Sorry Albert. It looks like the MAI is officially stuffed. So there!
Regards
Brian Jenkins
-----Original Message-----
From: McKenna, Viktoria (Sen W. Heffernan) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Friday, 30 October 1998 10:41
Subject: Update on Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
|Thankyou for your e-mail concerning the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment
|(MAI), and I apologise for any delay in responding.
|
|At an informal consultation among officials at the OECD in October 1998
it
|became clear that the MAI in its current form will not go ahead.
|
|The MAI was being negotiated by members of the Organisation for Economic
|Cooperation and Development (OECD), including Australia, and eight
non-OECD
|participants, with the aim of providing a transparent, effective and
|comprehensive framework for international investment.
|
|Officials at the meeting supported the need for a transparent and certain
|global investment framework and accordingly, agreed to continue work on
|developing an international framework of rules for investment. The MAI
text,
|however, will now only be a reference point for any further work.
|
|Australian officials noted that the OECD process needed to be more
|transparent and open; developing countries need to be more involved in
the
|negotiations; and to encourage that the agreement should be pared to back
to
|core elements. They also reaffirmed Australia's support for ensuring that
|governments continue to have the sovereign right to regulate to protect
and
|promote environmental and other important objectives.
|
|The Australian Government is carefully considering its approach to any
|future consultations on the issue.
|
|You may be aware that the Coalition Government put in place new treaty
|making procedures to ensure that treaties receive public and
Parliamentary
|scrutiny before any binding action is taken. The Coalition Government has
|also made it clear that it would not sign any treaty unless it is
|demonstrably in the national interest to do so.
|
|I thank you once again for sharing your views with me.
|
|Yours sincerely,
|
|(Viktoria McKenna, Office Manager for)
|Senator the Hon. Bill Heffernan
|Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister & Cabinet
|Senator for New South Wales.
|
