Meta-law is what law writers use to justify writing the local law. In Sweden we saw this promoted heavily in regard to data retention, where the law makers explicitly said that we &quot;had to do this&quot; because the meta-law bound Sweden to implement a compatible local law. If one party blames the local law, and the other party blames the meta-law, then all we have is people pushing blame without anyone taking responsibility. A way for me then to avoid hair-splitting in this case is to blame both sides for the full legal change, as TPP will be a law in itself for all practical and political purposes if it get signed.<p>QQ.G.17 has no hard obligations, and is only a suggestion that nations should &quot;endeavor to achieve an appropriate balance&quot;. That is like me suggesting that government should &quot;endeavor to achieve a fair balanced budget&quot;. It doesn&#x27;t actually say anything concrete, dictate policy, nor impact the political environment in any way at all. It&#x27;s there to provide a good-feel nod, while the law makers can focus on the actual TPP obligations. EFF remarked this in their article a week ago (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;deeplinks&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-feared" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eff.org&#x2F;deeplinks&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;final-leaked-tpp-text-...</a>).