Is The Trans-Pacific Partnership's Investment Chapter The New 'Gold Standard'?

Abstract

The TPP’s investment chapter pursues a reform path within the existing international investment regime that many other states, including the US, support. But the fact that mega-regionals like the TPP may advance the economic and security interests of hegemons does not mean that, on balance, they may not also advance the interests of even small states like New Zealand. Most treaties — and indeed perhaps most of customary international law — have been the product of exercises of asymmetric power games. The TPP is made up of package deals of no less consequence than in the Law of the Sea Convention or on-going efforts to control climate change. It incorporates tradeoffs between regulatory discretion and the benefits anticipated for trade in goods and global value chains. These tradeoffs merit sober reflection.