On 17 December 2021, in Adelaide, Australia’s trade minister Dan Tehan signed, in a virtual ceremony with the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was in London, the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The text is in English, in duplicate. The Parties had announced an agreement in principle in June, after negotiations opened in 2020.

Article 1.1 establishes a free trade area, consistent with Article XXIV of GATT 1994 and Article V of GATS. The Agreement has 32 chapters. Chapter 2 covers trade in goods, with tariff schedules and quotas; on entry into force, tariffs are eliminated immediately for the great majority of trade, while access for beef and sheepmeat is opened in stages over ten years. Chapters 3 to 7 cover trade remedies, rules of origin, customs, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade.

Chapters 8 to 13 cover cross-border services, financial services, recognition of professional qualifications, temporary entry for business persons, telecommunications and investment. Chapter 14 regulates digital trade. Chapter 15 intellectual property. Chapter 16 government procurement. Chapters 17 to 20 cover competition, state-owned enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises and innovation. Chapters 21 and 22 cover labour and the environment. Chapters 23 to 25 cover development, trade and gender equality, animal welfare and antimicrobial resistance.

Chapter 29 provides the administrative and institutional provisions, including a joint committee. Chapter 30 governs dispute settlement. Chapter 31 contains general provisions and exceptions.

Article 32.1 makes the annexes, appendices and footnotes an integral part of the Agreement. Article 32.2 allows written amendments, which enter into force 30 days after an exchange of notifications or on an agreed date. Article 32.4 allows extension to territories for whose international relations the United Kingdom is responsible, including, after consultations, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Article 32.5 allows disapplication to such a territory, taking effect after 12 months if the Agreement as a whole ceases to apply. Article 32.6 requires a general review in the seventh year after entry into force.

Article 32.7 provides that the Agreement shall enter into force 30 days after the Parties exchange written notifications confirming completion of domestic requirements, or on such other date as the Parties may agree. The Parties later agreed a date; the Agreement entered into force on 31 May 2023. Article 32.8 allows termination by written notice; termination takes effect six months later, or on an agreed date, with the possibility of consultations on provisions that would remain in force later.

It is not the agreement in principle announced by the prime ministers in June 2021. It is not the CPTPP, and not the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Image: Government House, Adelaide; Peripitus, 22 January 2008; CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement. Treaty text: Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom and Australia, London and Adelaide, 17 December 2021.