Australia / US free trade negotiations – nanolabelling on the agenda

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional free-trade agreement. As of 2014; Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam participated in negotiations.

Back in 2004, Australia signed a “free trade” agreement with the US.

According to ‘The Conversation’ journal, the outcome of those talks seen many obligations spelled out for Australia in detail, but some went unrecognized and others were not interpreted adequately, and there is now concern as to further negotiations as a result.

In 2004, a Senate Select Committee report​​ stated that "the evidence received showed few policy experts in Australia were sufficiently prepared, resourced or intellectually attuned for these complex negotiations".​

"It could be claimed that ten years on negotiators are more capable of preserving Australia’s key interests. But the NGO, academic, consumer and public policy experts who follow this process generally do not agree​," the journal reported.

Nanolabelling​

Following the last round of Trans-Pacific Partnership talks in 2003, Article 8.7.​, ​outlined that Australia must allow the US to participate in the development of standards and technical regulations for cosmetics, medical devices and other pharmaceutical products. 

Both parties are subject to these treaty provisions, but few Australian companies would be capable of taking the US to task.

However, Australian health authorities rejected the labeling of cosmetics containing nanoparticles despite industry support. 

The Department of Health's decision not to allow labelling of cosmetics containing nanoparticles​​ fits into Article 8 obligations. This decision seems dubious when even Australia’s peak cosmetics body, ACCESS, argued strongly for this information to be on its products.

The European Union has mandated nanoparticle information be available to consumers. Without this labeling, Australian cosmetics will not be able to enter the EU market.