Should we worry about private companies suing New Zealand under the TPP?
International arbitration lawyer Gary Born on why the TPP isn't different from other free trade agreements. With special feature audio.
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Hawke’s Bay
One of the more controversial aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the potential for private companies to sue governments.
But international arbitration lawyer Gary Born thinks it’s surprising the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms of the TPP have attracted so much negative public attention, "given how similar its provisions are to other deals in existence for “more than 60 years”.
While a heavy amount of public attention on an otherwise esoteric topic is “flattering” for lawyers, most of the negative conclusions are unwarranted in regards to the TPP, he says.
“ISDS in the TPP is fairly unexceptional. It adopts the same dispute resolutions and procedures you see in other investment and free trade treaties around the world.”
He says some new provisions do exist in the text, but these are “details” and probably only of interest to lawyers. The image that opponents of the deal have about ISDS – that the provisions allow private organisations to override state sovereignty – are almost all unfounded.
“I don’t think ISDS provisions are implicated in that debate at all. That’s evident from the historical experience in other jurisdictions: companies don’t get away with steamrolling countries,” says Mr Born.
Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson, launching this Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.
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Fri, 04 Mar 2016
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Should we worry about private companies suing New Zealand under the TPP?
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