I feel like much of the talk about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) relates to IP and health issues. More interesting to me is the proposed (and recently leaked) "regulatory coherence" chapter. Here's an excerpt:
1. Through its national coordinating body, process or mechanism, each Party, in carrying out responsibilities for reviewing covered regulatory measures, should generally encourage relevant regulatory authorities, consistent with domestic law, to conduct regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) when developing covered regulatory measures that exceed a threshold of economic impact established by a Party, to assist in designing a measure to best achieve the Party’s objective.
a. An RIA should identify, among other things:
(1) the problem and the policy objective that the regulatory authority intends to address, including an assessment of the significance of the problem and a description of the need for regulatory action;
(2) potentially effective and reasonably feasible alternatives to achieve the policy objective; and
(3) where appropriate, the grounds for concluding that the selected alternative achieves the policy objectives in a way that maximizes net benefits, including qualitative benefits, while also considering distributional impact. [FN 2]
b. An RIA should include the following elements:
(1) a consideration of whether, for all aspects of the planned regulatory measure, there is a need to regulate to achieve the policy objective or whether an objective can be met by non regulatory and/or voluntary means, consistent with domestic law;
(2) an assessment, to the extent feasible and consistent with domestic law, of the costs and benefits of each available alternative, including not to regulate, recognizing that some costs and benefits are difficult to quantify and monetize;
(3) an explanation why the alternative selected is superior to the other available alternatives identified, including, if appropriate, through reference to the relative size of net benefits of the available alternatives; and
(4) decisions based on the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other information, within the boundaries of the authorities, mandates, and resources of the particular regulatory authority.
FN 2. “Net benefits” refer to the differences between a planned regulatory action’s anticipated benefits and costs.
I'm not aware of existing agreements having such provisions. Will this one make it into the TPP (if there ever is a TPP)? Will it spread to other agreements?
