Newly elected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in international trade and investment agreements ‘a dog’, and promised no ISDS in future agreements. The government soon broke that promise with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, pretending that side-letters with a handful of the parties had an equivalent effect.
‘The message from the hui was very clear: we need to generate real alternatives that confront climate change and disruption, while supporting sustainable local businesses and jobs that pay a living wage, in a nation founded on te Tiriti o Waitangi.’
The Labour-New Zealand First government will be hoping that New Zealanders have got short memories as it celebrates the entry into force of the rebranded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, minus the United States.
I wasn’t going to write today but last night I received a press release from Prof Jane Kelsey about the fact that the TPPA- minus America ( and now called the CPTPP) went into force yesterday.
These days I feel depressed, cautiously optimistic, and frustrated at the same time.
Last week I was in New York at a conference on Rethinking International Investment Governance – the investor-state dispute system (ISDS) that lets transnational corporations enforce special rights through secretive, offshore, pro-investor tribunals.
US President Donald Trump instructed his National Economic Council Director and the United States Trade Representative to look into joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that he quit just over a year ago. This follows his earlier suggestion that he would consider doing so, provided its terms were made more beneficial to the US.
The Greens now remain the only party opposed to the CPTPP. That opposition has been predominantly comprised of a series of rousing speeches in the House from MP Golriz Ghahraman. With only 8 seats in the House, the Greens have been left explaining to their voters that there’s not much else they can do to change course.
New Zealanders have just cause to doubt whether their own government would have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to a multi-national with deep corporate pockets to launch a lawsuit against us.
We caved in the face of French demands to release two agents convicted of sabotage and murder.
We caved to (apparent) threats from Warner Bros to move production of The Hobbit to another country. (The threat turned out to be baseless – but it nevertheless succeeded in ‘spooking’ the public.)
We (apparently) caved to demands from a lone Saudi businessman.
And then there was this curious event in June 2013, when the Chinese government may have exerted heavy pressure on the National government over a proposed fta with Taiwan – an island-state it considers a “renegade province”;
‘The so-called Joint Declaration on Inclusive and Progressive Trade, released by New Zealand, Canada and Chile alongside the signing of…