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News from the movements

From trade deal to corporate takeover: threats of lawsuit abuse in RCEP
7-Oct-2025 IBON International
This episode unpacks the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, world’s largest free trade agreement, and the dangerous push to insert the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism into its investment chapter.
The corporate siege of Honduras: international arbitration demands, energy transition, and state sovereignty
3-Oct-2025 bilaterals.org
Between July 14 and 17, in the city of Choluteca (Honduras), more than 60 people from 20 local communities and representatives of national and international social movements gathered for the “Meeting of communities affected by energy projects in southern Honduras - Without human rights, there is no energy sovereignty.”
Indonesia-Canada CEPA is not the rules-based trade we need
2-Oct-2025 CCPA
Free trade deal is a gift to mining and fossil fuel companies but sidelines human rights and industrial development.
Clive Palmer’s multibillion-dollar claims make a mockery of a tribunal that allows foreign investors to challenge court decisions
1-Oct-2025 The Guardian
The billionaire’s last three cases are part of a growing global list from fossil fuel companies against government decisions to reduce carbon emissions.
AFTINET webinar: ISDS - Fossil fuel companies’ secret weapon against climate action and Clive Palmer case outcome
1-Oct-2025 AFTINET
With COP30 in Brazil around the corner and with the prospect of Australia co-hosting COP31 next year, a major threat to effective climate action continues to fly under the radar: Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanisms in trade and investment agreements.
Will Canadian companies respond to widescale public dissent by threatening to sue?
30-Sep-2025 Common Frontiers
Tens of thousands of people took to the street in a nationwide strike opposing various Canadian-owned mining projects while the Canada-Ecuador Free Trade Agreement could be tabled any day now.
Commission pushes EU-Morocco trade deal, ignoring democratic processes and saharawi rights
30-Sep-2025 WSRW
WSRW can today reveal a leaked EU document showing plans to continue trading with products from occupied Western Sahara, in direct violation of earlier rulings by the EU Court of Justice. A vote will take place this Wednesday.
Understanding digital services taxes
29-Sep-2025 Public Citizen
The US has raised a dispute about the imposition of this tax under “nondiscrimination” provisions of the US-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement, alleging that these taxes are targeted at US companies.
EU-Indonesia deal: global civil society alliance calls for a stop
26-Sep-2025 ETJC
A European-Indonesian alliance of civil society organizations and trade unions criticises the political agreement on the EU-Indonesia free trade agreement being signed in Indonesia.
10 stories (more) of how the rich and powerful hijacked justice
24-Sep-2025 Linkedin
These cases can cost countries (or rather, taxpayers) billions — even when decisions were taken democratically to protect people, the environment, or national security.
EU-Indonesia trade agreement will perpetuate social and environmental injustice
24-Sep-2025 FERN
Indonesia and the EU signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, while Environment Commissioner announced that the implementation of the European Union Deforestation Regulation will be delayed by yet another year. 
Algeria–EU: arbitrating a historical imbalance
24-Sep-2025 RLS
In July 2025, the European Union officially initiated a dispute settlement procedure against Algeria within the framework of their association agreement. This move follows several years of commercial tensions, especially over imports, investments, and Algeria’s industrial strategy. Behind this legal dispute lies a deeper questioning of the asymmetric relations between Europe and its southern neighbors.
LDC graduation and FTAs will shape Bangladesh’s future: Great caution is needed
23-Sep-2025
Bangladesh is rushing to conclude a large number of bilateral free trade agreements. It will have to make massive concessions in areas critical to its development and future.
EU seeks new trade talks with Morocco - Western Sahara included
23-Sep-2025 WSRW
Nearly a year after the EU Court struck down the EU-Morocco trade agreement for including occupied Western Sahara, Brussels appears ready to test the limits of international law once again.
The BRICS are the new defenders of free trade, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank
19-Sep-2025 CADTM
China, supported by other members, is multiplying free trade agreements and promoting capitalist globalisation based on free trade, even as the former powers of the North are now turning towards protectionism.
AfCFTA: A pan-African dream under influence?
17-Sep-2025 bilaterals.org
Is the AfCFTA truly an autonomous African initiative that serves the peoples of the continent, or is it merely another tool for maintaining the dominant global economic order?
Map: Big Tech’s targets in Trump’s secret tariff negotiations
16-Sep-2025 Public Citizen
A new analysis maps the wide array of policies around the world on data privacy, AI accountability, digital taxes, and anti-monopoly laws that Big Tech industry lobbyists have urged US trade negotiators to target.
Call for signatures: We say no to AfCFTA – trade justice for people, not corporations!
15-Sep-2025 bilaterals.org
As civil society groups across Africa, trade unions, farmers’ associations, local communities, and environmental, feminist, and youth movements, we raise our voices in collective opposition to the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Cross-border data flows and free trade agreements
15-Sep-2025 Digital Trade Alliance
Provisions that restrict the regulation of cross-border data flows can limit the ability of States to implement domestic measures to protect the privacy and security of consumer data.
Source code disclosure and free trade agreements
15-Sep-2025 Digital Trade Alliance
Consumer rights are at risk when FTAs limit the ability of countries, their regulatory and oversight agencies, or appropriate third parties to monitor the software being imported into their territories.