On Monday 9 July, officials from the European Commission and Japanese government confirmed that the EU and Japan are continuing their negotiations for an investment agreement (distinct from their economic and partnership agreement concluded in December 2017) on the basis of the European approach for the settlement of disputes between investors and states – the investment court system (ICS).
"The talks for an agreement on the protection of investments continue (...) The EU will never again be able to negotiate such an agreement that is not based on the ICS and its essential principles", the director-general of the European Commission's DG Trade, Jean-Luc Demarty, told a hearing of the European Parliament's international trade committee.
"The ICS model and the proposal of the multilateral investment court (MIC) are consistent but independent, with the objective of the MIC being to apply the same standard of investor-state dispute settlement multilaterally", he said.
"We know that the EU will not accept an agreement with an ISDS model. We must therefore go beyond that. We are looking at the merits and the shortfalls of the ICS. We are not totally against this, but we want to identify its flaws", the previous Japanese chief negotiator, Yoichi Suzuki, stated, admitting that a multilateral court system to settle disputes on investment "would be more effective in term of costs and benefits".
Due to the deadly bad weather that has struck Japan, the European and Japanese leaders agreed on Monday 9 July to postpone the 25th EU-Japan summit, which was initially planned to take place in Brussels on 11 July, to 17 July and to change the venue to Tokyo, thus putting the signature of the strategic partnership agreement and economic partnership agreement off until this date (see EUROPE 12059). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)