before an arbitral tribunal. In its December 2015 decision, the tribunal dismissed the case, albeit on legal grounds only. Australia spent A$24 million but Philip Morris only paid half, leaving the Australian taxpayers to pay the rest.

The Pacific has been the least targeted region. Only Australian investors have initiated disputes on seven registered occasions, two of which were under the Energy Charter Treaty.

Photo: Dominic Hartnett / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

(April 2020)

The Guardian | 11-Oct-2016
Lawyer for Philip Morris’s bid to take Australia to court over cigarette laws says Australia has nothing to fear from trade deals that allow investor-state disputes
The Economist | 13-Aug-2016
Three years ago, the government of Togo received a letter from Philip Morris International outlining how plain packaging would violate binding global and regional agreements.
Loading Docs | 5-Aug-2016
Water for Gold tells the alarming story of how international trade law is leading us to trade our most basic rights to clean, safe water for access to gold.
East Asia Forum | 4-Jul-2016
Public debate over how best to manage the interests of foreign investors and host states has resurfaced in Australia.
Sidney Morning Herald | 27-Jun-2016
Australian governments of late seem only to listen to the din of money as though that equates with national interest.
NZ Herald | 13-Jun-2016
Secretive negotiations for the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP began in November 2012. The 13th round is being held at SkyCity in Auckland.
The Guardian | 8-Jun-2016
Provision allows firms to sue in international tribunal if laws introduced or changed that hurt their interests.
The Guardian | 8-Jun-2016
ALP says it will try to change three major agreements that allow corporations to sue if they think a government has damaged their interests
ICTSD | 26-May-2016
The tribunal considered that the main and determinative reason for the 2011 restructuring was in order for the tobacco giant to bring a legal claim under the BIT Treaty, using a Hong Kong-based entity.