We have one hour! Or New Zealand will be overthrown by a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Super-Government
Today is the most important day for New Zealand as a nation of any day in our lives! Read until the end and I’m sure you will agree.
This afternoon or this evening, Parliament may decide to finally commit to the hugely controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that perhaps as many as 100,000 NZers have marched in the streets to try to stop.
The treaty to join the TPP is known as the (Comprehensive and Progressive) TPP Agreement: the TPPA or CPTPPA.
In Part 1 we learned that the TPP is not the fluffy and adorable ‘free trade agreement’ that some of its supporters are trying to paint it as.
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals of Chapter 9: Investment are the one admitted downside to the TPP for all but the most committed supporters (perhaps we must exclude the likes of Stephen Jacobi and MFAT). It is, after all, a hard sell to say that foreign investors (but not NZ investors!) would be able to sue our Government directly in special corporate-friendly tribunals.
The ISDS provisions are indeed terrible — see “CPTPP Treaty with ISDS now an Existential Threat to New Zealand”.
But they are just one terrible symptom of the overall disease of the TPP, which is that it is set up by corporate interests, for corporate interests.
The true threat of the TPP can be appreciated by studying the text itself — here — as well as researching expert studies to understand the treaty and its context.
Broadly speaking though, the 30 chapters of the CPTPPA can be partitioned into 3 parts, as the figure above suggests or at least hints at.
The earlier chapters are largely about trade, with chapters 2–6 and 8 being mainly about trade in goods.
The trade part is the part of the treaty that its supporters mostly emphasize — or even talk about exclusively if they are either ignorant or not entirely honorable. (Watch today’s debate in Parliament — it will be carried live on Parliament TV and online here.)
The second of the three parts is largely the middle chapters, starting with Chapter 9 on Investment. They involve essentially all areas of governance that corporate lawyers can work on to the benefit of corporations.
Internationally, there are many expert analyses on these chapters. It is alarming that there has been so little public discussion in NZ on these issues, outside of some very helpful meetings, often at town halls, where we have been able to listen to world experts such as Prof. Jane Kelsey. So at least some NZers have at least some idea of what is in these middle chapters.
The point is that if New Zealand, or any nation, joins the treaty then its contents will become binding law. These new corporate-friendly provisions will transform what NZ and NZers can still do — with the constraints from ISDS being just one well-known constraint.
The treaty gets even worse.
The later part of the treaty is discussed less than the earlier parts, and is presumably much less studied.
By inspecting the text, it becomes apparent that what these later chapters are doing is spelling out a new corporate-friendly governance system — in effect, a TPP Super-Government that would sit above the national Governments of the treaty nations.
The detailed structure of the TPP Super-Government is shown in the figure. Each organ, is labelled with the relevant chapters for easier confirmation and study the set-up.
The executive body of the TPP super-Government is the TPP Commission. It oversees numerous TPP Committees and also a TPP super-national Justice system.
We see that the ISDS processes & tribunals of Chapter 9 are only part of a justice system that sits above our national governments and courts. There is also a Nation-to-Nation disputes process, including their own custom tribunals that would be binding on the NZ Government.
The TPP is intended as a ‘living treaty’. It is expected to change and morph.
A large part of the functions of the TPP Committees is to continue to modify and synchronise the laws that bind all the treaty nations in order to better serve multinational corporate interests.
That function is already hinted at by the names of some of the Committees, particularly the Committee on Cooperation and Capacity Building (Ch. 21), the Committee on Competitiveness and Business Facilitation (Ch. 22), and the Committee on Regulatory Coherence (Ch. 25).
It is fortunate that one Member of Parliament, at least, is awake to the comprehensive overthrow of our democracy that the CPP would impose on NZ.
National MP Chris Penk is a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee that examined the treaty & the currrent Bill. He is also a trained lawyer who was a partner in his own law firm, as well as a self-described ‘constitutional geek’.
Lest you think I have gone off on some wild tangent with the above, here is a recent exchange of tweets (also to the other MPs Andrew Little and Golriz Ghahraman) in which Chris Penk confirms the above analysis. My invitation to comment:
And Chris Penk’s kind reply:
So it’s true. The TPP really would devour New Zealand for corporate profit.
To Save New Zealand, we all need to contact our MPs pronto!
By phone, all MPs can be reached at (04) 817 9999.
NZ MP’s emails & twitter:
This tweet gives clickable twitter handles to the MPs. (Correction: Chris Penk’s twitter should be @ChrisPenkNZ.):
The 3 MPs in the earlier tweet above — from 3 different political parties: Chris Penk (National), Andrew Little (Labour) and Golriz Ghahraman (Greens) — are among the MPs most awake to the threat. Please show them some love & ask them to speak against the TPP and in favour of, at minimum, a national referendum before we commit to the TPP.
Our MPs need to require a national referendum before committing to the TPP. Please ask them to vote for that today!
And now you understand why today is the most important day for New Zealand as a nation in any of our lives!
[END OF PART 2 of 2 — Part 1 here]
[END]
My articles on the TPPA:
UPDATED on 2019–01–22: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, and now Vietnam, have recently fallen under a TPP Federal Government — 7 November 2018
To the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand: please call a national referendum on the CPTPP treaty — 25 October 2018
New Zealand’s democracy hangs by a thread as Parliament’s consideration of TPPA treaty enters its final day — 24 October 2018
We have one hour! Or New Zealand will be overthrown by a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Super-Government — 23 October 2018
We have 5 hours to save New Zealand from overthrow by a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) super-Government; here’s how — 23 October 2018
How New Zealanders can win a referendum on the (CP)TPPA treaty — 9 October 2018
CPTPP Treaty with ISDS now an Existential Threat to New Zealand — 18 August 2018
Superb upcoming anti-TPPA events in New Zealand — 25 January 2016
BREAKING: release of full text of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) fuels concern over potential loss of sovereignty for TPPA member countries — 5 November 2015
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