Citizens across each of the 12 countries in the TPPA built a strong movement against the excesses of corporate rights represented by the TPPA, as we have done twice before in defeating these proposals in the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (1998) and in the World Trade Organisation (1999 and 2003).
Washington, DC – Civil society movements across Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and North America – united internationally to fight the…
We will have a better idea next week when the political leaders of the TPPA countries meet on the side of the APEC leaders’ summit in Peru, one of Obama’s last appearances as president on the global stage. There will be lots of brave rhetoric, so we will have to decipher the noise from behind the scenes.
In a few hours the Key government will take the next step to railroad through the legislation to implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). There were relatively few submissions, reflecting people’s disgust with how the hearings on the agreement itself were conducted.
Personally for me, sometimes I feel a bit burnt out from activism. Sometimes I feel like I’m not achieving much, that the enemy is too powerful.
Politically, the champions of neoliberal globalisation are under siege, not always in ways we would welcome. This is evident in the US presidential contest, the vote for Brexit and the re-election of Jeremy Corban as Labour leader, but also in the rise of racism and fascism in other parts of Europe, including in the imminent Austrian re-election, and the support for Donald Trump.
The TPPA ‘comes into force’ (ie. starts) when countries accounting for 85% of the combined GNP of TPPA countries ratify it. That is extremely unlikely to happen before the next New Zealand election in 2017. So a future coalition government could withdraw our ratification of the TPPA before it starts.
New Zealanders from all walks of life are coming together today in a Day of Action that will affirm our democratic rights and support initiatives to build a fairer and more sustainable society. There will be rallies, marches, music and speeches, in family-friendly events that bring together a powerful movement for change in towns and cities across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Rallies for Democracy that will be held around this country on Saturday 10th September, which link the TPPA to climate action, te Tiriti o Waitangi, social justice and workers’ rights, are the latest manifestation of that disquiet.
THE DEEP ANXIETY of the “Free Trade” lobby was on full display in this morning’s NZ Herald (7/9/16). Fran O’Sullivan, that most indefatigable of the Herald’s free trade advocates, was so moved by the uncertainty currently surrounding the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that she devoted a good chunk of her business column to the global fight against protectionism.