Green Party supports amendment to stop the spread of ISDS

It’s Our Future welcomes the strong minority view of the Green Party in the select committee report on draft legislation designed to give effect to the TPPA.

“A range of labour, health and environmental organisations and many individual submitters called for a clause to be inserted into the bill that would prevent future governments from extending investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) to countries seeking to join the agreement,” says Oliver Hailes, spokesperson for the network of opposition to the controversial economic treaty.

“We suggested wording to achieve that result, and we applaud the Green Party’s decision to support our proposal. The reluctance of Labour and New Zealand First to take seriously their public commitment to end ISDS certainly calls into question the ambition of the Government’s Trade for All consultation and its current negotiations with countries in Asia and Latin America.”

The submission proposing an amendment to stop the spread of ISDS was endorsed formally by ActionStation, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMA), Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), Council of Trade Unions (CTU), Doctors for Healthy Trade, First Union, OraTaiao – New Zealand Climate and Health Council, Public Service Association (PSA), Public Health Association (PHA), and Tertiary Education Union (TEU).

Many of these unions and NGOs are involved in an exciting hui to set out what an alternative and progressive trade strategy should look like. Members of the public are welcome to attend the Fale Pasifika at Auckland University on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 October. Speakers include journalists Rod Oram and Bernard Hickey, law professor Jane Kelsey, former diplomat Terence O’Brien, Médecins Sans Frontières, Maori lawyer Annette Sykes and iwi chair Margaret Mutu, NZCTU’s Sam Huggard and Bill Rosenberg, Greenpeace Director Russel Norman, and many more.

The select committee report on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) Amendment Bill is available here: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_80556/83a8e04ad4fff446cc0875a089a28de3044041dd

More information on the forthcoming hui, including the full programme, is available here: https://itsourfuture.org.nz/hui-2018/

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