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The Trans Pacific Partnership, one of the biggest multinational trade deals ever, has been signed by ministers from its 12 member nations in New Zealand. The ceremony in Auckland brings the huge trade pact, which has been five years in the making, another step towards to becoming a reality.

But the TPP continues to face opposition.

The 12 nations account for some 40% of the world's economy - they now have two years to ratify or reject the pact.

Australia's minister for trade Andrew Robb was the first to sign the pact. Those attending the ceremony cheered as his counterpart, New Zealand trade minister Todd McClay, added the last signature.

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Here we go again... Signym telling us what she's doing. It's right there:

When I say something to her she... "puts her fingers in her ears and gets busy repeating Nyah nyah nyah... I can't hear you"

I asked you for specifics to bolster your argument - discuss - and you ran

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Much of the concern about ISDS is the risk of companies using the mechanism to challenge legitimate regulations. Philip Morris International, for example, has challenged Australia’s plain packaging regulation under a 1993 Hong Kong-Australia Bilateral Investment Treaty. Though that case has not yet been fully adjudicated and Australia has made no changes to their regulation, we nonetheless are working to ensure that TPP includes important safeguards that protect against ISDS being used to challenge legitimate regulation.

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That is why the United States has put in place several layers of defenses to minimize the risk that U.S. agreements could be exploited in the manner to which other agreements among other countries are susceptible.

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In an effort to safeguard against potential abuses of ISDS, TPP will have state-of-the-art protections. It will recognize the inherent right to regulate and to preserve the flexibility of the TPP Parties to protect legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety, the environment, and the conservation of living or non-living exhaustible natural resources.

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1) ISDS gives foreign corporations greater procedural and substantive rights than domestic firms by providing only foreign firms access to extrajudicial tribunals and by enabling them to obtain compensation for government policies and actions that apply equally to domestic firms and that would not be deemed to violate domestic property rights protections.

2. ISDS undermines the rule of law by empowering extrajudicial panels of private sector attorneys to contradict domestic court rulings, including those in which countries’ supreme courts interpret domestic Constitutions and laws, in decisions not subject to any substantive appeal.

3. ISDS cases have led to the watering down of environmental, health and other public interest policies, and chilled the establishment of new ones, as the mere threat of an ISDS case against an existing or proposed policy raises the prospect that a government will need to spend millions in tribunal and legal costs to defend the policy, even if the government might ultimately prevail.

4.Investor-state tribunals often order governments to pay foreign corporations large sums of taxpayer funds as compensation for future profits that the tribunals surmise the firms would have earned if not for the challenged government actions or policies.
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7 Purported safeguards and explanatory annexes added to agreements in recent years have failed to prevent ISDS tribunals from exercising enormous discretion to impose on governments obligations that they never undertook when signing agreements.

8 Transparency rules and amicus briefs are insufficient to hold accountable tribunals that remain unrestrained by precedent, States’ opinions or substantive appeals.

9.State and local governments have no standing to defend the state and local policies that are often challenged in ISDS cases.

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S.D. Myers v. Canada
Between 1995 and 1997 the Canadian government banned the export of toxic PCB waste, in order to comply with its obligations under the Basel Convention, of which the United States is not a party. Waste treatment company S.D. Myers then sued the Canadian government under NAFTA Chapter 11 for $20 millions in damages. The claim was upheld by a NAFTA Tribunal in 2000.

Occidental v. Ecuador
In October 2012, an ICSID tribunal awarded a judgment of $1.8 billion for Occidental Petroleum against the government of Ecuador. Additionally, Ecuador had to pay $589 million in backdated compound interest and half of the costs of the tribunal, making its total penalty around $2.4 billion.The South American country annulled a contract with the oil firm on the grounds that it violated a clause that the company would not sell its rights to another firm without permission. The tribunal agreed the violation took place but judged that the annulment was not fair and equitable treatment to the company.

Ethyl Corporation v. Canada
In April 1997 the Canadian parliament banned the import and transport of MMT, a gasoline additive, over concerns that it poses a significant public health risk. Ethyl Corporation, the additive's manufacturer, sued the Canadian Government under NAFTA Chapter 11 for $251 million, to cover losses resulting from the "expropriation" of both its MMT production plant and its "good reputation". A similar challenge was launched by three Canadian provinces, under the Agreement on Internal Trade, and was upheld by a Canadian dispute settlement panel.Consequently, the Canadian government repealed the ban and paid Ethyl Corporation $15 million as compensation.

Dow AgroSciences v. Canada
On August 25, 2008, Dow AgroSciences LLC, a U.S. corporation, served a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, for losses allegedly caused by a Quebec ban on the sale and certain uses of lawn pesticides containing the active ingredient 2,4-D. The tribunal issued a consent award as the parties to the dispute reached a settlement.

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Good to know that you think the worst possible things about me, though!

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U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he was confident a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal he has championed will be approved by U.S. legislators, to the benefit of the world.

Obama, on a Visit to Vietnam, told a news conference the TPP was a good deal for U.S. business and it would give the United States the ability to engage on issues of concern.

He said he had not seen a credible argument that the deal, which will group 12 economies, would hurt U.S. business.

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Today's release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn't survive to the end of the negotiations...

If you skim the chapter without knowing what you're looking for, it may come across as being quite balanced, including references to the need for IP rules to further the “mutual advantage of producers and users” (QQ.A.X), to “facilitate the diffusion of information” (QQ.A.Z), and recognizing the “importance of a rich and accessible public domain” (QQ.B.x). But that's how it's meant to look, and taking this at face value would be a big mistake.

If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
G, what are you, some sort of corporate shill? The whole idea of looking at "winners" and "losers" in this pact is misdirection.

No matter what the specific provisions of the TPP, the real problem is that corporations are allowed to sue nations if they believe their profits have been infringed on by labor, environmental, GMOs/ food safety, or other regulatory laws. And the case doesn't go to an international judiciary, it goes to an arbitration panel of... corporations. So say goodbye to your national sovereignty, or any control that your nation may want to place on corporate or industrial practices. Just bend over.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So I see in response to my comment about how the employment situation has shaken out for the USA after these "free trade" agreements are signed, the usual suspects have cogent and well-researched opinions.

Not.

Meanwhile ...

Obama confident Pacific trade deal will be approved

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U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he was confident a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal he has championed will be approved by U.S. legislators, to the benefit of the world.

Obama, on a Visit to Vietnam, told a news conference the TPP was a good deal for U.S. business and it would give the United States the ability to engage on issues of concern.

He said he had not seen a credible argument that the deal, which will group 12 economies, would hurt U.S. business.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-obama-ttp-idUSKCN0YE0NI

But -

The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

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Today's release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn't survive to the end of the negotiations...

If you skim the chapter without knowing what you're looking for, it may come across as being quite balanced, including references to the need for IP rules to further the “mutual advantage of producers and users” (QQ.A.X), to “facilitate the diffusion of information” (QQ.A.Z), and recognizing the “importance of a rich and accessible public domain” (QQ.B.x). But that's how it's meant to look, and taking this at face value would be a big mistake.

If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever.

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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-fea
red

http://www.citizen.org/leaked-trade-negotiation-documents-and-analysis

Now, OFFICIALLY, Congress can't read the actual document except in a locked room to which they can't even bring paper and pencil. How are they supposed to vote on something that's a secret?

In reality, the TPP promotes the profits of banks, international corporations, pharma, tobacco, Hollywood, GMO producers like Monsanto, etc. No national, state/province, county/riding, or local regulation shall stand in the way.

Thank you, Obama, for bending over, and thank you, Hillary in advance.

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