Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, and Vietnam, are now ruled by a TPP Federal Government

4 min readNov 6, 2018

Figure 1. A TPP federal government has just been set up by the coming into force of an international treaty: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP Government sits above the national governments of the seven treaty nations (so far), as shown. [Updated on 2019–01–22]

Bruce King

Original article on 2018–11–07; Updated on 2019–01–22 and 2019–10–06

An international treaty that recently came into force creates a new federal government of nations that sits above the national governments of Japan, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and now Vietnam.

The treaty is formally called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is often referred to by any of several acronyms, including the CPTPP, the TPPA or the TPP.

The Partnership came into force on 30 December 2018 for Japan, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Canada; and on 14 January 2019 for Vietnam.

The Partnership’s six thousand pages of treaty law thus became binding on the seven Partnership nations, overriding the domestic laws and constitutions of the individual countries — which must be brought into compliance with them.

The TPP laws are enforceable in the domestic courts and by dedicated TPP tribunals (see below).

New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan — at least — have already also modified their domestic legislation to make any changes necessary to implement the TPP.

The full treaty text is available from this web page, with links to .pdf files of its thirty chapters and the other treaty documents.

The legislative areas covered by each of the treaty chapters are outlined in Figure 2.

Figure 2. TPP treaty chapter summary. Source: NZ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s National Interest Analysis (pages 238–240).

The TPP is seen to impact a wide range of commercial activities of interest to the draftees. Additionally, it is clear that parts of the treaty text set up a new federal government to oversee the Partnership of nations.

In more detail, the chapters of the Partnership treaty cover three broad areas:

International trade in goods. Chapters 2–6 and 8 are mainly about trade;
Commercial activity in general. This is largely addressed in the middle chapters, starting with Chapter 9 on Investment; and
Governance. The later chapters set up a federal government for the treaty Partners. These chapters lay out the structure (illustrated in Figure 3), goals, activities, procedures and powers of the TPP federal Government.

Figure 3. The structure of the TPP Federal Government, including chapter references to where each body within the Government is set up. More here. [Updated on 2019–01–22]

My view:

The above content is factual. All statements can be verified from the linked sources, particularly the text of the treaty.

It is a matter of grave concern that such comprehensive changes to our governance and laws have been enacted without the explicit consent of our citizens — for instance, through a national referendum — as appears to have been the case for all seven Partnership nations.

It is of further concern that the citizens of the Partnership nations have not been reliably informed on the comprehensive changes the Partnership has made to our laws and governance.

More particularly, it is disappointing that politicians and others have repeatedly minimized the Partnership’s importance by falsely claiming it’s merely a ‘free trade deal’ or ‘free trade agreement’.

To counter that spin, it’s up to the citizens of the treaty nations to spread the word ourselves that this Partnership is not just a free trade deal. That:

it imposes wide-ranging new laws on our nations;
it installs a new federal government of nations that sits above our national governments; and
the federal government includes, for instance, two different types of tribunals (set up in Chapters 9 and 28 — see Figure 3) capable of imposing fines of millions or even billions of dollars on our national governments or requiring them to take whatever actions the tribunal specifies.

If an informed citizenry of any of the Partnership nations decides the Partnership is not in their best interests then that nation can enact Article 30.6 to withdraw from the Partnership.

In the defense of our nations’ democracy and independence, exiting the Partnership should be seriously considered, and the sooner the better.