TPP

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP or TPP for short) is a trade and investment agreement that was signed on 7 March 2018 between 11 Pacific Rim countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The pact went into force on 30 December 2018 among the members who have ratified it. The US withdrew from it in January 2017.

The investment chapter includes investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions. Civil society groups have blasted the mechanism, as it gives a foreign investor or company disproportionate powers vis-à-vis governments or domestic companies. Foreign investors can resort to a parallel system of justice specifically made for them to challenge public health, the environment and other public-interest ‘safeguards’, and bypass national justice courts.

Photo: Blink O’Fanaye / CC BY-NC 2.0

(March 2020)

The Guardian | 11-Oct-2016
Lawyer for Philip Morris’s bid to take Australia to court over cigarette laws says Australia has nothing to fear from trade deals that allow investor-state disputes
Sierra Club | 3-Oct-2016
Looming trade deals threaten efforts to keep fossil fuels in the ground
Politico | 22-Sep-2016
Critics of the TPP rage against the Investor State Dispute Settlement system. Here’s how to fix it.
La Diaria | 21-Sep-2016
Michelle Bachelet, mantiene el secretismo sobre el TPP, impulsado por Barack Obama, ya que ni los ciudadanos ni los parlamentarios chilenos saben la fecha exacta en que llegará al Congreso el tratado, ni qué urgencia tendrá su tramitación.
Counterpunch | 16-Sep-2016
There is a glaring disconnect in the world between economic growth, and trade and investment agreements.
Common Dreams | 12-Sep-2016
TPP would double number of corporations empowered to demand U.S. taxpayer compensation.
Radio del Mar | 8-Sep-2016
La exposición de Lucía Sepúlveda enfatizó en peligros para la agricultura y la soberanía nacional, señalando que el TPP obliga a Chile a ratificar el Convenio UPOV 91 de privatización de la semilla, fortalece a empresas transnacionales como Monsanto, y establece tribunales internacionales para que los inversores demanden a los Estados.
Politico | 8-Sep-2016
The list of groups coming out against the TPP as it currently stands continues to get longer.
Página 12 | 1-Sep-2016
El TPP profundiza cambios estructurales de enorme trascendencia en lo que hace a la integración productiva y la soberanía nacional. Por un lado busca privatizar a las empresas públicas y sacar del ámbito del Poder Judicial la atribución de dirimir eventuales conflictos con las corporaciones multinacionales.
El Ciudadano | 30-Aug-2016
Los gobiernos del mundo deberán comprender las enormes desventajas de soberanía económica y política que le conllevará suscribir el llamado Tratado Transpacífico de Asociación Económica Estratégica (TPP)