TPP: No Partnership with the Environment
The environment is a major loser under the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a free trade agreement between New Zealand, the US and ten other Pacific Rim countries. Its main focus is not trade: it concentrates on limiting how governments can regulate “behind the border” in ways that affect foreign investors.
Of the TPP’s nearly thirty chapters, the greatest impact on the environment will come from the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions. Simply put, this mechanism gives foreign companies the ability to sue a government in an offshore tribunal if that company believes its reasonable investment expectations (such as its profits or asset values) have been breached. That tribunal can force the host government to pay damages to the foreign investor and there is no appeal process. It ends up privileging foreign companies over local communities and local companies who do not have such rights to sue.
These new rights could be used by a foreign entity to seek compensation from a government or local council if it, for example:
- Changed the conditions of a mining licence
- Set higher minimum flows for a river
- Raised the charge on greenhouse gas emissions
- Set stricter rules on logging of forests
- Established national legal standards for the environmental protection of water and soil (New Zealand has essentially none).
The TPP also contains provisions to allow the government to raise environmental standards in a non-discriminatory fashion, but such clauses have proven unreliable when it comes to interpretation by the tribunals. This risk – that a government could be successfully sued – means the ISDS provisions have a “chilling effect” on a government’s willingness to take progressive action. It tends to freeze low standards when these need to rise markedly. Other chaptersthat put pressure on environmental standards include those on: border procedures, transparency, and “regulatory coherence”, while the environment chapter is likely to offer little, if any, net gains.
Environmental Issues are the Biggest Area for Claims: Over 85% of the money paid out to date by governments under free trade deals with the US has involved claims over resources and the environment.
ISDS Provisions Are Not Needed: The Australian Government’s policy is not to enter into any new ISDS arrangements. Only one Australian firm has ever used existing ISDS provisions and no New Zealand firm has.
Key documents
- TPP’s Benefits Less Than a Quarter of Government’s Claim (2014)
- The TPP’s Threat to the Environment (2013)
- Right to Sue in Trade Deal Pernicious and Unnecessary (2013)
- TPP Negotiators on Notice to Protect the Environment – Poll (2012)
