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