Two Mitchell/Voon Papers

From Andrew Mitchell:

Readers may be interested to read the following draft  papers that I have recently co-authored with Tania  Voon on the impact of WTO law on two ambitious new Australian schemes. The  first paper focuses on the  application of the GATS (and related obligations under Australia’s preferential  trade agreements) to Australia’s National  Broadband Network, raising some potential concerns about its  WTO-consistency. The second paper focuses on the  application of the TRIPS Agreement, the TBT Agreement, and the GATT 1994 on Australia’s  draft legislation for the mandatory plain packaging of tobacco products,  critically analysing claims of inconsistency with those agreements. These two  schemes are the subject of intense controversy in Australia at the moment, and  they have significant broader implications for other countries and international  economic law more generally, for example as evidenced by the launching of an  investment treaty claim against Australia by Philip Morris in relation to plain  packaging, as noted by Simon Lester in an earlier post here.