THE 2004 UNITED STATES-AUSTRALIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

This note is primarily a short report from Australia on a new bilateral FTA between Australia and the United States (AUSFTA). While it conveys the experience of a very small country, at the other end of the earth, I want to use this example for what it says about the increasingly complex and fluid nature of law making in trans-national commercial law fields like foreign investment and intellectual property. Australia has been a strong supporter of the multilateral trade agreements at the WTO.1 AUSFTA is not Australia’ first bilateral FTA, but it is significant because the partner this time is the strongest of the developed countries. In many ways, the constituents of Australia’s commercial law already reflect the Washington policy consensus. Nonetheless, this agreement with the United States lays down detailed requirements for changes to Australian domestic law. The requirements are not simply a direct translation of United States law. They represent another building block in an edifice of global economic law.