13 July 2021 The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has published an open letter to trade ministers ahead of the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on fisheries subsidies. The letter – authored by ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton – calls upon trade ministers to finalise a fisheries agreement ahead of Thursday’s meeting at the WTO. In the letter, Mr Denton writes, “The global business community considers a rapid conclusion of the fisheries negotiations to be a matter of first-order importance. For business, finalising the

13 July 2021 In recent months, the ICC Centre of Entrepreneurship has expanded its operations by hiring an executive coordinator and releasing a community workshop report. Over the past year, ICC has launched the first two hubs of the ICC Centre of Entrepreneurship to provide specialised training, mentoring, and support services to help entrepreneurs establish, fund, manage, and expand their start-ups. The first regional ICC Centre of Entrepreneurship was launched in Istanbul to serve the Central Asia and Caucus region in early 2020 and was followed by

12 July 2021 The ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB) received the lowest number of reported incidents for the first half of any year since 1994. IMB’s latest global piracy report details 68 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships – the lowest total since 1994 – down from 98 incidents during the same period last year. In the first six months of 2021, IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reported 61 vessels boarded, four attempted attacks, two vessels fired upon and one vessel hijacked. Despite

10 July 2021 ICC has welcomed the decision taken by G20 Finance Minister’s to endorse the preliminary agreement by the OECD Inclusive Framework to modernize the global taxation system — but cautions that coordinated implementation of the agreement will be vital to avoid placing unnecessary burdens on cross-border trade and investment.  ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO said: “The fundamental architecture and parameters of the agreement reached through the OECD set a solid foundation to modernize the global taxation system. The G20’s backing for the framework

7 July 2021 ICC has issued a warning that the world’s richest economies risk imposing major costs to the global economy absent of a step-change in their approach to managing the Covid-19 pandemic. In a statement issued ahead of this week’s meeting of G20 Finance Ministers, ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO said: “The finance ministers of the world’s richest economies are taking a huge gamble with their domestic economic fortunes if they fail to take concerted action to vaccinate the world. As demand

7 July 2021 The International Chamber of Commerce has launched a global call for interested candidates to participate in a newly created Task Force on Disability Inclusion and International Arbitration, formed under the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR. The call for expressions of interest to ICC’s wider network is the first measure undertaken by Claudia Salomon, just one week into her term as President of the ICC International Court of Arbitration. Formally established in May upon proposal from Claudia Salomon to the Commission’s Steering