investment dispute resolution in a future EU-US free trade agreement

The following link refers to the potential form of the investment dispute provisions to be negotiated in the FTA between the EU and the US. The proposals go further than existing practice (under the New York Convention) to allow the investor’s home state to take countermeasures for investment breaches. See more at the following link - the implications for energy and food sectors are that these provisions, unless expressly stated to the contrary, would also extend to investments in those sectors.

an energy security pursued at all costs leads to catastrophic environmental costs – coal power generation on the rise globally

“According to WRI’s estimates, 1,199 new coal-fired plants, with a total installed capacity of 1,401,278 megawatts (MW), are being proposed globally. These projects are spread across 59 countries. China and India together account for 76 percent of the proposed new coal power capacities”. 

For more, see the following article on the World Resources’ Institute’s website.

There are no ostensible legal implications in relation to inter-state trade per se however I’ve included this link to my blog as this is important information in relation to global energy trends. Also, the implications of this for the inter-state environmental protection framework in the post-Kyoto Protocol era would be interesting.

 

New Russia, Japan Meat Trade Policies Highlight Food Safety Issues

ICTSD article on Japan and Russia measures restricting trade in meat imports that potentially engage WTO norms.

EU considers duty on US ethanol imports to address dumping

The EU Commission has proposed a duty on US ethanol imports as cheap imports have flooded the EU and muscled out other suppliers – e.g., Brazil’s share of the EU ethanol market dropped from c. 30% to 4.5%! All parties are WTO members and therefore the practice by the US suppliers along with any response by the EU or other party harmed by this practice are amenable to the WTO covered agreements and the Anti-Dumping Agreement. More on this newsitem in the following ICTSD article.

stockholding foodstuffs and implications for the WTO system

The following article on ICTSD discusses the issue of stockholding foodstuffs – in terms of the WTO system, a member is obligated under Article XI to eliminate all quantitative restrictions (including export and import restrictions) other than those:

contained in each member’s schedule of concessions;

in line with the exceptions listed under Article XI.2, and/or and under Article XX of GATT; and those

under any other relevant provision of the WTO system and in line with international law.

China marching towards food security

Read this ICTSD article on China’s intention to become grain self-sufficient. The implications for the WTO system is to which extent this policy may engage China’s obligations in relation to its accession to the WTO.

offshore gas projects in the east mediterranean basin

See the following link about facts & figures around maritime energy resources exploration in the east Mediterranean basin. Although this article contains no legal argument or analysis, the sort of legal issues that it might engage are: the capacity of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli State to contract inter-state treaties, or other private-public legal agreements, that relate to resources which exist within or otherwise relate to territory of undetermined status or which is under occupation, as the case might be. Also, it brings to the fore issues about the demarcation of maritime borders in cases where not all parties concerned – e.g., the littoral states in the region – are parties to the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea (i.e., the international legal agreement par excellence that definitively codifies the norms that ought to apply to legal questions of this nature).