The United States and its TPP partners negotiated footnote 14 in the context of a larger effort to clarify the scope of key substantive obligations in the Agreement's investment chapter, with a view to better insulating legitimate public welfare measures from challenge before Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals constituted pursuant to its terms. While some TPP partners originally advocated for the inclusion of a “General Exceptions” article in the investment chapter along the lines of GATT Article XX, the TPP parties ultimately concluded that ISDS tribunals typically have accorded more deference to states when interpreting non-discrimination obligations in investment agreements than has the WTO Appellate Body when interpreting the GATT. For that reason, the TPP parties negotiated a footnote directing tribunals to consider the rationale behind a challenged measure when evaluating whether it breaches a non-discrimination obligation, thus signaling that distinctions in treatment to achieve legitimate public welfare objectives may be permissible under the chapter in certain circumstances.