The
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement or TPP is a US-led multi-lateral trade agreement being negotiated since 2006 originally by Brunei, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand (a.ka. P4); joined in 2008 by Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia,
Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam for a current total of 12 countries who reportedly represent the 40%
of the world´s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); like the Transatlantic Trade andInvestment Partnership (TTIP) or the Trade in Services Agreeement (TISA), the Regional ComprehensiveEconomic Partnership or RCEP (another Pacific-area agreement which does
include China) TPP is being negotiated in a secretive way: no public records of
discussions, no text of the agreement
has been made public and only leaked chapters (2 out of 11) have been made
available. An exception seems to have been made for lobbysts for differentindustries with stakes in the agreement such as pharmaceutical companies or
financial services which through privileged access to public officials (and
office holders) with responsiblity over the negotiations have been able to make
sure that their clients points of view and red lines are well taken into
account.
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Map of negotiating TPP members from State Department willing to overlook Malaysia's mass graves for the sake of TPP Cory Doctorow Boing Boing July 16th 2015
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This opacity is more concerning taking into account that the issues (and
policy implications) on the negotiating encompass a wide range of issues with
dramatic effects and potential impact on the lives of millions; furthermore, future interpretations of clauses (also present in other MTAs being currently negotiated) such as the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISD), the Fair and Equitable Treatment (FET,linked to International Investment Agreements) may seriously hinder (and compromise) the possibilities of successive governments to draft laws and policies deemed non-compatible with
the agreement, thus seriously compromising the people´s will regarding, such
issues like public services, drug prices, or environmental regulations.These MTA, if completed, would insert themselves as a higher lever of the
multiple Free Trade Agreements (FTA), that the US and over 15 countries have signed in the last 10 years. All of them stipulating norms
and rules that go beyond what has been agreed at the World Trade Organization
(WTO) embodied most notably in what is known as TRIPS+ clauses. This would become
the new normal, specially when the WTO seems to be gridlocked in issues
such as agriculture or pharmaceutical patents issues. Again, the lives of millions of people both in rich impoverished parts of the world are
going to be affected by agreements being negotiated behind closed doors with
unelected people taking unaccountable decisions on behalf of the next generations.
We have added, in the Reports-Informes-Recursos section, a a Third World Network Report authored by Sanya Reid Smith and distributed, among others, by Infojustice which focus on the potential human rights impact of TPP on a variety of areas and domains.
