The Man Who Sold the World

By
Simon Prast
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47
16
eight_col_obama_key
This week, the world mourned the passing of one the greatest artists of our era. David Bowie, masterpiece of sound, vision, fashion and fame, turned 69, released a new album, appeared across the internet looking a million dollars in a dark suit and hat (no socks: ever stylish) and then…and then…he was dead. Major Tom. The Thin White Duke. Ziggy Stardust. Dead. 
How I wished it was a hoax. But no. It was The Guardian website I was reading, reporting confirmation from Bowie’s son. Nearly a week on, it’s still hard to comprehend. He moved through time and space with such otherworldly grace that loving him was like loving the alien. Because he seemed immortal, his mortality shocked. It wasn’t that he died young like Elvis or Lennon. It was that he…well…died at all.  Planet Earth was blue with tears and the international outpouring of grief revealed a scale of honour and respect few can inspire.
Of course, that didn’t stop them trying. Like this headline from the NZ Herald: “Editorial: TPP signing an honour, let’s respect it”.  After flat out local denials, the (Chilean) Government announced that the Trans Pacific Partnership will be signed in Auckland on 4 February. It seems we are “about to have the honour of hosting the formal signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement by trade ministers from 12 nations of the Pacific rim. And it is an honour. This is the most comprehensive and far-sighted economic agreement the world has seen in our lifetime, possibly of all time.” 
The Herald concedes “it is too much to hope any fears now assuaged will reduce the scale of protest at the signing. But it should not be too much to ask that those philosophically opposed to free trade respect the views of those who disagree with them, and let this country host the occasion with dignity and pride”.
Respect? Honour? Dignity? Pride? Remember, we’re talking about TPP not David Bowie. 
A couple of days later in the same paper, John Key’s biographer John Roughan did his best to assuage the fearsome, whose “ only remaining concern may be investors’ rights to sue for compensation in independent international tribunals if a government’s action unreasonably reduces the value of an investment. But that is not new, disputes tribunals were part of post-war international trade rules, and the principle is perfectly reasonable. It is unlikely any government New Zealanders would elect, whether led by National or Labour, would need to be taken to a tribunal. They would expect to compensate an investor for a policy change the investor could not reasonably have foreseen. I don’t know what kind of government protesters have in mind when they call the TPP’s dispute provisions a threat to “democracy”.
How could it be that the most comprehensive, far-sighted economic agreement the world has ever seen pose a threat to democracy? Here’s my take and I’d be interested to hear where I’m going wrong:
  • If you are an investor under TPP, you have new, secretly negotiated, supra-legal, far-reaching, irreversible, unappealable, unlimited RIGHTS to protect your investment from a government if it acts against your financial interests, including the right to sue for compensation for potential (not just actual) loss of earnings.
  • If you are NOT an investor under TPP, you have new, secretly negotiated, supra-legal, far-reaching, irreversible, unappealable, unlimited LIABILITIES to recompense investors if your government acts against their financial interests, including exposure to be sued for compensation for potential (not just actual) loss of earnings.
The issue then is (and this for you John Roughan), is it is a function of democracy to provide a two-track judicial system: one for investors and one for non-investors, which provides unlimited irreversible, unappealable rights for one side and unlimited irreversible, unappealable liabilities for the other?
In short, do you believe investor rights trump human rights? If you think they do, if you think this proposition is reasonable, you should support TPP. If you think they don’t, if you think this proposition is treasonable, you should oppose TPP. So far, I’m sold on the latter proposition.
And it’s not just me. On 10 January in The Guardian, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz expressed his hopes that 2016 would be a better year for trade agreements – and “the death of TPP”, which he described as the worst trade agreement in decades (let’s face it, Tim Groser was our negotiator).
According to Stiglitz, “the problem is not so much with the agreement’s trade provisions, but with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts. In particular, the chapter gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms (inscribed on more than 6,000 pages)”. He continues: “Obama has sought to perpetuate business as usual, whereby the rules governing global trade and investment are written by US corporations for US corporations. This should be unacceptable to anyone committed to democratic principles.”
With TPP, America sets the rules. In his final State of the Union Address this week, Obama said it himself: “With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region; we do.” Sound like a partnership to you?
Stiglitz concludes that” those seeking closer economic integration have a special responsibility to be strong advocates of global governance reforms: if authority over domestic policies is ceded to supranational bodies, then the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of the rules and regulations has to be particularly sensitive to democratic concerns. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in 2015. In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak.”
So when John Roughan disingenuously ponders on what kind of government protesters have in mind when they call the TPP’s dispute provisions a threat to democracy, Stiglitz gives us the answer: the kind of government that would “reward the powerful and punish the weak”. Sound familiar?
Respect? Honour? Dignity? Pride? Not for these men who sold the world.

47 COMMENTS

  1. Exactly Mr Prast, well said. Nobody seems to be talking about how the TPP would affect policies to reduce climate change, surely there is a conflict there? Climate, of course, will lose out and perhaps the TPP is merely a delaying tactic – they must know the game is up on climate (I don’t believe they are stupid – just sociopathic).

    As evidenced by the US Congress voting away water protections after the Flint, Michigan, debacle. If they do this before the TPP – imagine after…

    “The US House of Representatives voted 253-166 this week to overturn a controversial rule to protect America’s clean water in spite of a growing scandal in Flint, Michigan over poisonous levels of lead.

    “Representatives approved a resolution back by the Senate in November that blocks the Environmental Protection Agency’s “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule.”

    The regulation protects streams and wetlands used in local water supplies, but failed after a deluge of lobbying from corporations including Halliburton, Shell, and Tyson foods.”

    Full story – https://www.rt.com/usa/329117-congress-clean-water-flint/

  3. A neat piece, and very digestible! I like your comparisons, “Do you believe investor rights trump human rights?”. Human rights all day.

  4. And the ultimate sad, sad, sad part of it all is that the benefits amount to an addition of $2.7bn to GDP by 2030 (MFAT website). That’s such a pathetic “benefit”. As a measure of scale, Aussie banks take more than that annually in profits in NZ.

    • It’s only $.7 Bill less than the Nats gave back to the wealthy per annum.
      Take in the drop in value at the farm gate, and the increase in large dairy operations in Europe, Asia and the Americas, this is not going to work out the way the faulty econometric model working with biased guesstimates predicted.
      This agreement steared clear of unfair tax regimes, tax evasion and climate change.
      This makes a farce of the commitment to fight all 3.
      Lets not sign, and negotiate a FTA that does not sell us out.

  6. I don’t understand how the Executive can give away Parliament’s sovereignty by making a foreign body -Investor State Dispute Tribunals be able to veto Parliamentary Supremacy, without Parliament been able to debate and agree to this change. I would have thought that such a massive constitutional change as the loss of Parliament Supremacy would require a referendum.

    I wonder about the constitutional legality of what is happening.

    What is stopping a future Parliament from declaring that in New Zealand Parliament has always been the supreme arbiter of the public good and that trade agreements cannot change this constitutional fact. In particular that ISDS decisions are just recommendations which Parliament will decide whether to uphold or not.

    Why should our most representative institution -our Parliament that is the most democratic, that has evolved through progressive changes dating back centuries be secondary to some new less representative foreign court?

    For those of you who question whether we have a constitution, the answer is yes we do, it is simple and it is unwritten -being a collection of rights handed down from the British 1688 -‘Glorious Revolution’ -which gave supreme sovereignty to Parliament not the monarchy.

    What is being proposed by Key et al is that this constitution be amended, so an unelected, unrepresentative, foreign court with a mandate to only consider one sector of society -foreign investors, will have sovereignty over our Parliament.

    I question if Key et al has the authority to make this change.

    • He has a very questionable mandate.
      The Nat/Act/Maori/UF cabal secured less than 50% of the party vote at the last election.
      It was a quirk of MMP that translated that into the majority they have in the House.

  8. I’ve been saying for some time how apt The Man Who Sold The World is for John Key. It’s such a neat and appropriate descriptive phrase for him. He’s selling something he doesn’t even own (the world) to a bunch of duped New Zealanders.

  10. Got good new today!!! NESARA has begun. To give everyone an idea of what it means: No IRS; no income tax; revamp of the Judicial system; governance which reflects the wishes of the people, etc., etc.:
    http://www.ashtarontheroad.com/history-of-nesara.html
    U.S. comes first with NESARA and we follow about a week later with GESARA. Hmm …. I wonder how John Key and his corporate cronies are feeling right now (or is he really one of the good guys?) We all remember he went off to the Bilderberg and made a comment about us paying the price for being a member of “The Club”. Well he may well be a member of the club, but patriotic New Zealanders are not.
    The markets are being taken down worldwide to quit the world of the Khazarian Mafia( The Club) who has kept us all down for hundreds (actually thousands) of years :
    http://investigate911.org/Oligarchy.htm
    There’s gonna be dancing in the streets very soon!!

  11. Thank you Simon for telling it the way it is. Sadly politicians serve business elite more the their own countries. Something is wrong with democracy?

  12. All governments act unwisely and are possibly like all sporting events which have paid professionals playing, collecting arranged payouts fir scammed results, seems all the worlds on its way to hell
    Scandal beggats scandal that beggats the coming judgement not one person will be able to avoid.

  13. This TPPA legitimizes Corporate criminal activity which there has been alot of world wide for centuries.

    How can we let National sign away our sovereignty, National showing their true colours.

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