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TPP Text Released: "A Disaster for Jobs, and Environment and Our Democracy" say Campaigners

WASHINGTON

The release of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) text - a giant trade and investment between 12 countries including the US and Japan - has led to claims by campaigns groups that the pact will cost jobs and represents 'a disaster for democracy.' The TPP is a parallel agreement to TTIP, the US-EU deal, which has met with serious opposition from across Europe.

Like TTIP, the TPP contains the controversial 'corporate court' mechanism, knows as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), which allows foreign corporations to sue governments for enacting public policy which impacts on corporate profits. It is strongly opposed by trade unions, who believe it will lead to offshoring of jobs and a reduction in working standards. Environmental campaigners say it risks fuelling climate change, while Wikileaks have shown that it will make whistleblowing and investigative journalism harder.

The text was not publicly available during the negotiations. Now US and other congresses have limited time to block ratification of the deal.

Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now said:

"The TPP is a disaster for jobs, and environment and our democracy. It is the latest stage in the corporate capture of our society.

"TPP has less to do with selling more goods, than with rewriting the rules of the global economy is favour of big business. Like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 20 years ago, it will be very good for the very richest, and a disaster for everything and everyone else. NAFTA entrenched inequality and caused massive job losses in the USA, and TPP is turbo-charged NAFTA.

"The good news is this can still be stopped. We'll be doing all we can to support the huge swathe of trade unions, campaigners, activists and consumer groups in all those countries fighting TPP in the coming months."

Global Justice Now is a democratic social justice organisation working as part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south.

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