Antinuclear

Corporations exert their power in secret deals in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)

The TPP will give big business additional leverage through regulatory ceilings and dispute resolution tribunals.

The chilling effect on regulation is greater in poorer countries that can be cowed by the panels…..

On the chilling effect on regulation, Wallach said there is “no limit to the amount of money tribunals can order governments to pay corporations.” ….

The majority of those in power are under overwhelming pressure from moneyed interests to pass the deal …

there is substantial evidence – not least, the enthusiasm among corporate lobbyists, their intense lobbying efforts…..to suggest that the TPP is going to contain deregulatory initiatives and measures that usher in the privatization of publicly owned enterprises and the fencing off of the creative commons. 

Corporate-Backed Trans-Pacific Partnership Shrouded in Secrecy, 19 March 2013   By Sam Knight, Truthout | News Analysis The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral trade deal currently being hammered out by the United States and ten other countries, could end up affecting every human being and dollar of wealth on the planet. The extent to which it will is clear to no one, apart from negotiators.

But the deal, in its current form, has been in the works since 2010, involves Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam, and is open to all 21 countries in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region. US Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk, who just left his post in early March, and other top negotiators have said that they would welcome China, and recent reports in the Japanese and Australian media indicate that Japan is set to join. Thus, even the most minor of edits to the draft text could end up making or breaking people from Brisbane to Bangor. But legislators around the world are being kept in the dark about what they’re voting on until the deal is hammered out; it’s expected to be completed this year. When it’s finished, if the experience of Congress here is any indication, legislators will be feeling extraordinary pressure from corporate lobbyists and their heads of state to accept the deal without a fuss.

The smoke-filled room itself is no secret. Kirk and his counterparts have said that talks must be kept confidential, in Kirk’s words, “to enable negotiators for various governments to share information and have frank conversations that result in progress toward concluding a trade agreement.”

But other officials, including American legislators and their staffers, sing a different tune. They decry the opacity as a way to ram the deal through Congress.

“When challenged about the conflict with the Obama administration’s touted commitment to transparency,” TPP critic and Public Citizen trade lawyer Lori Wallach wrote in The Nation last year, “Trade Representative Kirk noted that after the release of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) text in 2001, that deal could not be completed. In other words, the official in charge of the TPP says the only way to complete the deal is to keep it secret from the people who would have to live with the results.”

“The Doha Round of WTO [World Trade Organization] expansion, the FTAA and other corporate attacks via ‘trade’ agreements were successfully derailed when citizens around the world took action to hold their governments accountable,” she noted.

While there is no evidence that multinationals themselves have access to the draft agreement, a pair of well-connected corporate lobbyists told Truthout – in response to a question about the USTR’s responsiveness – that they are pleased by the direction of the talks and the way in which the USTR is keeping them abreast of developments……

The TPP will give big business additional leverage through regulatory ceilings and dispute resolution tribunals. …..  The result is the creation of new institutions fueling the race to the bottom wrought by an interpretation of global economic integration that affords capital outsized privilege. The chilling effect on regulation is greater in poorer countries that can be cowed by the panels…..

On the chilling effect on regulation, Wallach said there is “no limit to the amount of money tribunals can order governments to pay corporations.” ….

One area where this has been a huge concern is in the realm of intellectual property law. Doctors Without Borders has denounced US proposals, saying they “threaten to roll back internationally-agreed public health safeguards and would put in place far-reaching monopoly protections that keep medicine prices high and out of the reach of millions in the Asia-Pacific region.” The group says that the proposals would extend monopoly power over medicines ….

The majority of those in power are under overwhelming pressure from moneyed interests to pass the deal …

there is substantial evidence – not least, the enthusiasm among corporate lobbyists, their intense lobbying efforts, frustration among public interest groups and disappointment on many corners of Capitol Hill – to suggest that the TPP is going to contain deregulatory initiatives and measures that usher in the privatization of publicly owned enterprises and the fencing off of the creative commons. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15142-corporate-backed-trans-pacific-partnership-shrouded-in-secrecy

March 21, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News