Last Wednesday, WikiLeaks once again broke the secrecy surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), releasing the draft text of the investment chapter of the Pacific Rim Treaty. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a dire warning about the agreement:

“The TPP has developed in secret an unaccountable supranational court for multinationals to sue states. This system is a challenge to parliamentary and judicial sovereignty. Similar tribunals have already been shown to chill the adoption of sane environmental protection, public health and public transport policies.”

The story was discussed in Australia in the Fairfax papers.

The leaked text reveals the ulterior purposes behind the shadowy TPP, parts of which have already been released by WikiLeaks. The investment chapter serves to boost the corporate rights and powers of multinational companies with an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism — at the expense of democratic governments and domestic courts. The leaked text shows that this agreement is more about corporate power than “free trade”. Investor-state dispute settlement is really a form of corporate sovereignty. Investor clauses will be able to be used as Trojan Horse clauses against a wide range of government regulation — including public health, access to medicines, tobacco control, labour rights, environmental regulation and climate action.

The latest leak will further galvanise resistance and opposition to the fast-tracking of this mega trade deal. Members of the US Congress like Senator Elizabeth Warren have demanded that the investment chapter be dropped altogether. Warren said: “If a final TPP agreement includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement, the only winners will be multinational corporations.” A significant number of members of the United States Congress have refused to fast-track the TPP because of such concerns about the impact of the deal upon democratic law-making.