Currently ASEAN and it’s six trading partners Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China and India are currently negotiating a mega free trade agreement called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Because of its geographical scope, the RCEP encompasses 50% of the world’s population and 29% of the global GDP, while seeking to regulate more than just trade goods and non trade domestic policies in participating countries. The trade agreement threatens a negative impact on the environment, agriculture, investment, telecommunications, visas, labor, and intellectual property in the region. The trade agreement seeks supremacy of corporations over the the lives of people.

Our No RCEP campaign highlights the contradictions of government’s global commitments to sustainable development while entering into binding agreements that prioritise corporate profit. We are currently helping coordinate a cross-constituency campaign against RCEP and have successfully created spaces for civil society involvement in RCEP negotiations. Our member organisations located in the RCEP-participating countries are organising and awareness raising on trade agreements among their constituencies.

Watch Our Campaign Video

Media Coverage of the Campaign

• Peoples Dispatch, ‘Activists gather in Bangkok to discuss countering RCEP‘, 21 July 2018
• Bangkok Post, ‘Investor vs state interests debate heats up‘, July 2018
• The Hindu, ‘RCEP will hit economically backward women the most’, 25 July 2017