Making sense of the CETA : Analysis of the final text of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

In the preamble, the parties simply ‘recog- nize’ that the Ceta protects the right to regulate (“reCoGniZinG that the provisions of this Agreement preserve the right to regulate…”), yet the text fails to clearly and unequivocally confirm this right, espe- cially in the investment chapter. [...] The other mentions are to be found in the labour and environment chapters, so that, in effect, the Ceta shields the right to regulate from any international obligations to protect labour or the environment but not from all the detailed obli- gations in the investment chapter. [...] This will still allow an arbitration tribunal the flexibility to bring back the essence of an umbrella clause, with the potential to elevate all of a state’s con- tractual obligations with the investor to the level of a treaty obliga- tion, without any of the contractual obligations on the investor (e.g. [...] We are only on the threshold of this new era and the future is still unclear.” • It is in this context of growing concerns about the impact of free trade on national identities and cultures that the UneSCo General Confer- ence adopted the Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions in 2005. [...] Analysis of Key Provisions Cultural considerations in the CETA preamble • The Ceta preamble includes an explicit recognition of the legitimacy of national cultural policies and references the UneSCo Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.