Regulatory Autonomy in International Economic Law provides the first extensive legal analysis of Australia’s trade and investment treaties in the context of their impact on national regulatory autonomy. This thought-provoking study offers compelling lessons for not only Australia but also countries around the globe in relation to pressing current problems, including the uncertain future of the World Trade Organization and widespread concerns about the legitimacy of investor–State dispute settlement.

This essential book discusses a wide range of important legal principles such as procedural fairness and reasonableness in the context of international trade and investment law. Using comparative methodology, the authors examine how those principles are reflected in treaties and how they are employed by adjudicators resolving disputes.

Many of the VCLT rules on the law of treaties are based on the assumption that the parties which entered into the treaty and are bound by its obligations are also the key beneficiaries of the treaty. While IIAs are agreements between states and part of public international law, they are 'triangular treaties' because they grant enforceable rights to third party beneficiaries (investors). This feature of IIAs has important consequences for the interpretation of the agreement. The main avenue for the investor rights to be considered under the VCLT Article 31 rule on interpretation is as part of the object and purpose of the treaty, if that object and purpose is conceptualised as the protection of foreign investment. In contrast, under the VCLT rules the state parties to a treaty have considerable scope to shape the interpretation of their agreement, through both subsequent agreement and subsequent practice. The VCLT rules provide no scope for third party beneficiaries -- i.e. investors -- to have a similar influence on how key IIAs provisions are interpreted. In recent years states have been increasingly willing to use the avenues available to them to influence treaty interpretation, such as through the issuance of joint interpretative statements or through other forms of subsequent practice, including unilateral statements or submissions to arbitral tribunals in ISDS cases. Even though under the VCLT rules states appear to be the 'masters' of their IIAs, in practice arbitral tribunals have often found that they are not bound to follow the interpretation of a provision put forward by the treaty parties.

This chapter in the forthcoming Elgar Encyclopedia of International Economic Law examines the following topics with respect to Australia: trade; investment; financial regulation; and artificial intelligence. Further information about Australia - including the legislative process, the relationship of legislation with international law, the implementation of international treaties, and Australia's membership of international bodies - is incorporated into each part as relevant.

This submission focuses on how investment treaties can be designed to preserve sufficient policy space for states to implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.

Since the adoption of the World Health Organization's WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, governments have been pursuing progressively stronger and more wide-reaching tobacco control measures. In response, tobacco companies are frequently using international trade and investment agreements as tools to challenge domestic tobacco control measures. Several significant new trade and investment agreements that some fear may provide new legal avenues to the tobacco industry to challenge health measures are currently under negotiation, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a twelve party agreement of Asia-Pacific regional countries) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (an agreement between the United States (US) and the European Union). This commentary examines different options for treaty provisions that the parties could employ in these agreements to minimise legal risks relating to tobacco control measures. It recommends that parties take a comprehensive approach, combining provisions that minimise the potential costs of litigation with provisions that increase the likelihood of a state successfully defending tobacco control measures in such litigation.