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The page is compressing the three-step process[0] for overriding local prerogative into one step. Perhaps this is disingenuous but your implication that step 1

by jordanb 11y ago

The page is compressing the three-step process[0] for overriding local prerogative into one step. Perhaps this is disingenuous but your implication that step 1 doesn't imply steps 2 and 3 are likewise disingenuous. At any rate, I'd urge everyone to take a look at Brad Delong's critique of the TPP[2], which focuses heavily on the dispute resolution process. Surely we can all agree that he knows a little more about international economics than the average HN poster? [0]: Step 1) Pass an international treaty with a corporate/government dispute resolution process. Step 2) Get sued for having non-mandated local laws, lose, and receive expensive economic sanctions. Step 3) "Regrettably" change local laws to conform to the agreement. This is analogous to Sir Humphey's three-step process for dealing with international crisis: 1) Nothing's going to happen. 2) Something may happen but there's nothing we can do. 3) Perhaps there was something we could have done but it's too late now. [2] http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/01/the-grand-strategy-of-rising-superpower-management.html http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/01/the-grand-strategy-of...

tptacek 11y ago
First, Brad DeLong is an economist, not a lawyer. Second, the site you're pointing to alludes to concerns about the newness and untested nature of the settlement process in TPP, but contains none of the sovereignty arguments that thread is concerned with. Third, the site you've linked to only alludes to those concerns, which he must have written about elsewhere. It does not "focus heavily on the dispute resolution process". Brad DeLong has a lot of negative stuff to say about TPP (he's a longtime opponent of rent extraction through intellectual property; it's one of the "beats" on his blog at NBER, and if unifying Asia and the Pacific Rim in a trade agreement against China is the #1 goal of TPP, harmonizing global IP laws with those of the US is the #2 goal), and I find a lot of what he says persuasive. But I'm not commenting here in defense of TPP. I am happy to substitute DeLong's opinions on the economic impact of TPP for my own. But the annotation FFTF wrote on TPP is misleading and wrong, like much of what FFTF writes.
- jordanb 11y ago
  1) My interest, and I think the interest of most people here is to understand the economic and political consequences of the TPP, not to obscure them with legal sophistry. 2) Delong's point is that the members are binding themselves to an international framework that will be difficult or impossible to back out of. He connects this with the problems of the EU. This is absolutely about sovereignty. 3) Unfortunately the main article appears to be a Monk debate which isn't available online. 4) Delong is a voracious advocate of free trade and also a political ally of the president who's trying to ram this one through. The fact that he's increasingly become hostile to this particular agreement is an indictment of the agreement, not of him as a critic.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I wasn't indicting DeLong as a critic. Like I said, I probably agree with most of what he's written about TPP. I just don't think he's making the specific claim you say he is.

by jordanb 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

First, Brad DeLong is an economist, not a lawyer. Second, the site you're pointing to alludes to concerns about the newness and untested nature of the settlement process in TPP, but contains none of the sovereignty arguments that thread is concerned with. Third, the site you've linked to only alludes to those concerns, which he must have written about elsewhere. It does not "focus heavily on the dispute resolution process". Brad DeLong has a lot of negative stuff to say about TPP (he's a longtime opponent of rent extraction through intellectual property; it's one of the "beats" on his blog at NBER, and if unifying Asia and the Pacific Rim in a trade agreement against China is the #1 goal of TPP, harmonizing global IP laws with those of the US is the #2 goal), and I find a lot of what he says persuasive. But I'm not commenting here in defense of TPP. I am happy to substitute DeLong's opinions on the economic impact of TPP for my own. But the annotation FFTF wrote on TPP is misleading and wrong, like much of what FFTF writes.

jordanb 11y ago
1) My interest, and I think the interest of most people here is to understand the economic and political consequences of the TPP, not to obscure them with legal sophistry. 2) Delong's point is that the members are binding themselves to an international framework that will be difficult or impossible to back out of. He connects this with the problems of the EU. This is absolutely about sovereignty. 3) Unfortunately the main article appears to be a Monk debate which isn't available online. 4) Delong is a voracious advocate of free trade and also a political ally of the president who's trying to ram this one through. The fact that he's increasingly become hostile to this particular agreement is an indictment of the agreement, not of him as a critic.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I wasn't indicting DeLong as a critic. Like I said, I probably agree with most of what he's written about TPP. I just don't think he's making the specific claim you say he is.