<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and ambitious, yet also representing a balance of competing interests. The article focuses on the TPP’s chapters relating to investment, services, intellectual property and regulatory coherence, each of which provides insight into the motivations that drove the conclusion of the TPP and the negotiating dynamics that determined its final content. In areas such as investment, the TPP takes a more balanced approach than many earlier agreements, providing greater safeguards for the regulatory autonomy of states while still embodying core protections for foreign investors. In relation to intellectual property and services, the TPP goes beyond earlier agreements in several key respects, such as preventing the imposition of local presence requirements for service providers or requiring longer copyright terms than those demanded by other international treaties. The TPP chapter on regulatory coherence is one of the most novel features of the treaty, as regulatory coherence is not frequently included in earlier trade agreements, demonstrating the increased focus of states on addressing regulatory barriers to trade and investment. While all of these elements of the TPP are interesting in their own right, given the number and size of the parties involved in the agreement, they also provide valuable guidance about the direction of other ongoing and future preferential trade agreement negotiations, such as the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).</p></abstract>

This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and ambitious, yet also representing a balance of competing interests. The article focuses on the TPP’s chapters relating to investment, services, intellectual property and regulatory coherence, each of which provides insight into the motivations that drove the conclusion of the TPP and the negotiating dynamics that determined its final content. In areas such as investment, the TPP takes a more balanced approach than many earlier agreements, providing greater safeguards for the regulatory autonomy of states while still embodying core protections for foreign investors. In relation to intellectual property and services, the TPP goes beyond earlier agreements in several key respects, such as preventing the imposition of local presence requirements for service providers or requiring longer copyright terms than those demanded by other international treaties. The TPP chapter on regulatory coherence is one of the most novel features of the treaty, as regulatory coherence is not frequently included in earlier trade agreements, demonstrating the increased focus of states on addressing regulatory barriers to trade and investment. While all of these elements of the TPP are interesting in their own right, given the number and size of the parties involved in the agreement, they also provide valuable guidance about the direction of other ongoing and future preferential trade agreement negotiations, such as the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

British Journal of American Legal Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"The Trans-Pacific Partnership"}

This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Published Online: Dec 31, 2016

Page range: 341 - 370

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/bjals-2016-0012

© 2016 Tania Voon, Elizabeth Sheargold

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.