Patricia Ranald, coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network says the TPP text isn’t open and shut. It opens up the prospect of a review, and further consultations. “Five years is a minimum standard but the text also refers to eight years and to ‘other measures’ which would ‘deliver a comparable market outcome,’ and to a future review. It is not clear how this will be applied in Australia,” Ranald says.
Rimmer also points to another area of potential controversy in the IP chapter: criminal procedures and penalties in respect of disclosure of trade secrets, computer crimes and espionage. “Such provisions could have a significant impact upon journalists, whistleblowers, and civil society,” he says.
Investment
The TPP aims to free up investment between signatory countries. But the controversy in this chapter will be focussed squarely on the inclusion of an investor state dispute settlement clause. Trade agreements with ISDS clauses are increasingly controversial both in Australia and around the world. These clauses allow foreign investors to sue governments over policies that harm their interests. On Friday, the shadow trade minister Penny Wong said Robb should have “rejected the inclusion of ISDS provisions in the TPP”. Greens leader Richard Di Natale said it was “remarkable that what we are prepared to do is to see big foreign multinational corporations given the power to sue governments for protecting people’s health and the environment”.
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