Australia needs precision tools in drafting trade agreements, not a sledgehammer
- Written by Bryan Mercurio, Professor and Vice Chancellor’s Outstanding Fellow of the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong
When tobacco giant Philip Morris launched its legal challenge against the Australian government in 2011, it shocked the nation. It wasn’t so much the subject of the lawsuit (plain packaging laws) or its eventual result (Canberra won) which caught many by surprise. It was the use of an arbitral tribunal under the obscure Hong Kong-Australia...






