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About the event:
The value chains for critical raw materials (CRM) used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries often involve mining in the Global South, Australia and Canada, production in Asia, and consumption in the Global North. Starting in 2027, EU law will require a ‘digital product passport’ (DPP) for market entry. These passports will provide EU consumers, investors, regulators and others with products and sustainability data throughout the entire value chains. The EU DPP aims to improve ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) compliance by ensuring high transparency and verifiable data from miners, producers, and recyclers. However, legal, geopolitical, commercial and technological factors suggest that major economies in the up-and mid-stream of the value chains, such as Australia, China, and Japan, may maintain or develop their own traceability laws, which might only partially overlap with the EU’s system. These laws could potentially be linked through mutual recognition agreements with the EU. Professor Luke Nottage will explores how such a system could function, with varying degrees of decentralization, inspired partly from private international law mechanisms that have evolved to handle cross-border traceability of documents. Examples include systems for recognizing marriage and other personal or commercial certificates, arbitral awards and foreign judgments.
About the speaker:
Dr. Luke Nottage is Professor of Comparative and Transnational Business Law at Sydney Law School, specializing in arbitration, contract law, consumer product safety law and corporate governance, with a particular interest in Japan and the Asia-Pacific. From April 2026 he is cross-appointed as the senior tenured Professor of Anglo-American Law at the University of Tokyo. Luke is founding Co-Director of the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL). Luke also consults for Japanese Law Links Pty Ltd and was Special Counsel with Williams Trade Law.