No, I’m not referring to the presence or otherwise of something like MSG (monosodium glutamate) in the daily food intake of the remarkably long-lived Japanese people! Rather, this brief posting will highlight a fascinating and insightful recent article by Kyoto University Professor Shotaro Hamamoto about treaty-based Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) as an additional option typically provided for foreign investors seeking to enforce substantive treaty commitments offered by host states, alongside inter-state arbitration. Professor Hamamoto is a world-renowned international law expert, and it was a great learning experience to collaborate with him on a project some years ago where we reverse-engineered both the substantive and procedural provisions of Japan’s investment treaties.
His recent article, for a JWIT special issue on “Dawn of an Asian Century in International Investment Law?”, is entitled: “Recent Anti-ISDS Discourse in the Japanese Diet: A Dressed Up But Glaring Hypocrisy”. The analysis is important and timely given the question of whether and how the expanded Transpacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement will be ratified and brought into force across the present 12 economies, including Japan, the US and Australia. One focus of public debate remains the TPP’s inclusion of ISDS-backed investment commitments (now outlined by the Australian government here, and earlier subjected to my preliminary analysis here), along with some broader doubts about the overall benefits of FTAs generally (as I discussed on a panel with economists and a journalist at a recent Lowy Institute seminar).
Category: Public policy and politics
The Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA’s investment chapter: What’s next?
by: Luke Nottage and Leon Trakman
[A shorter version of this also appears today under a different title on The Conversation blog.]
Alongside this week’s APEC leaders’ summit in Manila, US President Obama met with counterparts and trade ministers from 11 other Asia-Pacific states that agreed in October to the expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. These states, covering around 40 percent of world GDP, cannot sign it before 3 February, when the US Congress finishes its 90-day review. But Obama and others in Manila reiterated the importance of the TPP for regional and indeed global economic integration.
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“Takeover: Foreign Investment and the Australian Psyche”
[This is the title of a well-known Australian journalist’s recently published book, which provides a useful platform for comparing the law and politics of foreign investment regulation in other Asia-Pacific countries. The following is an un-footnoted version of the first part of my paper for a special issue of the NZBLQ, following the lively “FDI Roundtable” hosted in June 2015 by Amokura Kawharu at the University of Auckland.]
1. Introduction
According to the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) Regulatory Restrictiveness Index compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Australia scored 0.13 overall in 2014 compared to an average of 0.10 across 55 countries (including all OECD and G20 countries) and the OECD average of 0.07. In terms of significant world economies, this places Australia in a group with somewhat above-average restrictiveness towards FDI, including also Korea (0.14), Canada (0.17) and Russia (0.18). Another group is even more restrictive, including China (0.42), Indonesia (0.34), India (0.26) and – intriguingly – New Zealand (0.24). At the other extreme are major economies with more permissive regulatory regimes: the Netherlands (0.01), Japan (0.05), the United Kingdom (0.06) and the United States (0.09).
The FDI Index is based on:
• foreign equity limitations;
• screening or approval mechanisms;
• restrictions on the employment of foreigners as key personnel; and
• operational restrictions (eg on capital repatriation or land ownership);
and the OECD acknowledges that: “is not a full measure of a country’s investment climate. A range of other factors come into play, including how FDI rules are implemented. Entry barriers can also arise for other reasons, including state ownership in key sectors”. Indeed, a detailed academic study shows that the screening mechanisms are conceptually similar in China and Australia, but now applied in a much more liberal manner in Australia.
Index data since 1997 shows how restrictiveness has gradually diminished, as in other OECD countries. But it is revealing to outline (in Part 2. below) the longer-term historical evolution of Australia’s regulatory controls and broader public debates over FDI. This analysis usefully sets the scene for a close analysis of a topical issue nowadays: treaty-based investor-state arbitration (Part 3 [omitted below, but discussed generally elsewhere on this Blog]). Some parallels and contrasts can then be drawn with New Zealand, its close trade and investment partner (Part 4 [omitted – but further elaborated here, also comparing Korea]).
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Senate’s Report into Australia’s Treaty-Making Process – and ISDS Model?
On 25 June 2015, the federal Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee tabled its Report on its Inquiry (initiated 2 December 2014) into the “Commonwealth’s treaty-making process, particularly in light of the growing number of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements Australian governments have entered into or are currently negotiating”. The Terms of Reference included “j. exploration of what an agreement which incorporates fair trade principles would look like, such as the role of environmental and labour standard chapters”. This opened the door to many of the 95 public submissions discussing an issue more related to the contents or substance of trade and investment agreements: the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. These are typically included nowadays as an extra avenue for foreign investors to claim for violations of host state commitments (such as Australia’s Free Trade Agreements reached last year with Korea and China, but not with Japan).
Out of 14 organisations and individuals (including myself) invited to give evidence at public hearings in May 2015, based on their written submissions, nine volunteered opinions on ISDS and a further three were questioned on it by Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson. He initiated an “Anti-ISDS” private member’s Bill last year, although the Coalition and Labor Senators on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee recommended against enactment.
In the present Inquiry, the three (out of six) Committee members presented an extensive majority Report, entitled “Blind agreement: reforming Australia’s treaty-making process”. Senator Whish-Wilson presented a short Dissenting Report urging more wide-ranging reforms to enhance public participation and parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiation and implementation of trade agreements. The (two) Coalition Senators also issued a short Dissenting Report, arguing for the adequacy of the present system of public consultation by current government politicians and officials as well as scrutiny by the Joint (house) Standing Committee on Treaties, conducting an inquiry and making recommendations to Parliament after the treaty is signed and tabled but before Australia takes binding treaty action (ratification etc).
The majority Report noted that “While a number of issues specific to individual trade agreements, such as inclusion of [ISDS] clauses and intellectual property … and copyright chapters, are controversial and the subject of public debate, they are only considered in this report to the extent that they shed light on the treaty-making process” (para 1.7). However, the majority Report did later mention ISDS and indeed recommended that Australia develop a model investment treaty or chapter including indicative provisions.
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Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Commonwealth’s Treaty Making Process
[Below is an un-footnoted Submission to this Inquiry. I was subsequently invited to give oral evidence at public hearings on 5 May, with the transcript available here.]
I welcome this Inquiry and the opportunity to make a public Submission on a topic that has been addressed now several times by the Australian Parliament. As an expert in international business law, I have made several Submissions to other inquiries related to Australia’s international affairs, including Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and investment treaties, mostly recently giving evidence to this Senate Committee’s Inquiry into The Trade and Foreign Investment (Protecting the Public Interest) Bill 2014 (the “Anti-ISDS Bill”). In that evidence I remarked that there could be improvements in how Australia approaches FTA negotiations. Due to time and space constraints I make three specific suggestions regarding (a) treaty negotiation process and (b) treaty implementation and review, since both stages are encompassed by this Inquiry’s Terms of Reference.
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Investment Treaty Arbitration ‘Down Under’: Policy and Politics in Australia
As part of our joint ARC-funded research project on investment treaty dispute resolution, also involving Shiro Armstrong (ANU) and Leon Trakman (UNSW), Jurgen Kurtz and I have completed a note on Australia’s recent policy and political debate over investor-state arbitration, which ultimately was not provided for in the Australia-Japan FTA signed last year (as explained here).
The complex and ongoing saga in Australia may also impact on pending negotiations for an expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and (ASEAN+6) Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership FTA, each of which involves Japan as well as Australia.
Our paper will be published in early 2015 in the ICSID Review, with a longer version also at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2561147. Below is an outline.
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Guest Blog – “The Cautionary Tale of HIH: ‘Independent’ Directors as Lemons”
The second stage conference for the book project critically comparing and assessing “Independent Directors in Asia” is hosted by co-editor A/Prof Dan Puchniak at the National University of Singapore Law Faculty over 26-27 February 2015. In addition to comprehensive reports from different countries in the region, including one co-authored by myself and Sydney Law School colleague Fady Aoun regarding Australia), the project will include a chapter comparing significant case studies from various jurisdictions, based on short (1000-word) contributions from experts in various jurisdictions. Below is the (unfootnoted) text of Mr Aoun’s contribution on a very significant corporate collapse in Australia in 2001.
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Consumer Protection and Free Trade [and Investment] Agreements
My public lecture on this topic, bringing together two research fields of contemporary public interest, was presented on 24 September 2014 as part of Sydney Law School’s Distinguished Speakers Program.
The session was kindly introduced by my colleague Prof Chester Brown, and ended with a commentary by NUS Asst Prof Jean Ho who kindly arrived straight from Sydney airport after her flight from Singapore.
The audio file of my presentation and Chester’s introduction are available via Sydney Law School’s podcast channel (specifically here), my Powerpoint slides are here (as a PDF), and a related short paper is here. Below is the abstract (with further hyperlinked references available here) and speaker/commentator bios.
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Who Rules Japan? Popular Participation in the Japanese Legal Process
Below is the manuscript version of our Preface to Leon Wolff, Luke Nottage and Kent Anderson (eds) Who Rules Japan? Popular Participation in the Japanese Legal Process (forthcoming in April 2015 from Edward Elgar), comprising:
1. Introduction: Who Rules Japan?
Leon Wolff, Luke Nottage and Kent Anderson
2. Judging Japan’s New Criminal Trials: Early Returns from 2009
David T. Johnson and Satoru Shinomiya
3. Popular Participation in Labour Law: The New Labour Dispute Resolution Tribunal
Takashi Araki and Leon Wolff
4. In Defence of Japan: Government Lawyers and Judicial System Reforms
Stephen Green & Luke Nottage
5. Administering Welfare in an Ageing Society
Trevor Ryan
6. Reforming Japanese Corrections: Catalysts and Conundrums
Carol Lawson
7. Competition Law in Japan: The Rise of Private Enforcement by Litigious Reformers
Souichirou Kozuka
8. When Japanese Law Goes Pop
Leon Wolff
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The “Anti-ISDS Bill” before the Australian Parliament
This posting is based mainly on a Note that critically reviews The Trade and Foreign Investment (Protecting the Public Interest) Bill 2014, drawing on my written Submission and subsequent Senate Hearings. The fully footnoted version will appear in the next issue of the CIArb’s “Australian ADR Reporter” or successor Journal. Readers may also be interested in my subsequent posting to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, followed by the Senate Committee Report (27 August 2014) which agreed that the anti-ISDS Bill should not be enacted. Significant extracts from that Report will also be added and analysed in my draft paper at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2483610, with an introduction incorporating a version of the Note below.
This work is part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP140102526) funded over 2014-2016 jointly with Dr Shiro Armstrong and Professors Jurgen Kurtz and Leon Trakman, which was acknowledged in the Senate Bill hearings and final Report. The topic of ISDS will also be discussed at the Law Council of Australia’s 2014 International Trade Law Symposium, 18-19 September, Canberra, and will be the focus of an ABC National Radio broadcast on 14 and 16 September (with transcripts here).
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