Australia continues to seek closer economic relationships with its Asian neighbours and other countries around the globe, particularly through the conclusion of treaties governing trade and investment matters. Australia’s investment relationship with Japan is underpinned by several such...

This short paper reflects on developments in international trade affecting the security exception in the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper cautions against the increasing invocation of the exception in disputes and encourages progress in other areas of trade to avoid a WTO...

This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and ambitious, yet also representing a balance of competing interests. The article focuses on the TPP's chapters relating to investment,...

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...

As the vision of the TPP as a living agreement recedes, it nevertheless offers a window into the negotiation of trade and investment agreements and the negotiated positions of the 12 TPP countries on a range of matters of crucial importance to the global economy today. Given the rise of...

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,...

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...