Public policy and politics – Japanese Law and the Asia-Pacific

Redesigning Consumer Law for the E-Commerce Era: Insights from Comparing Australia and Japan

Written by: Luke Nottage (University of Sydney) and Souichirou Kozuka (Gakushuin University, ANJeL-in-Japan program co-convenor)

Leading up to Australia’s federal election due by May 2025, the Commonwealth Treasury has (re-)initiated public consultations into reforms to the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), partly responding to the growth of e-commerce especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Two main consultations in fields outlined below, compared to regimes in Japan, highlight some intriguing features for policy debate – extending also into the wider Asia-Pacific region.

First, unlike consumer laws in most jurisdictions across Asia, the ACL has already come to apply to many business-to-business (B2B) transactions. A typical economic argument is that this levels the playing field so businesses compete transparently and consumers have more trust in the market. However, there is a risk of individual consumers cross-subsidising through higher overall prices the businesses gaining similar protections. An additional political dynamic may be that Australia has often closely-fought elections, and many small businesses pressing for the same protection as individual consumers.

Secondly, the federal consumer affairs regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and State or Territory regulators also have comparatively strong enforcement powers. Thirdly, the ACL and some proposed reforms highlight whether consumer law can and should rely on generally worded standards, more specific rules, or both.

Australia’s Treasury last year renewed a consultation into whether the ACL should add further prohibitions on unfair commercial practices, to address burgeoning concerns such as ‘subscription traps’ (suppliers making it much harder to cancel subscriptions than to sign up). Such practices are not easily covered by the ACL’s prohibition on misleading conduct by any suppliers ‘in trade’ (hence also B2B, since the 1970s). Nor do they usually fall within the broadly worded prohibition on unconscionable conduct, taking advantage of particular vulnerable groups (gradually extended to B2B since the 1990s).

The latest Treasury-led proposal sought further views on adding both a general prohibition on unfair practices (for example as in the EU, but there limited to business-to-consumer or B2C transactions, ie involving an individual transacting with a supplier for a non-commercial purpose). It also discussed specific prohibitions (as with legislation recently added in Germany, the UK and the USA against subscription traps). Regulators like the ACCC would enforce such new prohibitions in both B2B and B2C situations, including through injunctions, as for unconscionable or misleading conduct and specific types of prohibited misrepresentations.

Japan’s comparable regime instead regulates only B2C transactions and has come to preference specific prohibitions. The Consumer Contracts Act 2000 allows consumers to cancel contracts arising from some types of misrepresentations, plus various very specific situations of unconscionable advantage-taking. Business associations argue that a broader general provision would be very hard to comply with.

Extra challenges for consumers arise because injunctions against suppliers’ bad advertising and practices leading into contracts can only be brought through government-certified consumer NGOs. This system was inspired by German law but Japan’s NGOs are very small and under-resourced. Further, because the Consumer Contracts Act applies only B2C, it is hard to generate sufficient momentum among claimants, and hence case law.

The Consumer Affairs Agency, when established independently in 2009, assumed jurisdiction from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (the competition regulator) only to enforce the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations that prohibits representations promoting the quality of goods or services as ‘significantly superior’ or describing trade terms as ‘significantly more advantageous’ than they actually are. Particular bad practices are also regulated by the Designated Commercial Transactions Act (as it was renamed from the Door-to door Sales Act in 2000), for example allowing ‘cooling off’ (withdrawal rights) for consumers in high-pressure situations like door-to-door selling or buying. Besides administrative orders now issued by the Agency, criminal penalties can be imposed for not providing contracts in writing or alerting consumers to such rights.

A second major Treasury consultation in Australia from 2024 asks for further views on whether regulators should be able to issue civil fines on suppliers failing to give ACL remedies for minimum performance standards in contracts (‘consumer guarantees’, as in New Zealand and Malaysia, but extending to some B2B situations). These require goods to be of ‘acceptable quality’ and services to be provided with due care. Since 2023, Australian regulators already have such a power to fine for first-time use of unfair terms in standard-form contracts. From 2016, regulation of such terms was extended to contracts with ‘small business’, including now some medium-sized ones.

Adding such civil pecuniary penalties was seen as more effective than relying on injunctions to stop misuse of unfair terms, and/or consumers proving they are unfair so are void. This innovation, adding public sanctions, is despite Australia gradually introducing from the 1990s a US-style ‘opt-out’ class action system. That was premised on lawyers (perhaps with third-party litigation funders, allowed since 2006) might efficiently aggregate smaller value claims (such as excessive and therefore unfair bank fees). Yet even this regime seems to have been insufficient to prevent the spread of unfair terms, including in online businesses.

Japan’s Consumer Contracts Act similarly voids a few specific types of unfair terms. It does have also a general provision voiding others where contrary to good faith (ie unreasonable, compared to general Civil Code default provisions for contracts). However, business associations are opposed to listing in the Act even a ‘grey list’ of further contract terms that may be unfair, as in the ACL (and the EU law on unfair terms that influenced Australia, as well as partly Japan).

Furthermore, Japan’s Act again applies only B2C, although there is also some weak regulation of standard form terms extending to B2B under Civil Code amendments for contracts concluded after 2020. Injunctions to prevent misuse of unfair terms are only possible through certified NGOs, not consumer regulators, and the latter cannot issue fines. A class action regime introduced in 2013 also requires coordination through certified NGOs (not eg a law firm), and inefficiently requires individual consumers to opt-in to claim damages if and when a court finds liability for a class. Unsurprisingly, few claims have been made so far.

Despite these comparative limitations on consumer protection law in Japan, the practical outcomes in Australia may not be so different until recently, thanks to better customer service and reputational effects in Japan. However, the explosion in e-commerce and new types of marketing or practices, as well as possible transplantation of unfair terms into online contracts, may lead to a stronger message being sent to Japan (and Asian countries like Singapore, similarly lacking a broad unfair practices prohibition). This could be achieved by law reforms extending protections to some B2B situations, beefing up generally worded and/or specific prohibitions, expanding powers of regulators (for injunctions and even fines), and/or moving to a US-style opt-out class action system. However, the compliance costs and chilling effects on business innovation also need to be weighed carefully.

Regulating ‘subscription traps’ and other unfair commercial practices

Happy New Year of the Snake!

In my presentation on 5 December 2024 at the annual Australasian Consumer Law Roundtable, hosted by Deakin U in Melbourne’s CBD, presented an updated version of my 2024 CCLJ article with Prof Souichirou Kozuka comparing consumer law administration, contracts and product safety. I mentioned my Submissions (linked below) to three recent federal Treasury-led public consultations (perhaps prompted by a general election due by May 2025!) into (i) facilitating the Australian government adopting foreign standards for minimum safety of specific goods, (ii) adding civil pecuniary penalties for consumer guarantee remedies not provided by suppliers (including regarding safety, as an aspect of “acceptable quality” for goods), and (iii) a generic unfair commercial practices prohibition. Japanese consumer law has none of these features, but each raises interesting issues.

Relatedly on 6 January 2025, perhaps a slow day for the news (after the excitement of Australia winning a test cricket series against India!), I was quoted in an ABC article focusing specifically on Subscription Traps, whereby suppliers make it easy for consumers to sign up (sometimes including “free trials”) but hard to cancel subscriptions. This led to a 3AW radio morning interview (7-minute recording here) with Tony Jones in Melbourne, where I talked about the trap experienced with The Economist (elaborated in my Submission available here for the first Treasury-led consultation in 2023 on adding a general unfair trading prohibition to the Australian Consumer Law, and in this 21 August 2024 interview with SBS Radio: podcast and transcript here). And then an ABC Radio interview (14-minute recording here) with Lisa Pelligrino in Sydney, where I talked in a spirit of bilateral fairness about the trap experienced more recently with The Japan Times.

Momentum seems to be building for ACL amendments to regulate generally against unfair trading practices, and specific practices such as subscription traps, adding to the chorus of concern expressed also eg at the annual Consumer Law Congress in mid-2024.

Guest Blog: “A new explanation of China’s patenting phenomenon with a focus on the patenting of traditional medical knowledge”

Written by: Corinna Chen (CAPLUS research assistant, 2024)

On 2 September 2024, Melbourne Law School lecturer and researcher Dr Ben Hopper presented a thought-provoking seminar on the patenting of traditional medical knowledge in China and its contribution towards China’s patent boom phenomenon. The event was hosted by Sydney Law School’s Centre for Asian and Pacific Law (CAPLUS) as part of its ongoing PhD/Early Career Researcher presentation series. Dr Hopper’s thesis offered a fresh perspective on the broader motivations and societal trends behind the growing number of patent applications for traditional medical practices, particularly in China’s southwestern province of Guizhou, challenging more conventional explanations based on strengthened patent laws, state subsidisation, research and development intensification and increases in foreign direct investment.

* * *

Dr Hopper began by outlining the historical development of China’s patent laws, from early attempts during the Qing Dynasty to the establishment of the country’s first modern patent law in 1984. He highlighted how China’s unique legal landscape, influenced by Marxist economics and socialist characteristics, has shaped the evolution of its patent system. This paved way for the ensuing discussion on the “patent boom” that has seen China become the world’s leading filer of patents, with an extraordinary level of growth occurring from the late 2000s into the early 2010s.

The core of Dr Hopper’s research thesis lies in his claim that traditional explanations for China’s patent boom – such as research and development (R&D) intensification, foreign direct investment (FDI), and patent subsidies – are incomplete. He argues that the epistemological shift in individual perspectives, led by the intense commoditisation of the economy, is a critical yet often overlooked factor. He further hypothesises that there exists a positive correlation between an individual’s marketisation (that is, how market-oriented a person is) and their ‘patent grip’ index (the likelihood of engaging with the patent system and complying with patent laws), with the individual’s proximity to the State being an enhancing factor.

Using original fieldwork data from 53 traditional medical practitioners in Guizhou, Dr Hopper found statistically significant results in support of his hypothesis that more market-oriented individuals are more likely to be subject to the patent grip. In particular, the case study focused on how traditional medicine practitioners in Guizhou, many of whom belong to ethnic minorities, navigated the patent landscape. Dr Hopper’s mixed-methods research, combining surveys and qualitative interviews, revealed that market exposure influences how these practitioners increasingly view their traditional knowledge as commodities that can be protected, sold, or licensed. This shift in perspective aligns with a broader trend towards the commodification of knowledge in China’s rapidly evolving market economy.

Dr Hopper’s findings challenge assumptions that traditional medical knowledge is inherently resistant to patenting due to cultural norms of secrecy and communal ownership; instead, they suggest that even within the realm of traditional knowledge, market forces and closer relationships with the state play a vital role in driving patenting activity.

At the end of the presentation, Dr Olugbenga Olatunji from Sydney Law School offered insightful commentary on the unique nature of China’s patent phenomenon compared to other developing countries such as India, where similar population levels and much stronger patent legislation have not produced comparable results in terms of the ‘boom’ observed in China. Dr Olatunji also raised interesting questions about how traditional knowledge is protected, shared and commercialised in China, pointing to inherent conflicts between customary practices in the field and the more stringent legal requirements of full disclosure in patent applications.

The session concluded with a lively discussion on the broader policy implications and potential transferability of the Chinese model in other countries navigating through similar issues, with one example raised being the approach towards traditional and Indigenous knowledge in Australia.

Guest Blog – Corruption and Investment Arbitration in Asia: New Frontiers

Written by: Corinna Chen (CAPLUS research assistant, 2024)

On 1 August 2024, the University of Sydney Law School hosted an insightful seminar jointly presented by its Centre for Asian and Pacific Law (CAPLUS) and the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL). The event featured the local re-launch of a new book titled Corruption and Illegality in Asian Investment Arbitration (Teramura, Nottage and Jetin eds, published in Open Access in Springer’s Asia in Transition series in April 2024) as well as discussions on the latest research in the field.

Professor Simon Bronitt, immediate past Dean of Sydney Law School with personal research interests in criminal law and Indonesia, opened the session with a brief welcome and address. Assistant Professor Nobumichi Teramura from Universiti Brunei Darussalam – lead co-editor of the new book – then presented an overview of the book’s aims, research questions and key findings (also summarised in a recent piece here and in the East Asia Forum). Professor Luke Nottage from the University of Sydney, also co-editor, complemented this by sharing empirical results from his recent research on corruption-related provisions in international investment agreements (IIAs).

Various other contributing authors also spoke on their areas of focus within the book. These included Professor Vivienne Bath from the University of Sydney discussing China and the Hong Kong SAR, Professor Simon Butt from the University of Sydney and Antony Crockett from Herbert Smith Freehills (Hong Kong) discussing Indonesia, as well as additional commentary from Dr Amokura Kawharu, President of the New Zealand Law Commission. The seminar concluded with closing remarks from the Honourable Wayne Martin AC KC, former Chief Justice of Western Australia, who officiated the book re-launch.

* * *

Despite avid efforts to combat corruption through international treaties and domestic legislation, corruption and illegality in foreign direct investment (FDI) remains prevalent across many Asian countries. Associate Professor Teramura highlighted this as the key motivation behind the project, emphasising the book’s focus on illustrating ‘Asian’ perspectives towards corruption in investment arbitration and exploring the potential for significant Asian states to become ‘rule makers’ rather than ‘rule takers’ in this field (PDF of Powerpoints here).

The research examines the practical impacts of corruption on FDI and local economies in Asia, as well as how illegality in foreign investment projects and disputes have been dealt with across various Asian jurisdictions such as China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Lao Republic, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Thailand. Associate Professor Teramura noted that while some ‘Asian approaches’ are emerging, they are still far from establishing a uniform stance across the region.

The book concludes by proposing a roadmap for developing a more cohesive Asian approach. This includes establishing a regional forum for discussing FDI-related corruption, developing unified rules for handling corruption in investment arbitration, and considering the creation of an independent institution or permanent court to address allegations of corruption in Asian investment disputes.

Following this, Professor Luke Nottage presented compelling insights from his recent paper co-authored with Associate Professor Teramura: “Corruption-related Provisions in East and South Asian Investment Agreements: An Empirical Analysis” (PDF of Powerpoints here). The study revealed a nuanced and often rational approach by Asian countries in negotiating bilateral investment treaties, particularly in their treatment of anti-corruption provisions and legality clauses.

The research found that net FDI-exporting countries like Japan tend to prefer anti-corruption provisions (59%) over direct legality clauses (16%) in their IIAs, aligning with the aim to reduce corruption in investment destinations and protect their outbound investors. Conversely, net FDI-importing countries such as China are more likely to include legality clauses (95%) and almost no anti-corruption provisions, as the former can be invoked to protect their government and domestic taxpayers from inbound ISDS claims. Overall, the empirical analysis found largely rational treaty drafting practices around these two types of provisions across most countries, based on their FDI status.

However, Professor Nottage noted some curious exceptions to this rationality, particularly in the case of Singapore. Despite being virtually corruption free, Singapore rarely includes anti-corruption provisions in its IIAs (only 4%) but retains many legality clauses (61%). This apparent irrationality might be related to Singapore’s outbound FDI often coming from government-linked companies. Such instances of “bounded rationality” or status quo bias provide valuable insights for policymakers and IIA drafters, emphasising the need to consider these complex dynamics when addressing corruption and illegality in international investment frameworks. He concluded with the observation that although most countries appear to be acting rationally with regard to their national interests, such approaches may not be entirely conducive towards addressing the overall prevalence of corruption in the Asian region.

Professor Vivienne Bath then presented insights on China and Hong Kong, based on her chapter with former student Dr Tianqi Gu. In particular, she highlighted several inconsistencies in China’s stance towards eliminating corruption. While China has increasingly sought to tackle these issues through extensive regulations, anti-corruption campaigns and signing the UNCAC, there is a notable lack of transparency with investigations and details of cases, both domestically and in investor-state dispute settlement proceedings. Official Chinese court databases feature very few corruption cases relating to foreign investors or FDIs. Professor Bath also pointed out the absence of legislation addressing corruption by companies and officials outside China, raising this as an important area for future development.

Antony Crockett and Professor Simon Butt spoke on Indonesia, which is infamous for having high levels of corruption across its numerous levels of government. The pervasiveness of corruption in the Indonesian government was illustrated by reference to the three high-profile cases of Churchill / Planet Mining, Al Warraq and Rafat. They noted that judicial corruption dramatically increases the attractiveness of international commercial arbitration, as commercial parties lack confidence in the judiciary and therefore refuse to settle disputes locally. An in-depth analysis of corruption in Indonesian courts can be found in Professor Butt’s recent book, Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia. This details 30 trials involving allegations of corruption against judges from the supreme court, constitutional court, administrative court, and most disconcertingly, the anti-corruption court itself.

Finally, Dr Amokura Kawharu, who wrote the foreword to the book, briefly discussed the perspective of New Zealand, currently ranked the third least corrupt country in the world. Despite this, New Zealand only ratified the UNCAC and enacted anti-corruption legislation in 2015. This, according to Dr Kawharu, might be explained by the difficulty policymakers face in competing for space on the legislative agenda, an issue compounded by the country’s short 3-year parliamentary terms.

The Hon Wayne Martin AC KC concluded the evening’s discussions with his perspective on the importance of continued efforts to tackle corruption and illegality, which strike at the heart of the rule of law. He added some caution towards the idea of establishing a permanent international court, citing practical challenges such as the inability to attract strong candidates for the bench as well as the customary process of state appointments giving rise to further risks of nepotism.

Zeph v Australia ISDS Arbitration Claims under AANZFTA

[Some of the background below is included in my posting on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog on 15 September 2024 entitled “Aggravating Australia’s Arbitration Ambivalence: Zeph’s ISDS Claims“. I conclude:

“… Overall, the Zeph claims against Australia, as well as parliamentary inquiries into ratification of IIAs like AANZFTA’s Second Protocol, are therefore likely to aggravate rather than assuage concerns in Australia over ISDS rekindled by the Labor Government’s new policy. This is despite tribunal rulings like those mentioned at the beginning [of the Blog posting, on interim measures], and considerable transparency in these multiple forums. Governments and stakeholders therefore need to work harder to promote productive debate and seek workable ways forward. An EU-style investment court or key features can be a useful discussion point for Australia and its counterparties to IIAs.”

***

The opportunity for nuanced public debate about Australia’s Labor Government’s late 2022 reversion to eschewing ISDS, and my proposed compromise of an EU-style investment court alternative process or key features thereof (such as a standing panel of arbitrators or an appellate review mechanism), is complicated politically by a succession of ad hoc arbitration claims brought by Singapore-incorporated Zeph. Controlled by Clive Palmer and his subsidiaries based in Australia, Zeph has filed several claims since 2023 under the 2021 UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, pursuant to the investment chapter of the original AANZFTA (signed in 2009) rather than the Second Protocol agreed in 2022 and expected to be ratified by Australia from mid-2024 (after the positive recommendation from JSCOT’s inquiry in which I gave evidence). Those objecting to retaining ISDS in the Protocol, albeit subject to a Work Program where the states party agreed to review whether ISDS should be retained, highlighted these Zeph claims. However, the JSCOT Report did not specifically mention the claimant, and its links to Australian mining magnate and former right-wing politician Clive Palmer.

The first Zeph v Australia arbitration claim (commenced on 29 March 2023) impugns Western Australia legislation enacted in 2020 (unsuccessfully challenged under Australian constitutional law) interfering with rights awarded to his subsidiary Mineralogy in 2002 regarding an iron ore project, as confirmed by two commercial arbitration awards. By preventing also access to judicial and administrative review, the claim appears strong on the merits, as elaborated in a publically available Notice of Dispute of 14 October 2020 (albeit under the Singapore-Australia FTA) evoking breach of fair and equitable treatment, non-discrimination and other protections. However, the jurisdictional objections are significant. Was Zeph incorporated in Singapore (seemingly in 2019) when the dispute was “reasonably foreseeable”, so the tribunal loses jurisdiction under customary international law due to abuse of rights, under the test applied and found to be made out in Philip Morris Asia v Australia? Can Australia further invoke the ‘denial of benefits’ Article 11 in AANZFTA’s Investment Chapter 11, as Zeph is controlled by an Australian and arguably has “no substantive business operations” in Singapore?

Accordingly, interesting legal and factual arguments are expected in hearings scheduled for the week of 16 September 2024 (under Procedural Order No 1), for the arbitration with the seat decided by the tribunal to be Geneva (contrary to Australia’s preference for London as seat). These hearings may take place at the seat in Geneva. However, as the agreed repository for documentation in this first Zeph case is the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, parties and the tribunal may instead decide to request use of the PCA’s well-appointed hearing rooms.

Procedural Order No 3 (issued 19 January 2024), setting out transparency in most aspects for this first arbitration, interprets AANZFTA Chapter 11 Article 26.3 to make public such hearings and their transcripts (unless a party seeks and justifies confidentiality around certain information). Paragraph 15.iii of the Order adds that the parties’ “main written submissions shall be published on the PCA website at the end of the hearing to which they relate, subject to any prior redactions” of confidential information).

Procedural Order No 2 largely rejected various interim measures applications by Zeph, including curiously that the JSCOT chair stop making public statements impugning ISDS generally. But some of these applications might be revived (if for example Western Australia invokes indemnities against Palmer and his interests, pursuant to its 2020 state legislation).

Secondly, the Zeph v Australia (II) arbitration impugns measures taken by the Queensland state government relating to a minerals exploration project of Palmer’s subsidiary Waratah Coal. The Attorney-General’s Department revealed to federal Parliament in mid-2023 that Zeph had initiated a second ISDS claim, reportedly by notice of dispute under AANZFTA on 21 February 2023 followed by a formal notice of arbitration on 29 May 2023, seeking around A$41 billion in compensation. The agreed repository for this arbitration is again the PCA in The Hague.

A decision of 26 September 2023, from the agreed Appointing Authority (PCA Secretary-General Dr Marcin Czepkelak) adds that the Notice of Arbitration includes alleged breaches of AANZFTA investment Chapter 11’s articles 6 and 9 (FET and expropriation) concerning the Queensland state government’s “decision to grant an environmental offset to a direct competitor of the Claimant over land in which the Claimant’s subsidiary had certain coal exploration permits”.

The Appointing Authority’s decision rejected Australia’s challenge to Zeph’s nomination of Geneva-based Charles Poncet as arbitrator, based on old proceedings involving in him in Italian courts. Other public sources had indicated that Australia nominated Prof Don McCrae (also for the first Zeph case, and earlier the Philip Morris Asia v Australia case) and that the presiding arbitrator is Laurent Levy (who works in the same Geneva law firm as Prof Kaufmann-Kohler, who is presiding arbitrator in the first Zeph case).

In late July 2024 three Procedural Orders from the Zeph II tribunal were also made available via the Zeph II arbitration’s PCA webpage. The first (dated 25 October 2023) sets the first hearing on preliminary objections as the week of 29 September 2024. Curiously, paragraph 10.5 observes that “In accordance with Article 25(4) of the UNCITRAL Rules, hearings shall be held in camera unless the Parties agree otherwise”.

By contrast, Procedural Order No 3 (25 June 2024) paragraph 2.3 adopts the identical reasoning of the first Zeph arbitration tribunal in the latter’s Procedural Order No 3 on Transparency: AANZFTA’s “Article 26(3) stipulates that information submitted to the Tribunal or to either Party shall be protected from disclosure to the public if specifically designated as confidential. A contrario this implies that, absent such a specific confidentiality designation, the information in the record may be disclosed to the public.” Consistently, later in the Zeph II tribunal’s Procedural Order No 3, paragraph 2.9 notes that the parties agreed to apply certain elements of the first Zeph arbitration tribunal including that: “Hearings (other than procedural conferences) shall be open to the public. … Transcripts of the hearings shall be made public, subject to the redaction of protected information. Sound and/or video recordings should not be made public.” Again, it will be interesting therefore to see from the hearings scheduled for the week of 29 September 2025 (in person or perhaps livestreamed, and via subsequent transcripts and submissions) what jurisdictional objections are raised by Australia, presumably very similar to those being raised in the first Zeph arbitration hearings (scheduled for a year earlier).

Paragraphs 1.3 and 1.4 further note in February 2024 the first Zeph arbitration tribunal had accepted Australia’s proposal to share information with the Zeph II arbitration tribunal, and that in March 2024 the parties agreed to adopt the first Zeph arbitration tribunal’s Procedural Order No 3 concerning procedures to protect any confidential information. Thus, despite there being only Prof Don McRae on both tribunals, there has been some alignment achieved and related procedural efficiencies achieved in the two parallel arbitrations. However, it seems regrettably inefficient for the same parties to hold hearings on presumably very similar jurisdictional issues in September 2024 and a year later, before partially overlapping tribunals.

In addition, Procedural Order No 2 (dated 28 March 2024) briefly notes Zeph’s withdrawal of its application for interim measures (filed 7 November 2023 before the Zeph II arbitration tribunal), on 12 February 2024. According to paragraph 2.1, that application seems largely to have requested measures similar to those sought in the first Zeph arbitration, but additionally asking the tribunal to order Australia ‘to refrain from granting any further environmental offsets or equivalent measures over land or property owned by the Claimant or its subsidiaries’. Zeph’s withdrawal, to avoid any hearing and decision, promotes efficiency as on 17 November 2023 the first Zeph arbitration tribunal dismissed or ruled premature the quite similar requests for interim measures.

Thirdly, Zeph v Australia (III) focuses on a Queensland Land Court judgment recommending against a coal mine application by Waratah Coal. This dispute includes allegations of bias on the part of its President Kingham, according to a Notice of Intention to Commence Arbitration (albeit again under SAFTA, dated 20 October 2023) that the Australian government has made public. There is otherwise little public information available yet about this case, including when the actual Notice of Arbitration was filed.

Overall, it is unfortunate that Notices of Dispute or Intention to Commence Arbitration and Notices of Arbitration, let alone Responses from Australia, are not uniformly made public. Such documentation, very important to understand the key factual and legal issues in the cases, is not mentioned in the Procedural Orders on transparency in the first two Zeph arbitrations, but those Orders do reason that the starting principle underlying AANZFTA is transparency.

In addition, it is noteworthy that the Zeph II arbitration webpage does not contain Terms of Appointment of the arbitrators, as for the first arbitration. There is also no decision on the seat in the Zeph II arbitration, but its Procedural Order No 3 ends by noting that it is Geneva. Perhaps Australia agreed to that after the first Zeph arbitration tribunal ruled as such in favour of Zeph, or a the second Zeph tribunal so ruled but did not give any reasons for the decision on the seat (as the UNCITRAL Rules, in Article 34(3), only require reasons for awards).

“Rule-based International Traceability of Critical Raw Materials Supply Chains”

Written by: A/Prof Jeanne Huang & Prof Luke Nottage

This is the theme for our project (with Jeanne Huang as one Chief Investigator) funded recently by the University of Sydney, jointly with institutional partner Fudan University (Shanghai). The sub-theme is “Climate and Environmental Justice between China, Australia, and Other Selected Countries”, including Japan. It is part of series of research projects aimed at advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and involves also from our Sydney Business School Prof Hans Hendrischke (specialist in China). The other Chief Investigator from the Fudan University side is A/Prof Ping Jiang, assistant director of the Department of Environment Science and Engineering.

Abstract: “The US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU Digital Product Passport both underscore the urgent need for enhanced Environmental, Social, and Governance data traceability across Australian miners, Chinese processors, and US/EU regulators and consumers of critical raw materials (CRM) like Lithium. Addressing this need, this project explores how to establish a rule-based traceability framework to foster sustainable CRM supply chains between Australia, China, the US, and the EU. It adopts a multifaceted approach, incorporating law-business-engineering interdisciplinary research, interviews, case studies, conflict-of-law concepts, and comparative law methodology to address cross-border legal and ethical tensions and promote circular economy within CRM supply chains. It aims to use traceability to enhance transparency, visibility, and trust in CRM supply chains, and promote responsible sourcing and consumption, crucial for global digitalization, electric vehicles deployment, energy transition, and ultimately achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

The first of many planned research outputs planned through to mid-2025 is our presentation (slides here) on 12 July 2024 at the “Law and Sustainability” conference at the University of Sydney, co-organised with Singapore Management University and Hong Kong University (program and other details here). We look forward to feedback as we develop our presentation, “Private International Law and Sustainable Development: Establishing International Traceability of Critical Raw Materials Supply Chains” into a full paper that assesses and adapts models particularly from international dispute resolution (arbitral award and judgment recognition) and other international treaty regimes to facilitate recognition of CRM certificates in cross-border supply chains.

Consumer Law Compared and Refreshed

[Update of 4 December 2024: in my presentation tomorrow at the annual Australasian Consumer Law Roundtable, hosted by Deakin U in Melbourne’s CBD, I will present an updated version of my 2024 CCLJ article with Prof Souichirou Kozuka comparing consumer law administration, contracts and product safety. This will mention my Submissions (linked below) to three recent federal Treasury-led public consultations (perhaps prompted by a general election due by May 2025!) into (i) facilitating the Australian government adopting foreign standards for minimum safety of specific goods, (ii) adding civil pecuniary penalties for consumer guarantee remedies not provided by suppliers (including regarding safety, as an aspect of “acceptable quality” for goods), and (iii) a generic unfair commercial practices prohibition. Japanese consumer law has none of these features, but each raises interesting issues. Update of 6 January 2026: on the last-mentioned, see also my media commentary here.]

Yesterday (28 June 2024) I enjoyed attending the ACCC National Consumer Congress in sunny Sydney (program here). This annual invitation-only event provides an excellent opportunity to discuss cutting-edge law and policy issues with new and old colleagues working in Australian state and federal governments, consumer NGOs, businesses and academia (more limited, but I am pictured here with QUT’s Nicola Howell [expert in consumer credit, co-convenor of the academic-focused annual Consumer Law Roundtable] and Dr Catherine Niven [expert in product safety regulation, major contributor to my ARC Discovery Project on child product safety begun before the pandemic- with our last research output published in 2023 here] and Monash Em Prof Justin Malbon [co-author of my 2019 book on ASEAN Consumer Law Harmonisation, with UMelb Prof Jeannie Paterson who had to attend the Congress virtually this year]). It would be good to see more such events bringing together such stakeholders in Japan (compared with in my recent CCLJ article with Souichirou Kozuka), ASEAN and other Asian states.

The first session was on “Buying in Australia – Are We Safe?”. The answer was “No” from panellists including Catherine (except perhaps one speaker). The opening speaker gave a moving account of how long and traumatic the process was to secure a mandatory product safety standard around button batteries, which were fatally ingested by her infant Bella. Another early fatality involving Britney was highlighted in my 2020 piece for The Conversation (leading to an ABC radio interview). That related also to my then Journal of Consumer Policy article arguing that the Australian Consumer Law did need to add an EU-style “general safety provision” (GSP) to fill gaps so suppliers switched to a more pro-active approach to risk assessments to ensure only safe consumer products were put onto the market, rather than waiting for accidents or risks to be identified and then conduct “voluntary” recalls of unsafe goods (mainly then only to avoid potential product liability claims for compensation and/or adverse reputational effects). In my comments at the Congress, I mentioned that after Canada added such a requirement in 2010, its recall rates went down; and when Singapore added a partial GSP (requiring all products to comply with EU, specified American or ISO standards) there were immediately fewer unsafe toys on their market. Yet the Treasury-led Consultation in 2020 into adding a GSP has led nowhere.

As alternatives, it seems, we find from late 2021 a further Consultation about allowing foreign standards to be adopted into the ACL (which I commented was a no-brainer) and another Consultation into allowing civil penalties for suppliers not providing remedies to consumers from defective – including unsafe – products under mandatory consumer guarantees (which I suggested was rather broad-brush and indirect, compared to ex ante regulation).

I also mentioned that unfortunately the written Submissions made by myself and others to all three Consultations have still not been made public. This is also true of the 2023 Consultation into adding to the ACL a general unfair trading prohibition (as under EU, US or Singaporean law). That would go beyond existing ACL prohibitions on misleading or unconscionable conduct to better address eg “dark patterns” facilitated by new technologies (such as “subscription traps” that the ACCC CEO reiterated at the Congress remain a concern). There were moves to make public Submissions to that Consultation (including mine, reproduced here for convenience and giving as an example such a subscription trap laid by The Economist magazine) and they were disclosed from 28 June (the day after the ACCC Congress) noting “79 submissions were received for this consultation, including 8 confidential submissions”. But in principle I believe such consumer law reform consultations should automatically make public submissions unless confidentiality is requested. That is now common good practice across Australian law reform bodies, including the Productivity Commission. In the same vein, Australia’s consumer law reform agencies should publicise at least a short report stating whether and why they may not be proceeding with ACL amendments.

I ended my comments by alerting Congress attendees to new developments in the EU that intersected with concerns raised by the panelists. The new General Product Safety Regulation requires suppliers to document product risk assessments (and implement traceability measures), notify regulators of progress on recalls, set up a public complaints portal (as the US has had for over a decade, but was not recommended in the 2017 ACL Review report) and make mandatory for online platforms some requirements (like responding within set time frames to complaints about unsafe products) that larger firms had adopted voluntarily under the 2018 EU Product Safety Pledge (mirrored by Australia’s 2020 Pledge). The EU Product Safety Pledge has itself been updated, and existing firms have re-signed it, to allow eg regulators to have access to the platforms’ portals to better monitor them for unsafe products.

The EU’s Product Liability Directive, which was adopted in 1992 has also recently been revised to better address new technologies and trends. For example, Article 7 makes an online platform jointly liable for harm if it suggests to an average consumer that products are provided either by the online platform itself or by a recipient of the service who is acting under its authority or control. However a recent comparative law article that Jeannie Paterson co-authored (and I helped with) noted a risk that platforms will avoid this liability potential by website and other disclaimers about exercising control over the suppliers. The article contrasts Californian cases against Amazon and other legal concepts that go further in imposing shared liability on such platforms, including pros and cons of such initiatives.

The second Congress session was on “Justice delayed: strengthening consumer dispute resolution in Australia”. Panellists highlighted persistent problems of access to justice, focusing initially on (prolific) defective vehicles and National Disability Insurance Scheme services. Although Prof Kozuka and I also highlight problems in Japan, I think Australia can do better in various ways. For example, because of the evidentiary issues raised in tribunals or magistrates’ courts, regulators should first more pro-actively use their ACL powers since 2010 to bring representative actions against suppliers who claim for example that cars or other complex products comply with the consumer guarantee of acceptable quality, such as reasonable durability. They can also support consumer NGOs who could run such test cases (eg to to determine how long a mid-value washing machine should last) and then publicise the outcomes, to help facilitate future negotiations and settlements.

Secondly, the NSW Office of Fair Trading should actually use its powers (added before the COVID-19 pandemic) to order suppliers to compensate consumers for up to $3000 in harm caused by products not complying with consumer guarantees, and publicise this among suppliers and consumers. Other jurisdictions should add such powers too, especially as the ACL is supported to be uniform across Australia. It is true that some suppliers may contest such orders. But they will also likely do that if and when the ACL adds powers for all consumers regulators to order civil pecuniary penalties for major failures, as mooted in late 2021 Consultation (paralleled by the Productivity Commission’s recommendations from an inquiry into Rights to Repair). Decisions from tribunals and courts, even at lower levels, will help clarify the meaning of general terms like reasonable durability.

Thirdly, we should introduce effective public complaints registers across Australia. Most jurisdictions lack them. And for example the NSW register does not differentiate by sales volumes or other measures of scale, making it hard for consumers or their advisors to determine if one supplier is really better or worse than others. These and other questions were raised in a 2017 Report by the Productivity Commission and should be revisited to improve access to consumer redress (and indeed informed purchasing decisions).

The third Congress session was on “Regulating for real people: understanding consumer behaviour to drive effective markets”. In his thought-provoking introduction (kindly shared now here), Consumers Federation of Australia chair Gerard Brody highlighted observed limits even with “nudges”, for example regarding electricity contract switching, and asked why suppliers shouldn’t just promise or be required to automatically put customers on the best plan. The CEO of (peak NGO) Consumers NZ pointed out that past consumption patterns may not be a good guide. I also wonder about handing over so much power and data to suppliers, and making consumers too passive (which is partly why for unfair contract terms regulation the price and subject matter cannot be impugned: consumers are assumed to be able at least to investigate and consider those, provided these items are not presented in a misleading way). A better solution might be electricity bills that say “if you switched to our Plan B you would save $XXX dollars” and then the customer could opt-in. [Update of 4 December 2024: after a recent problem with my electricity company in NSW, which had stated something like this on their bills but in a confusing way, I now am more amenable to Gerard Brody’s suggestion for an automatic “upgrade”.]

The Consumers NZ CEO provided an update on the progression of a private Member’s Bill to introduce a right of repair for New Zealand, including around spare parts availability, and likely mandatory labelling about durability (as recommended also by the Productivity Commission’s Right to Repair report). Again, I would add that the EU provides some good lessons for the antipodes (and say Japan). In February 2024 the EU institutions reached provisional agreement to enact the Right to Repair Directive, as part a larger environmental initiative aiming to extend a product’s life cycle and support a circular economy. Relevant features compared to the ACL regime (which for example allows the supplier not consumer to chose between repair and replacement):

“The Directive will require producers to carry out repairs outside of the legal guarantee for products covered by repairability obligations under certain EU ecodesign regulations listed in an Annex … [likely beginning with] certain white goods (including household washing machines, dishwashers and refrigerators), vacuum cleaners, electronic displays, and mobile phones and tablets (among others)

… [requirements for] information on certain spare parts to appear on a website, making them available to all parties in the repair sector and preventing certain practices that can hinder repair – including contractual clauses or certain software- and hardware-related barriers

… [seemingly] loan devices to be provided to consumers while they wait for repair in certain cases and to enable a consumer to opt for a refurbished unit as an alternative

… Under the existing Sale of Goods Directive, the seller is liable to the consumer for any lack of conformity which exists at the time when the goods were delivered and which becomes apparent within two years of that time. In the event of non-conformity, the Sale of Goods Directive sets out a hierarchy of remedies, allowing consumers to initially choose between repair and replacement … to encourage consumers to choose repair over replacement, the legal guarantee under the Sale of Goods Directive would be extended by 12 months following a repair …”.

This EU development also intersects with greenwashing, and the hot topic of the last Congress session – “Lightbulb moments: bold ideas to help consumers play a meaningful role in the green transition”.

Corruption and International Treaty Developments in Asia

Written by: Luke Nottage (University of Sydney) and Nobumichi Teramura (Universiti Brunei Darussalam)

[Ed. Note: Our related new book (open access through Springer) was launched by the Attorney-General of Brunei at a symposium held there on 28 May 2024 (as reported here). A follow-up seminar and local re-launch by former Chief Justice of Western Australia Wayne Martin (pictured below with other book contributors/speakers), including some new research emerging from the book, was held at USydney Law School on 1 August (further details here, with Nobu Teramura’s presentation/overview Powerpoints also for LSA conference presentation here). Many thanks to all involved in this book project, including for funding from the Centre for Asia-Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS), Universiti Brunei Darussalam, and the University of Wollongong’s Transnational Law and Policy Centre.

A version of the Blog posting below, re-titled “Corruption Control Needs a Clean-Up in Asia”, was published on 18 July 2024 by the East Asia Forum – thanks to their editors and an anonymous reviewer.]

Corruption remains a serious problem in most parts of Asia. The economic effects are serious, regionally and globally, and the COVID-19 pandemic sometimes made the situation worse. Emergency measures for government procurement and management of the economy expanded opportunities for graft and impacted adversely on enforcement activities.

This problem has persisted for many years despite many new legal instruments aimed at or potentially impacting on corruption, as explored also in our recent book (open-access, so PDFs freely downloadable).

First, the OECD Convention (signed from 1997), prompted by the US enacting the Foreign Corrupt Officials Act two decades earlier, focused on the ‘supply side’. Developed economy member states (including Japan and Korea in Asia) committed to criminalising at home the bribery of foreign officials. Secondly, the UN Convention (signed from 2005, by almost all Asian states) covered bribery of both domestic and foreign officials, including also the ‘demand side’ (solicitation and receiving bribes).

However, the commitments under these multilateral treaties are often quite general, not setting for example any minimum criminal penalties for bribery. As Anselmo Reyes elaborates in his co-authored chapter, both treaties also leave open the possibility of allowing ‘facilitation payments’ – smaller ‘grease money’ payments to expedite routine government transactions like permits. Canada disallowed these under 2017 legislation but Australia’s 2024 amendments retain this possibility – perhaps reflecting the arguments of some economists (investigated in our book by Ahmed M Khalid, Bruno Jetin and others with econometric studies) that such low-level bribery in fact may be efficient.

In addition, even for the core commitments under both treaties, there is not much incentive for transparent and effective enforcement by member states. This is especially true in developing economies with less media freedom and/or democratic accountability – also under pressure. Scrutiny of enforcement under these treaties relies mainly on ‘peer review’ mechanisms that take years to implement, and recommendations on member states for improvements are not binding.

Some states have created new anti-corruption agencies and even courts, as in Indonesia and Thailand, but have faced political backlash. Others, like Vietnam and China, have sometimes vigorously enforced anti-corruption laws (including through the death penalty), but some suspect this is done selectively for political purposes.

A few Asia-Pacific states (such as Thailand and now in Australia) have followed the lead of the UK’s Anti-Bribery Act 2010, which specifically sanctions firms that do not take reasonable measures to introduce anti-bribery compliance schemes. This makes mandatory a feature of the opt-in UN Global Compact scheme that (larger) companies have started to sign up to. They may anyway be conscious of pressures from investors influenced by environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations.

This slow and sporadic transition towards taking corruption more seriously is also evident in provisions found in free trade agreements (FTAs) entered into by developed countries and regions: the EU, the US, Canada and (notably in Asia) Japan. These treaties also commit member states to both enact and enforce anti-bribery laws. They are reflected in some ‘mega-regional’ FTAs like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (Chapter 17) and in more detail the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Chapter 26), but curiously not in the recently signed Second Protocol to the ASEAN Australia New Zealand FTA (except regarding government procurement: Chapter 17).

Typically, however, these treaties too are broadly worded, and corruption-related enforcement issues are not subject to their inter-state dispute settlement provisions that help make the commitments more credible. This limitation also seems to apply to the new WTO Investment Facilitation Agreement (although its text is not yet public).

Corruption issues have been cropping up also increasingly, especially from around 2010, in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitrations initiated under FTA investment chapters or standalone bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Occasionally under such international investment agreements (IIAs), a foreign investor claims compensation because host state officials solicited a bribe in contravention of the ‘fair and equitable treatment’ commitment under the IIA.

More often, the host state raises as a defence against an ISDS claim that the allegation that the foreign investor made a bribe when making the investment, so it is not covered under the IIA. If the arbitral tribunal agrees, it may decline jurisdiction, so the investor loses all treaty rights under international investment law and is left to the vagaries of host state law and court procedures. This typically arises where the IIA specifies expressly that it only covers investments made ‘in accordance with host state law’. Such outcomes may indeed incentivise foreign investors to avoid any form of bribery.

However, what evidence will prove such bribery, especially given that arbitrators (unlike anti-corruption agencies or courts) lack powers vis-à-vis third parties (like banks)? What if the alleged corruption is minor, vigorously solicited by public officials, commonplace and/or systemic in the host state? And what if it leads to the perverse incentive of the host state deliberately seeking a bribe, never enforcing sanctions against the official, but keeping evidence of the bribe as a ‘get out of jail free card’ if ever the foreign investor brings an ISDS claim after the host state discriminates or otherwise violates substantive commitments given under the IIA to encourage inbound investment? Focusing on East and South Asia, we and other authors in our book focus on possible more nuanced solutions for such scenarios, under existing or revised IIAs.

Overall, addressing corruption requires a careful assessment of its various manifestations, some much worse than others (as argued for China, for example). But it should also carefully consider the procedural mechanisms under both national law and international treaty law that help ensure appropriate enforcement of substantive commitments made by states.

Australia’s Anti-ISDS Approach Again: AANZFTA Protocol To Be Ratified

Around 21 May 2024, after I had presented a submission and oral evidence at a public hearing late March, the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) issued its Report 215 agreeing that the Australian government should proceed to ratify the ASEAN Australia NZ Agreement for a Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) Second Protocol. This is despite the Labor Government in November 2022 declaring that it will not agree to any form of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), relevantly arbitration, in future treaties; and will approach counterparties seeking to remove or otherwise revise ISDS provisions under existing treaties. The Protocol includes a Work Program to review the ISDS provisions, within 18 months of coming into force, which will proceed largely in parallel to a review of the investment chapter also in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) FTA, which might involve adding ISDS provisions, as it includes the same 12 states party but also three big FDI exporting economies that have generally favoured ISDS: Japan, Korea and China.

In the JSCOT inquiry into ratifying the AANZFTA Second Protocol, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and a small NGO (the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, AFTINET, which has persistently objected to ISDS in IIAs in parliamentary inquiries) recommended against ratification due to the Second Protocol retaining ISDS for at least the next few years. My Submission recommended ratification, explaining some of the context for ISDS (along the lines and other cited writings mentioned above) and appending my 2020 Submission to DFAT’s review of old IIAs (reiterating where the Second Protocol’s work programme might make some further drafting improvements around ISDS, especially to further enhance transparency and efficiency). We three were then invited to give (concurrently) oral evidence to JSCOT on 25 March 2023.[1]

The ACTU and AFTINET presented a very broad (and curiously similar) definition of ISDS: a procedure giving corporations additional rights to sue governments for compensation if they can argue a change in law or policy will harm or impinge on their future profits. They also both highlighted the three claims recently brought under AANZFTA against Australia by Zeph (a Singapore-incorporated company controlled by Australian mining magnate and politician Clive Palmer) and more generally the risks of regulatory chill to sovereign states particularly from fossil fuel investors, as well as the costs of defending claims even when states prevail. (Similar arguments were presented in the Open Letter from Australian academics and lawyers opposing ISDS, circulating from May 2024.[2]) AFTINET also asserted that there was no good evidence that ISDS-backed IIAs promoted FDI flows and that recent IIAs were omitting ISDS – including supposedly for India and New Zealand, but also the EU and Brazil.

My own evidence countered that ISDS claims require additionally proof of violation of substantive commitments offered by host states, that the Zeph claims face difficulties and anyway Australia does not close down its courts due to occasional aggressive litigants, while its outbound investors also protect their investments abroad through ISDS claims – particularly against states with governance issues. I also reiterated that there is some evidence ISDS-backed IIAs promote cross-border FDI, developing economies are failing to attract sufficient FDI to support the global energy transition,[3] and many states (including also eg Indonesia, India and Vietnam) are still offering ISDS in IIAs despite experiencing some inbound claims.

[1] The transcript of this Evidence is at ‘Second Protocol to Amend the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (ANAZFTA) Public Hearings’, Parliament of Australia (Transcript) <https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/AANZFTASecondProtocol/Public_Hearings> and the video-recording is at https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/Watch_Read_Listen/ParlView/video/2299575.

[2] Open Letter on ISDS (May 2024) <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSddWDUB2NzZAHYlGJDOxg0DiA-JySOGEE7f_09ZdwQNhryr3g/viewform>.

[3] ‘World Investment Report 2023’, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Report) <https://unctad.org/publication/world-investment-report-2023>.

When JSCOT’s Report 215 was issued, contrary to my expectation and curiously as this departs from her party’s past practice where a treaty includes ISDS, the Greens Senator for Western Australia Dorinda Cox did not issue a dissenting report – nor even seemingly attend either parliamentary hearing. The Report’s summary emphasised that:[1]

“Notably, Australia successfully negotiated a review of the existing ISDS provisions in [… marking] an instalment of the Government’s commitment to review ISDS provisions in agreements where they already exist, while ensuring Australia does not agree to ISDS mechanisms in new agreements.”

The Report’s Conclusions added (after noting my call for transparency around this ongoing Work Program):[2]

“Considering the significant interest in this issue demonstrated by a range of stakeholders in this and previous JSCOT inquiries, the Committee will seek an update on the progress of the ISDS review work program commitment in due course, and in any case would expect the Department [of Foreign Affairs and Trade: DFAT] to draw any notable developments to the Committee’s attention.”

The Report also quoted evidence given by DFAT that it “will obviously be coming to government to seek a mandate for the positions that we take into that review’ of ISDS under the Work Program”.[3]

Interestingly, the Report did not specifically mention the Zeph claims, although it stated:[4]

“At the public hearing submitters to the inquiry pointed out that there are currently ISDS actions afoot, some of which involve arrangements between Australia and ASEAN nations. The Committee inquired as to the cost of these legal actions to the Australian taxpayer. The Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) said ‘the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister have instructed us to vigorously defend those matters and we are in the process of doing so, and that does accrue cost.

In addition, after recording the opposition to ISDS and hence treaty ratification from the ACTU and AFTINET, the Report noted my concerns about relying solely on more politicised inter-state dispute settlement or arbitration agreed under individual investment contracts, before observing:[5]

The Committee sought clarification as to the recent trend away from ISDS. Professor Nottage said, ‘I think that’s a good thing—that we try something; it has an effect; we realise some of its problems, so we try to fix the problems […] and come up with a new compromise solution’.

My quoted statement in fact followed more specifically from my observation about the question of a ‘retreat from the high water mark of pro-ISDS approaches’.[6] The Committee also did not go on to mention my point immediately following in evidence that the EU has not abandoned direct claims by foreign investors altogether, but come up instead with the investment court compromise. I had suggested that this model could be considered by Australia (and regional states) in future treaty practice even when not negotiating with the EU, for example in the ongoing review of ISDS under AANZFTA’s Second Protocol and RCEP. (Subsequently I developed this proposal in a letter dated 10 April to the Trade Ministers of Australia and New Zealand.)

Furthermore, the Report did not mention my written Submission urging again specific improvements, including restrictions on ‘double-hatting’ and compulsory mediation before arbitration.[7] Overall, therefore, it seems that parliamentary interest and scrutiny around the specifics of ISDS or possible alternatives remains quite limited, deferring largely to the executive branch of government.

[1] Report 215: AANZFTA Second Protocol, available at Parliament of Australia <https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/AANZFTASecondProtocol/Report>, xv.

[2] ibid, para 2.95 (and 2.79).

[3] Ibid, para 2.74.

[4] Ibid, para 2.75. This level of generality may reflect a compromise reached between the Labor and Greens members (who might have preferred to mention Zeph and Clive Palmer specifically) and the Coalition members in drafting the joint Report.

[5] Ibid, para 2.80.

[6] Idem.

[7] Available at Parliament of Australia, <https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/AANZFTASecondProtocol/Submissions>.

Compromise way forward on investment treaty/FTA (re)negotiations

[On 10 April 2024, following my submission and then oral evidence given to the Australian parliament inquiring into the AANZFTA Second Protocol ratification, I wrote as follows to the respective Trade Ministers of Australia (Hon Don Farrell) and New Zealand (Hon Todd McClay). The latter’s response dated 29 April, quite non-committal, is below and here. I also had (confidential) discussions with DFAT officials on 23 May 2024 regarding my proposal.]

I am a New Zealander working in Australia since 2001, specialising in international business law including international and domestic investment law and dispute resolution.[1] I have provided many submissions to Australian parliamentary inquiries into ratifications of bilateral investment treaties or investment chapters of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), including giving related evidence on 28 March 2024 urging ratification of the Second Protocol to the (ASEAN+2) AANZFTA.[2] Representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and AFTINET (Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network) opposed ratification of the Protocol especially as it retained investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, albeit to be revisited in a Work Program. The latter will run largely in parallel to negotiations to consider instead adding ISDS to the ASEAN+5 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which FTA also involves Australia and New Zealand.

Australia’s Labor Government from November 2022 has reverted to its stance, when in power over 2011-13, to opposing ISDS in new treaties, but seemingly does not extend this position to protocols to existing treaties like AANZFTA. The Labor Government also will approach counterparty states to review past treaties. Until losing the general election in October 2023, New Zealand’s Labor Government from 2018 had similarly opposed ISDS in new treaties. However, the new Coalition Government may revert to a more flexible approach towards ISDS provisions.

As a compromise way forward for both countries, with significantly shared economic and geopolitical interests, I proposed in the AANZFTA parliamentary inquiry that in that FTA’s Work Program as well as the parallel RCEP (re)negotiations concerning ISDS, serious consideration be given to substituting an EU-style “permanent investment court” hybrid form of dispute resolution to underpin the substantive commitments (like non-discrimination and fair and equitable treatment) offered in such treaties. Unlike ISDS, the foreign investor complainant does not nominate an arbitrator. Instead, the investor’s home state and the host state counterparty select in advance a panel of “judges”, who are then selected to decide the claim (albeit following arbitration rules and issuing awards). The model also provides for a second-tier review, by other adjudicators selected from the panel, for any serious error of law or fact. Such features make this investment court model sufficiently different from ISDS, in my view, to not conflict with the anti-ISDS policy of the current Australia’s Labor Government or the previous New Zealand Labour Government. Yet it still allows for foreign investors to initiate a claim, without having to lobby its home state to press for initiation of an inter-state arbitration. The latter mechanism is also provided in investment treaties, but is rarely used where the more direct ISDS route is available and is much more subject to (geo-)political vagaries – as we observe also with WTO inter-state adjudication.

Further, this compromise investment court model was developed in the EU almost a decade ago after extensive consultation with legal experts and other stakeholders there, and it has since been accepted in FTAs notably concluded by Canada, Singapore and Vietnam.[3] The model is also promoted by the EU in ongoing UN deliberations on reforming ISDS multilaterally. It is in the EU’s negotiating mandate for the FTA being negotiated with Australia, and if it is not accepted then that FTA unfortunately will not include provisions on investment protection (only instead on preferential market access for agreed investments, underpinned solely by inter-state arbitration). That was also the outcome in the FTA between the EU and Japan, which preferred to retain instead ISDS-backed protections for its investors into many individual EU states under older treaties. The New Zealand-EU FTA similarly does not include any provisions on investment protection, yet New Zealand’s outbound investors lack such BITs with individual EU member states. New Zealand’s new Coalition Government might now consider adding a protocol on investment protection, agreeing after all with the EU’s court mechanism, to encourage more cross-border investment flows.

Greater consideration by both New Zealand and Australia to the investment court model would also be useful as each continues to negotiate FTAs with the other non-EU counterparties, including across Asia (such as the Australia-India negotiations to conclude a treaty going beyond trade in goods). It would also open up space for greater bipartisanship with each country and therefore speed up FTA negotiations.

In fact, in late 2017 I wrote to your respective predecessors as Trade Minister with Dr Amokura Kawharu (then a professor at University of Auckland, now President of the New Zealand Law Commission). Drawing on recent research (which I have updated[4]), we urged even then Australia and New Zealand to consider the EU-style investment court model and coordinate more in progressing investment treaty negotiations, including for RCEP.[5] That FTA could then have been more easily and quickly agreed upon, and indeed included India which in 2019 withdrew from negotiations. Closer joint consideration of the investment court model deserves renewed attention from both Australian and New Zealand governments, as they look to (re)negotiate various investment treaties, including still AANZFTA. The investment court model may not be perfect but nothing ever is, and it promises a better way forward than the current flip-flops in each country around traditional ISDS.

I would be happy to confer with you or relevant staff to discuss this further, or provide additional information.

Yours sincerely

Luke R Nottage

[1] Profile and CV at https://www.sydney.edu.au/law/about/our-people/academic-staff/luke-nottage.html. My father (Richard Nottage) was former Secretary of Foreign Affairs in New Zealand and my brother (Hunter) was later Senior Trade Law Advisor with MFAT.

[2] See transcript and Submission via https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/AANZFTASecondProtocol

[3] For details see eg Moritz Keller (ed) EU Investment Protection Law: Article-by-Article Commentary (Beck/Hart, 2023).

[4] See eg, on the evolving studies on the impact of ISDS provisions on cross-border FDI, my submission in 2020 to DFAT’s review of Australia’s bilateral investment treaties (available at https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade-and-investment/discussion-paper-review-australias-bilateral-investment-treaties), summarised eg in my chapter “Rebalancing Investment Treaties and Arbitration in the Asian Region”, in Mahdev Mohan and Chester Brown (eds) The Asian Turn in International Investment(Cambridge University Press, 2021) 379-398.

[5] Our 2017 letters can be found at https://japaneselaw.sydney.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017KawharuNottageTurnbullGovt_Combined_LN01.pdf, via https://japaneselaw.sydney.edu.au/2017/11/nz-renounces-isds-deja-vu/