Jane Kelsey: TPP compromised by Obama deadline

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11397305



US President Barack Obama is pushing to get the TPP agreement resolved during his tenure.

Jane Kelsey: TPP compromised by Obama deadline
3:20 PM Friday Feb 6, 2015

~snip~

The United States has a serious deadline. If the TPP is to form part of President Barack Obama's legacy, it must be concluded in the next three months. The text and a cost-benefit analysis by the International Trade Commission needs to reach Congress by around August. Once that window is past, Obama is likely to lose interest in spending political capital on pushing it through, knowing his successor would gain any kudos.

Whether the parties can achieve that is a political question. The technical work is largely over. One major obstacle to the political endgame is the reassertion of core democratic principles, evidenced by two recent developments.

First, the politicians still seem to believe they can get away with signing a deal of this magnitude while keeping it secret. New Zealand Trade Minister Groser and his colleagues insist that it's impossible to negotiate such deals under public and democratic scrutiny.

Yet the European Commission has released a series of legal texts it has tabled in the parallel Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the US. In early January, the commission announced it would publish the whole text once negotiations are concluded, well in advance of its signature and ratification.