TPP, Investment Agreements, and the Governance of Land

Rachel Thrasher and Timothy A. Wise

As U.S. trade negotiators herd their Pacific Rim counterparts toward the final text of a long-promised Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the investment chapter remains a point of contention. Like the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and most U.S. trade agreements since, the TPP text includes controversial provisions that limit the power of national governments to regulate incoming foreign investment and give investors rights to sue host governments for regulatory measures, even those taken in the public interest, that limit their expected returns…

The impact of such agreements on land grabs and land governance has received scant attention until recently. As new research from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) shows, the kinds of investment provisions in the TPP and in most BITs can severely limit a government’s ability to manage its land and other natural resources in the public interest. They can also interfere with the implementation of newly adopted international guidelines on land tenure. Read more…