Memorandum on Leaked TISA Financial Services Text

Professor Jane Kelsey, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New
Zealand

This memorandum provides a preliminary analysis of the leaked
financial services chapter of the Trade in Services Agreement dated
14 April 2014. It makes the following points:

• 
  The secrecy of negotiating documents exceeds even the
  Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and runs counter to
  moves in the WTO towards greater openness.
  
  
  
  
• 
  The TISA is being promoted by the same governments that
  installed the failed model of financial (de)regulation in the WTO
  and which has been blamed for helping to fuel the Global
  Financial Crisis (GFC).
  
  
  
  
• 
  The same states shut down moves by other WTO Members to
  critically debate these rules following the GFC with a view to
  reform.
  
  
  
  
• 
  They want to expand and deepen the existing regime through
  TISA, bypassing the stalled Doha round at the WTO and creating
  a new template for future free trade agreements and ultimately
  for the WTO.
  
  
  
  
• 
  TISA is designed for and in close consultation with the global
  finance industry, whose greed and recklessness has been blamed
  for successive crises and who continue to capture rulemaking in
  global institutions.
  
  
  
  
• 
  A sample of provisions from this leaked text show that
  governments signing on to TISA will: be expected to lock in and
  extend their current levels of financial deregulation and
  liberalisation; lose the right to require data to be held onshore;
  face pressure to authorise potentially toxic insurance products;
  and risk a legal challenge if they adopt measures to prevent or
  respond to another crisis.
  
  
  
  Without the full TISA text, any analysis is necessarily tentative. The
  draft TISA text and the background documents need to be released
  to enable informed analysis and decision-making.