BREAKING:
TPPA text finally released – too little, too late!
It
is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before
President Obama is allowed to sign the agreement under US law, or
whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the
US does.
Prof.
Jane Kelsey
6
November, 2015
‘Today’s
release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement text ends the
farcical situation where governments were touting the benefits for
the nation with no prospect of any independent assessment to
contradict them,’ said University of Auckland law Professor Jane
Kelsey.
It
is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before
President Obama is allowed to sign the agreement under US law, or
whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the
US does.
But,
Professor Kelsey points out, ‘the legal text is not enough on its
own. We need to see the background documents that help make sense of
the text, but the parties have vowed to keep secret for effectively
another six years.’
‘We
also need the various analyses the New Zealand government has relied
on when talking up the benefits and playing down the costs. They have
been coy about who has done this work, especially the projections of
$2.7b benefits for the economy, and stalled on Official Information
Act requests to release them, despite the High Court’s rebuke last
month’.
A
further statement relating to the content of the text will be
released later tonight.
New Zealand releases TPP text
The
government has released the legal text of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership on behalf of the deal's 12 member countries.
6
November, 2015
It
is the first time the public has been able to see what the government
has signed up to.
Ministers
from the 12 member countries at the start of TPP talks in Atlanta.
Photo: Twitter
/ @USTradeRep
The
government has said the trade agreement will boost New Zealand's
economy by $2.7 billion a year by 2030 but, until now, the public had
been kept in the dark as to what the agreement entailed.
Trade
Minister Tim Groser released a statement on Thursday evening
including a link to the text.
He
said he was pleased the public would now finally be able to
thoroughly review the full text of the TPP before it was signed by
governments.
Work
on the legal verification of the text would continue in coming weeks,
he said.
"This
is a complex agreement, with 30 chapters and associated annexes. The
large number of documents released today amount to over 6000 pages of
text and market access schedules.
"Understanding
the legal obligations of the TPP will require careful analysis of all
documents, given the inter-relationship between many provisions in
the agreement."
The
government has also released extra information on the estimated
economic benefits of the TPP for New Zealand, Mr Groser said.
It
will put out a legal summary of the agreement when that work is
completed.
University
of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey said the government needed to
release the background documents to the talks too, so people could
make sense of the legal text.
The
agreement's 12 member countries are: Australia, Brunei, Canada,
Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US
and Vietnam.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.