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 National Law Review | 19-Nov-2015
The final text of the TPP’s Investment Chapter remains broadly consistent with other U.S. investment agreements and includes some important new language that is consistent with the U.S. Model BIT issued by the U.S. State Department
AFL-CIO | 16-Nov-2015
A coalition of U.S. and Mexican labor and civil society groups are taking an unprecedented legal approach to protect workers’ rights that will test the strength of labor protections in international trade agreements.
IA Reporter | 16-Nov-2015
In broad terms, the agreement’s investment chapter looks familiar – particularly in relation to other recent U.S. investment treaties and FTAs.
The Guardian | 11-Nov-2015
Leading arbitration lawyer says there are critical loopholes in the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s investment chapter that leave Australia wide open
Servindi | 9-Nov-2015
La democracia burguesa en la época neoliberal se transforma cada día más en abierta dictadura de las grandes empresas transnacionales, por encima de los estados y de los gobiernos.
Public Citizen | 6-Nov-2015
Long-awaited text reveals gaps between Administration claims and actual TPP terms on key public concerns
AFTINET | 5-Nov-2015
Preliminary analysis of the thousands of pages of the main chapters of the TPP text show there are still devils in the detail on medicine monopolies, investor rights to sue governments and copyright monopolies.
KEI | 5-Nov-2015
Despite assurances from the contrary by Australia and USTR, intellectual property is a covered asset subject to Investor State Dispute Settlement
Lexology | 3-Nov-2015
Besides abolishing tariffs and providing for investor-state dispute settlement, some of Vietnam’s highlights under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact include removing the dreaded economic needs test
Democracy Now | 30-Oct-2015
The basic point is that TPP is a trade agreement that has all kinds of provisions intended to restrict regulations.