The Redeeming of Unfree Trade Agreements: France, Taiwan, India and Australian Uranium Safeguards

Abstract

This paper provides a concise account of the conflict within Australian policy between the general desire to promote free trade on the one hand and the apparent desire to monitor it in the case of uranium, pre-categorised as a strategic commodity. The public history of this conflict begins more than two decades ago with the Australian embargo on uranium sales to France, and ends with the current dilemma of Australia's self-defined prohibition against uranium sales to India. And in between, the story takes a critical detour through Taiwan.