Investor-State Dispute Settlement is the real hair ball in all this. All tho we will be able to change law as we like if a corporation see these laws as inflicting negative impact on their business they can sue. And not in the country of origin.
So a nz govt decides to stop all mining, or make the sale of cigarettes illegal, those companies affected can sue. Effectively this means any law changes NZ makes in its own interest has to be weighed against the cost of possible law suits and compensation. This will affect our choices as a country, weather we want to admit it or not.
The whole investor state process is a hangover from mid last century when unstable regions of the world needed foreign investors to stimulate their economies but the investors needed some kind of security outside of that country to reduce investment risk.
The countries involved in the tppa are hardly the kind of countries to seize a corporations assets, and even if they did the repercussions from such actions would hardly make it worth while.
The patent issue could neuter pharmac. With an aging population and a young generation that will spend 30 years in chronic care as they live to 100, nz's health cost will be (from memory) 40% of our gdp. Scary shit to increase the cost of health for a possible 1% growth in gdp (projected and less than 1% for the U.S economy)
I have nothing against free trade (the damage has been done) but it would be nice if we could ship our agriculture without tariffs.......oh wait, that's not happening now. U.S & Jpn refuse to let us sell them free trade dairy or beef. Must be a limited edition of freetrade.
Why are we signing ?
Nice speech by Senator Warren about the TPPA
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Originally Posted by badlieutenant
I didn't think!!! I experimented!!!
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