Leaked text from a draft Trans Pacific Partnership chapter shows New Zealand has been seeking to exempt actions under the Overseas Investment Act 2005 from coverage of the investment chapter, which would allow it to turn down investments without being sued.
Australia, too, is seeking an exemption not only forits foreign investment policy (and Canada and Mexico) but for its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Medicare, its subsidised pharmaceutical scheme and universal health insurance scheme. The text also shows that the 12 countries involved in the negotiations are planning to set up an over-arching TPP commission which would have the job of interpreting the trade and investment treaty if it gets off the ground.
The investment chapter was posted by Wikileaks and was a relatively recent document, prepared for negotiations in January in New York.
The leak has come in the same week the New Zealand Government and South Korea have released the full text of the free trade agreement signed on Monday in Seoul.
Anti-TPP activist and Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey is critical of the wording in both the TPP draft and the Korea-NZ FTA which set out the rules of investment and the arbitration process in which an investor can seek restitution from a government it believes has caused it damage.
She described the national interest statement in both documents - exempting governments from liability when they are regulating in the public interest - as "circular" and "meaningless".
