Tobacco companies have expressed concern that Australia's plain cigarette packaging initiative breaches international trade obligations. This article begins by providing a background to cigarette packaging. It then examines developments worldwide and in Australia that have led to this...

The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) provides an illustration of the outcomes that countries with relatively little bargaining and economic power can expect from an FTA with the US. It also serves as a warning of how even an economically successful developed country may end up...

In this chapter, we explain and evaluate the AUSFTA primarily from an Australian perspective, given that most countries will be in a more or less analogous position to Australia when negotiating an FTA with the US. AUSFTA provides an illustration of the outcomes that countries with relatively...

This chapter examines the prominent role that Australia has played in the multilateral trading system, with a specific focus on the WTO and Australia's preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Australia has been actively involved in the WTO, through GATT and WTO negotiations, WTO committee work,...

Recent challenges to tobacco packaging measures brought under international investment law shed light on a variety of intellectual property issues. This chapter focuses on the intellectual property aspects of two related disputes: the claim brought by Philip Morris Asia Ltd (Philip Morris Asia)...

The good health of its population is fundamental to a country's national interest. Regulation of these risk factors, however, presents particular challenges in the light of international trade law and international investment law, as policy interventions often seek behavioural change including...

In this paper, we first identify in Part II the benefits of a common telecommunications market in Australia and New Zealand, before explaining in Part III the extent to which these two countries are already subject to obligations to liberalise telecommunications and harmonise associated...

Chapters relating to regulatory coherence or cooperation are becoming significant features in new preferential trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While the existing literature has considered in detail the potential for harmonisation of standards or institutional...