Antinuclear

Lori was recently in Melbourne for the TPPA talks and spoke at Occupy Friday on 2 March 2012. 

It takes quite a “trade” agreement to undermine financial regulation, increase drug prices, flood us with unsafe imported food and products, ban Buy America policies aimed at recovery and redevelopment, and empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards before tribunals of corporate lawyers. Trade, in fact, is the least of the TPP.

Backdoor deregulation and imposition of new corporate investor and patent rights via “trade” negotiation began in the 1990s, with the “mission creep” of the World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement. But the TPP now threatens a slow motion stealth attack against a century of progressive domestic policy, of an unprecedented scope. At stake is nothing less than a democratic society’s ability to regulate a market economy in the broad public interest……..

….. Now, the TPP threatens to combine the most damaging elements of past pacts and expand on them. And, with the later addition of Japan, China, Russian, Indonesia and other Pacific Rim nations a large swath of the world’s nations could end up under this retrograde corporate rule regime. This is precisely the vision for TPP former U.S. trade officials and corporate lobbyists presented to the Obama transition team in their ultimately successful push to get Obama to engage in these talks: a Pacific region NAFTA-on-steroids that can increase offshoring while rolling back domestic consumer safety, financial, environmental and other safeguards.

Investor Rules to Facilitate Offshoring, Undermine Domestic Law.Past U.S.-sponsored “free trade” agreements have included a set of extreme foreign investor rights and U.S. negotiators are looking to use TPP to expand these terms. This package includes many special protections that incentivize offshoring of U.S. jobs, by eliminating risks typically associated with relocating to developing countries with rock bottom wages, while significantly handcuffing domestic regulatory officials from implementing even the most essential environmental, land use, health and safety laws that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms,

Under the U.S. FTA investment model, foreign firms are guaranteed a “minimum standard of treatment” that extends beyond being treated the same as local firms. And, a U.S. firm could obtain this treatment, effectively a pass on regulation, by simply selling some portion of its shares to a foreign subsidiary incorporated in one of the TPP nations. Such firms  also are granted new rights to obtain compensation from host governments for loss of “expected future profits” due to  health, environmental, zoning, labor, or other policies. Compensation can be obtained for indirect or “regulatory” takings, a concept championed by extreme conservatives but generally not recognized under the robust property rights provided by U.S. law………

Most stunningly, these new rights in a public treaty could be privately enforceable. The U.S. is pushing for inclusion of “investor-state” enforcement. This little-known mechanism allows foreign firms to bypass domestic court systems and directly sue governments for cash damages (our tax dollars) over alleged violations of their new rights before UN and World Bank tribunals staffed by private sector attorneys who rotate between serving as “judges” and bringing cases for corporations. The scope of domestic policies that would be exposed to such attacks is vast, including government procurement decisions, regulatory permits, intellectual property rights, regulation of financial instruments such as derivatives, and more……..

The U.S. proposal could also undermine the drug formularies of Australia, New Zealand and other countries that have successfully controlled drug costs. http://occupytppa.wordpress.com/