The Trans-Pacific Partnership Corporate Coup in Disguise

[NeonLX]

Just like NPR & PBS, the NYT has become the propaganda catapult for the neoliberal world view.

Just today while riding the bus to work, I noticed a dapper young gentleman proudly holding the NYT up high while he read it. The thought going through my head was, "gee, I'll bet that dude wants to show everyone how enlightened he is, coz he don't read some right-wing rag".

I tell you, I'm getting so hopelessly cynical. How do I know what was actually going through the guy's head?

[Wombaticus Rex]

Funny, I wield WSJ the exact same way?

"Yes, I am reading the Money & Investing section with $10.44 in my checking account. Thank you for noticing."

On the other hand, consider that perhaps the young man in question had a stiff neck and could only read at that angle. It happens. Especially when you've been furiously nodding along with Rachel Maddow the night before!

On topic: Been fascinating to observe the divide between who covers this HUGE LEAK and who is politely averting their gaze.

[parel]

"Titans militarizing over Trade and Resources in the Pacific" Illustrated by Fio Diex



House Armed Services Committee Oct. 31 press release: “Time for Congress to Rebalance on Asia-Pacific.” On the issue of trade and militarization:

“…we want to make two items abundantly clear before we proceed with this effort. First, we acknowledge that Congress has an important role to play across the spectrum when it comes to policy in the Asia-Pacific, including trade policy, diplomatic outreach, alliance management, and sustaining our defense posture and engagement. But given our position as members of the House Armed Services Committee, we have chosen to focus on the balance of military power and questions related to maintaining stability in the region.

Second, this series is about understanding the broad security dynamics of the region — including everything from our alliances, to maritime disputes, to the impact of the China’s military modernization over the last 15 years – and how our government should look to best posture itself to respond in the years ahead.”

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cf ... fc55efdafc

[parel]

TPP draft: United States reasserts its role as a world’s schoolyard bully

Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the first Pirate Party and campaigns for sensible information policy.

Published time: November 15, 2013 00:43


In a leaked negotiation document about going trade negotiations, it becomes clear that the United States is still asserting its role as the world’s master of self-entitlement.

On Wednesday, a document leaked from an ongoing trade negotiation was published by WikiLeaks. It concerns the monopolies and exclusive rights we know as copyrights, patents, trademarks, and so on. While the contents of the proposed trade agreement are certainly interesting, not to say very alarming, it's even more interesting to see how the United States keeps asserting its industry interests over the world under the false flag of “free trade.”

This process started with Japanese cars in the 1970s. As people in the United States started shunning Detroit's cars in favor of Toyota, policymakers in the US realized that the country's age of industrial competitiveness had effectively come to an end, and sought new ways to keep the United States at the top of the food chain, competitive or not. The result was as audacious, daring, and provocative as it was successful: redefine "value,” "industry,” and "production" in a series of lopsided interstate contracts masqueraded as "free trade" deals that would make sure the United States kept being paid by the rest of the world.

The first of these "free trade" deals - more accurately described as Industrial Protectionism (IP) - was the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which stands at the heart of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Its champion had been then-CEO of Pfizer, Edmund Pratt, who wanted to prohibit people in the third world from using their own raw materials and pharmaceutical knowledge in their own laboratories and plants to cure and treat their own people's diseases. He wanted to force them to buy from Pfizer or die trying. Millions died as a result of the success of the TRIPS "free trade" agreement and the WTO.

There is no word for this type of behavior short of "evil.”

As the TRIPS agreement on Industrial Protectionism (IP) was being negotiated, every industry interest in the United States chimed in and wanted their piece of the pie. Hollywood's movie industry, the record industry, everybody. This new leaked trade agreement - that has absolutely nothing to do with free trade, but with the upholding of exclusive rights and monopolies that limit free trade - builds on the previous TRIPS agreement; it harshens it and deepens it. It is named TPP, the "Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

The divide between the United States and other countries on the unfairness of the aggressively pushed "United States uber alles" agenda is very clear. It's almost enough to read the introduction, where the vast majority of participating countries have proposed this language, to safeguard our common cultural and scientific legacy:

"The objectives of this chapter are... to maintain a balance between the rights of intellectual property holders and the legitimate interests of users and the community in subject matter protected by intellectual property; protect the ability of Parties to identify, promote access to and preserve the public domain; ensure that measures and procedures to enforce intellectual property rights do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade."

The United States blanketly opposes all of it. There shall be no balance, there shall be no promotion of monopoly-less trade (which, ironically, is anybody's normal definition of free trade). There shall only be exclusive rights, which are typically held by the United States.

Also, the legal language is deliberately convoluted - the United States wants to give Hollywood the right to shut people off from the internet (and therefore most of their citizens' rights) without due process, but this is hidden deep down in legal jumbo. How many would recognize the terms "injunctive relief" or "liability conditions" as depriving citizens of their freedoms of speech, press, and assembly? I fear many people would be shocked once they realized what the legal language means - but at that point, it will be much harder to stop this idiocy.

This agreement is not about free trade. Copyright and patent monopolies, by definition, are the opposite of free trade; they are exclusive rights preventing free trade. This agreement is about asserting trade monopolies held by the United States and forcing everybody else to pay protection money or go to jail for disrespecting the powers that be.

This is not free trade. This is racketeering. And it is disgusting.

[seemslikeadream]

TPP Disclosure Shows It Will Kill People and Internet; House Opposition Is Widespread
Friday, 15 November 2013 11:27
By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | Report

60
font size decrease font size increase font size Print Email
TPP.
(Photo: Caelie_Frampton / Flickr)
We posted on the New York Times news story that opposition in the House to authorization of "fast track" authority to the Administration on its pending Pacific and Atlantic trade deals was stiffening right just before a related story broke: that Wikileaks had disclosed the end of August draft of one of the critical chapters of one of the deals.
We wrote yesterday that this deal, the Trans Pacific Partnership, already looked to be in trouble given both Congressional and foreign opposition. The Administration has conducted the talks with an unheard-of degree of secrecy, with Congressional staffers in most cases denied access to the text and even Congressmen themselves facing unheard-of obstacles (Alan Grayson reported that the US Trade Representative created an absurd six weeks of dubious delays in his case). But perversely, 700 corporate representatives got privileged access so they could influence negotiations. It's not hard to see whose interests are really being served in these deals.
The Wikileaks disclosure could well have struck the fatal blow to this toxic pact. As we'll see below, it may have been dead anyhow. Obama's relationship with his own party is already on the rocks as a result of Obamacare (not just the rollout but the increasing recognition that the program has more fundamental flaws), so he has limited political capital available to whip Democratic Congressmen back into line. The opposition is more deep-seated and broad-based than I had realized (for instance, 18 of the 21 ranking full committee members in the House are against it). So the TPP looked to be on the Syria incursion path.
But it's hard not to believe that the Wikileaks revelations will galvanize opposition among the other prospective members of the pact. It's hard for democratic countries to agree to a deal that has been revealed will kill their citizens in order to enrich America's Big Pharma incumbents. And that statement is not an exaggeration. Wikileaks disclosed the end of August version (apparently two drafts behind current text) of the intellectual property chapter, which includes the section on drugs and surgical procedures.
The intent is to strengthen America's aggressive patent regime and require foreign countries to comply with it. For instance, the FDA considers minor changes in existing drugs, such as developing an extended release version so that a medication need be taking only once a day, to be a "new drug application" and will extend patents based on that. The draft also would severely limit the use of generics. Higher prices will restrict drug use and is certain to have adverse health consequences for some, potentially many, citizens. And although people overseas will suffer the greatest consequences, Americans will be affected as well. As Public Citizen wrote, "The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has proposed measures harmful to access to affordable medicines that have not been seen before in U.S. trade agreements," and elaborated:
Screen-shot-2013-11-14-at-6.15.53-AM
Another medical-industrial complex rent-extraction technique is by covering surgical methods . No, I am not making that up. See this section of an excellent discussion by Knowledge Ecology International:
An interesting example of how the US seeks to change national and global norms are the provisions in the TPP over patents on surgical methods. The WTO permits countries to exclude "diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals." The US wants to flip this provision, so that "may also exclude from patentability" becomes "shall make patents available." However, when a version of the IP Chapter was leaked in 2011, the US trade negotiators were criticized for ignoring the provisions in 28 USC 287 that eliminated remedies for infringement involving the "medical activity" of a "medical practitioner." The exception in US law covered "the performance of a medical or surgical procedure on a body." The US trade negotiators then proposed adding language that would permit an exception for surgery, but only "if they cover a method of using a machine, manufacture, or composition of matter." The US proposal, crafted in consultation with the medical devices lobby, but secret from the general public, was similar, but different from the U.S. statute, which narrowed the exception in cases involving "the use of a patented machine, manufacture, or composition of matter in violation of such patent." How different? As Public Citizen's Burcu Kilic puts it, under the US proposal in the TPP, the exception would only apply to "surgical methods you can perform with your bare hands."
I'm not sure how this would work in practice, but I imagine it would be ugly. For instance, Johnson & Johnson dominates the market for replacement hips and knees. They also provide tools used to perform the surgeries on those hips and knees which surgeons need to buy (as in no one had the incentive beside J&J to make these implements, and surgeons would be unlikely to scrimp on a secondary cost when it gets billed back to the patient anyhow). So it looks as if J&J would also somehow be able to charge additional fees on each operation, say if it introduced a new hip replacement which required some change in how the hip was installed (a new surgical method). How this would be enforced is over my pay grade.
The pact in its end of August form would also, as we had discussed based on concerned raised by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, interfere with basic Internet operations. The International Business Times summarized the EFF's concerns:
Here's the text of the relevant section of the TPP's intellectual property chapter leaked Wednesday:
Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form).
The EFF wrote in a July analysis of the language — which has not been amended in the intervening months — that the provision "reveals a profound disconnect with the reality of the modern computer," which relies on temporary copies to perform routine operations, during which it must create temporary copies of programs and files in order to carry out basic functions. This is particularly so while a computer is connected to the Internet, when it will use temporary copies to buffer videos, store cache files to ensure websites load quickly and more.
"Since it's technically necessary to download a temporary version of everything we see on our devices, does that mean—under the US proposed language—that anyone who ever views content on their device could potentially be found liable of infringement?" the EFF wrote. "For other countries signing on to the TPP, the answer would be most likely yes."
Another way the TPP will harm the Internet is, similar to SOPA and PIPA, is to obligate internet service providers to act as copyright police. Now, as Dean Baker explained on Bill Moyers, if a website posts material improperly, the site owner and the host are obligated to remove it as soon as the publisher is notified (in practice, if the publisher does not comply pronto, a nastygram to the webhost will get the entire site taken down). ISPs are extremely low margin businesses. Forcing high-cost monitoring on them would lead them to increase their staffing considerably. The resulting hosting increases would force the closure of most small independent sites. The increased oversight of ordinary users (they'd be required to monitor ongoing communications for piracy, which sounds like an NSA wet dream) would also likely lead to higher access charges for consumers.
I attempted to read the draft, which was largely over my head (as in you need to know extant intellectual property provisions in order to be able to see how this treaty language stands relative to it). However, even a casual reading shows that much of the language is still under negotiation, with many passages having numerous TPP parties on each side of an issue. So the negotiations looked to be fraught even before the Wikileaks disclosure.
On the US side, Rosa DeLauro and George Miller are leading the opposition to the use of fast track authority altogether. This is the key section of their letter, which already has 151 signatures:
Congress, not the Executive Branch, must determine when an agreement meets the objectives Congress sets in the exercise of its Article I-8 exclusive constitutional authority to set the terms of trade. For instance, an agreement that does not specifically meet congressional negotiating objectives must not receive preferential consideration in Congress. A new trade agreement negotiation and approval process that restores a robust role for Congress is essential to achieving U.S. trade agreements that can secure prosperity for the greatest number of Americans, while preserving the vital tenets of American democracy in the era of globalization.
Twentieth Century "Fast Track" is simply not appropriate for 21st Century agreements and must be replaced. The United States cannot afford another trade agreement that replicates the mistakes of the past. We can and must do better.
Let's hope that lame duck Obama overplaying his hand on the "trade" front will indeed rouse Congress to pull back authority that it has over the years allowed the Executive to abrogate. If so, this will be an unexpected and welcome important side benefit of blocking these toxic trade deals.

[parel]

Outrageous US bullying on IP and Health at TPPA Talks

Sunday, 24 November 2013, 8:50 am
Press Release: Professor Jane Kelsey
24 November 2013

For immediate release

Outrageous US bullying on intellectual property and health in TPPA talks in Salt Lake City

‘The US has adopted a strategy of exhaustion in its bullying of negotiators on the crucial intellectual property chapter to force countries to trade away health in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations in Salt Lake City’, according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who is monitoring the negotiations.

‘The US has stepped up its aggression as they move towards their “end point” of the TPPA ministerial meeting in Singapore from 7 to 10 December’, said Professor Kelsey.

The group on IP and medicines is being chaired by Assistant US Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation Stan McCoy.

‘This is a loaded game’, Professor Kelsey said. ‘McCoy sets the agenda and timetable. Negotiators are working from morning until late at night and preparing to work all night, if necessary.’

The US has around twenty people in Salt Lake City for the intellectual property chapter, who can rotate. Some countries have only one delegate for crucial talks on intellectual property on medicines. Their negotiations on medicines have been extended beyond the dates that were scheduled before negotiators came. They have continued despite the fact that some health negotiators, especially from poor countries, could not extend their stay.

This follows a pattern of abuse over recent rounds reported in Inside US Trade and other media, where McCoy has acted as a gatekeeper, deciding what proposals from other countries are allowed into the text and what are not.

‘This is a crucial period for New Zealand and a number of other countries’, Kelsey observed. The text posted by Wikileaks last week shows they have tabled an alternative to the US proposed text that has been repeatedly rejected.

‘This is an early warning of the extreme bullying that can be expected in when the trade ministers seek to close the deal off in December’, Professor Kelsey warned.

‘New Zealand’s trade minister Tim Groser and his counterparts from the other ten countries must tell the US to stop this behaviour now’, she said.

ENDS

[Elvis]

Meanwhile, the "stalled" WTO continues to grind away -- but add another country saying No:

India refuses to budge on subsidies at WTO talks
WEDNESDAY DEC 04, 2013 | DESSIANING ARIYANTI FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

US urges last-ditch WTO trade agreement, India won't budge; body's effectiveness questioned

BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Chances of a breakthrough in global trade negotiations dimmed Wednesday as India refused to budge on food subsidies that are an obstacle to an eleventh-hour agreement at a World Trade Organization summit.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman urged the WTO's 159 member economies to work past their differences to finalize a slimmed-down deal to boost trade.

"Let us not sugar coat reality: Leaving Bali this week without an agreement would deal a debilitating blow to the WTO as a forum for multilateral negotiations," he told dozens of trade ministers gathered at the summit on the Indonesian resort island. "If that happens, the unfortunate truth is that the loss will be felt most heavily by those members who can least afford it."

But Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma left little hope for a breakthrough. His government opposes a provision that could endanger subsidies for grains under an Indian policy to feed its poor.

"Agriculture sustains millions of subsistence farmers. Their interests must be secured," he said. "For India, food security is non-negotiable."

The talks will either produce a deal that could boost global trade by $1 trillion or possibly spell the end of the WTO's relevance as a forum for negotiations after a decade of inertia.

The idea behind the agreement is that it would level the playing field by forcing all countries, rich and poor, to follow the same trade rules, benefiting everyone. With fewer trade barriers, goods and services of all types would be more affordable, creating more employment and business opportunities.

The WTO estimates that easing customs barriers would increase total world trade to $23 trillion from its current estimate of $22 trillion.

Critics of the WTO rules, though, say they may hinder countries from setting their own priorities in environmental protection, worker rights, food security and other areas. And they say sudden reductions in import tariffs can wipe out industries, causing job losses in rich and poor countries.

http://www.newsdaily.com/article/e24aa1 ... -wto-talks

These long, complicated "texts" spell nothing but trouble. But indeed it looks like the WTO's effectiveness is waning. Could be because the "agreements" just get worse and worse.

WTO talks fail to agree on global trade deal text
MONDAY NOV 25, 2013 | TOM MILES FOR REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) - Marathon talks on the World Trade Organization's first-ever worldwide trade reform in Geneva failed early on Monday to agree on a text to put to ministers who meet in Bali next month.

The fate of the agreement to streamline customs procedures and speed up global trade could now hang on whether the ministers can overcome remaining differences when they gather early next month at the WTO's biennial conference in Bali.

The International Chamber of Commerce says the deal would add $960 billion to the world economy and create 21 million jobs, 18 million of them in developing countries. It would also revive confidence in the WTO as a forum for trade negotiations.

The proposed accord includes elements of the Doha round of trade talks, which began in 2001 but repeatedly failed to produce an agreement over the subsequent decade.

WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo has forced diplomats from the 159 member countries through a punishing 10 weeks of talks to try to agree a text for the ministers to rubber-stamp.

Azevedo said on Friday he hoped to clinch a deal over the weekend. But the final Geneva negotiating session finished at 7 a.m. without agreement.

Taco Stoppels, a counselor at the Dutch mission to the WTO, tweeted that Azevedo "closed meeting by simply thanking everyone. Text is not ready".

People involved in the talks said negotiators had come very close to a deal, although progress at times had been glacial. "We spent nine hours on one paragraph this morning. Once again, a near-death experience," one participant said late on Sunday.

Unresolved issues include an Indian crop stockpiling plan that is exempt from WTO subsidy rules and a challenge to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. Turkey also has concerns about new rules on transit, while there is Central American resistance to demands to stop using customs brokers to handle trade.

Azevedo will address the WTO ambassadors at a meeting of the trade body's General Council on Tuesday, which will formally submit their work to the ministerial conference.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

http://www.newsdaily.com/article/9e9e3f ... -deal-text

[parel]

Joe Stiglitz writes open letter to TPP negotiators

Submitted by James Love on 7. December 2013 - 4:45

Professor Joseph Stiglitz has written an open letter to the TPP negotiators, asking that they resist proposals to weaken consumer rights in intellectual property. The letter identifies 12 specific "grave risks" in the IP Chapter, and calls upon negotiators to publish the investor state dispute resolution text.

Professor Stiglitiz is one of the best know economists in the world, having won the Nobel prize for Economic Science in 2001, and having previously served as the chief economist for the World Bank and as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Clinton. A PDF of the letter is attached below. The text follows:

Dear TPP negotiators,
December 6, 2013

As trade negotiators, you are being asked to resolve a large number of important issues that have divided Parties in the negotiations for a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

The decision to make the negotiating text secret from the public (even though the details are accessible to hundred of advisors to big corporations) makes it difficult for the public to offer informed commentary. But the recent publication of the negotiating text for the intellectual property rights chapter by Wikileaks, and an earlier leak of the investor state dispute resolution proposals, as well as numerous reports in the business press, make it clear that the agreement presents grave risks on all sorts of topics.

As regards the provisions on intellectual property, negotiators should resist text that would, among other things:
weaken the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health
mandate extensions of patents terms
mandate lower standards for granting patents on medicines
mandate granting patents on surgical procedures,
mandate monopolies of 12 years on test data for biologic drugs
narrow the grounds for granting compulsory license on patents,
increase damages for infringements of patents and copyrights,
reduce space for exceptions as regards limits on injunctions, and
narrow copyright exceptions
requiring life+ 70 years of copyright protection,
mandate excessive enforcement measures for digital information, and
otherwise restrict access to knowledge.

At this point in time, we do not need a TRIPS plus trade agreement, we need a TRIPS minus agreement. The TPP proposes to freeze into a binding trade agreement many of the worst features of the worst laws in the TPP countries, making needed reforms extremely difficult if not impossible.

The investor state dispute resolution mechanisms should not be shrouded in mystery to the general public, while the same provisions are routinely discussed with advisors to big corporations.

Sincerely,


signed

PLUS this week in Bali, limited new agreement the WTO:

WTO Staggers On After Limited Trade Pact
WTO Focuses on More Achievable Targets Such as Streamlining Customs Procedures


By BEN OTTO CONNECT
Updated Dec. 7, 2013 8:14 a.m. ET
NUSA DUA, Indonesia—Members of the World Trade Organization reached a scaled-back deal to liberalize global commerce, keeping alive foundering talks with a pact that will still take months, if not years, to fully take effect.

The modest deal agreed to by the WTO's 159 members Saturday after four days of meetings on the resort island of Bali fell far short of the goal set by negotiators when they launched talks in Doha, Qatar, in 2001.

The WTO's members two years ago agreed to drop the ambitious goal of eliminating or reducing tariffs on a range of goods and services after years of acrimonious discussions. Instead, the WTO focused on more achievable targets, including an effort to streamline customs procedures, the centerpiece of the agreement Saturday.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo, left, applauds Indonesia's Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan after the final agreement at the WTO conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Saturday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

During negotiations this week, even this pact seemed out of reach, with a number of countries raising objections.

In the end, a last-minute compromise deal allowed senior officials attending the meeting to claim victory.

"We have saved the WTO," said European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said the organization had entered "a new era."

The agreement could add billions of dollars to the $65 trillion global economy by making it easier for goods to pass through customs, a part of the negotiations known as "trade facilitation." A number of influential business organizations, including several in the U.S. and Brazil, lobbied for the deal.

Some observers were more skeptical, pointing out substantial parts of the deal remain pending. In the case of trade facilitation, members agreed to assess their financial and other needs for customs upgrades by July 2014, with implementation not taking place until long after.

"It's kicking the can down the road," said Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a professor at Swiss business school IMD. "It's better than an outright failure, but I don't know how seriously the outside world can take it."

"It appears that the biggest 'breakthrough' was simply that yet another WTO ministerial meeting did not melt down altogether," said Lori Wallach, a trade expert at Public Citizen, a U.S.-based consumer advocacy group. She also pointed to past WTO deals that never came to fruition, such as an agreement in 2005 to end all agricultural export subsidies by 2013.

In talks this week, India had refused to back the deal. New Delhi said it would do so only if the WTO allowed India to move ahead with a plan to subsidize food for its poor.

India's plans are currently against WTO rules, as such subsidies could distort global food prices. But negotiators, including the U.S., agreed to give India time to develop alternatives, a process that will take years and has no deadline.

Cuba was a late holdout, briefly demanding in vain for wording that would challenge the five-decade U.S. embargo of the island nation.

The breakthrough Saturday came almost a day after the scheduled end to the talks, with ministers and delegations canceling flights and convening until almost 5 a.m. to consider final compromises prepared by Roberto Azevedo, the WTO's director-general. Hours later, exhausted delegations returned and approved the deal in an emotional final gathering.

"For the first time in our history, the WTO has truly delivered," Mr. Azevedo said.

The Bali meeting had been billed as the last chance to get a deal amid mounting frustration over the forum's inability to move ahead.

Some negotiators said the limited pact gives the WTO credibility to continue its other main role: as an arbiter of trade disputes.

The WTO works by consensus, and the breakdown of the talks also could have hurt the organization's dispute-settling mechanism, they said.

The WTO's ability to foster wider-ranging trade liberalization is likely to remain hampered by a divergence of views within the grouping—and especially as countries turn to other forums to push trade deals.

Some of the WTO's largest members increasingly are devoting time and resources to building bilateral and regional trade pacts that critics say will leave smaller countries out in the cold.

Mr. Azevedo told reporters that the organization would spend the next year establishing a road map to move forward on the Doha agenda, saying "we're going to take up the Doha agenda as a whole."

But trade experts also questioned that agenda, suggesting it would be a mistake to return to an agenda developed in 2001.

"The world has changed in 12 years," and policy makers should give the Doha round of talks a "decent burial and move on to fundamental reform of the WTO," Mr. Lehmann of IMD said.

Many negotiators in Bali said the deal was a victory but privately expressed doubt that consensus ever would be reached on far more divisive issues such as agriculture.

The developing world, led by India, has rebuffed calls to open its markets to goods from the industrialized world. Poorer countries have criticized developed nations for failing to end food subsidies. And many have fought for the right to subsidize food for their poorest citizens.

Governments are starting to shun the tortuous process of negotiating by consensus under the WTO to forge smaller regional pacts with trading allies. Europe and the U.S. are planning a trade agreement, while a dozen Pacific Rim nations, including the U.S., are planning a similar pact.

Mr. Froman traveled to Singapore on Saturday for further discussions on the Pacific Rim pact. But even here, talks are getting bogged down.

Mexican Economic Minister Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, who also went from Bali to attend the Singapore talks, said that "many things are lagging" in the discussions for the Pacific Rim pact.

and this. it's Europe's turn now.

The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal
Plans to create an EU-US single market will allow corporations to sue governments using secretive panels, bypassing courts and parliaments
Follow George Monbiot by emailBETA

A nuclear power plant in Biblis, south-west Germany. The investor-state dispute settlement is aready 'being used by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power'. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Panic spreads through the European commission like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Its plans to create a single market incorporating Europe and the United States, progressing so nicely when hardly anyone knew, have been blown wide open. All over Europe people are asking why this is happening; why we were not consulted; for whom it is being done.

They have good reason to ask. The commission insists that its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should include a toxic mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement. Where this has been forced into other trade agreements, it has allowed big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments.

This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citizens or protect the natural world. Already it is being used by mining companies to sue governments trying to keep them out of protected areas; by banks fighting financial regulation; by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power. After a big political fight we've now been promised plain packaging for cigarettes. But it could be nixed by an offshore arbitration panel. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia through the same mechanism in another treaty.

No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto.

The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true.

From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it. Persistent digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobbyists. Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.

Though the commission now tells the public that it will protect "the state's right to regulate", this isn't the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue. Yes. "If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in." Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? "That's one example where it might."

What the commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts "might be biased or lack independence", but which courts is it talking about? It won't say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing: "Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in an EU-US deal? Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it's because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and unjust arbitration by corporate lawyers.

As for the commission's claim that the trade deal will produce growth and jobs, this is also likely to be false. Barack Obama promised that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement would increase US exports by $10bn. They immediately fell by $3.5bn. The 70,000 jobs it would deliver? Er, 40,000 were lost. Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 200,000 new jobs for the US; 680,000 went down the pan. As the commentator Glyn Moody says: "The benefits are slight and illusory, while the risks are very real."

So where are our elected representatives? Fast asleep. Labour MEPs, now frantically trying to keep investor-state dispute mechanisms out of the agreement, are the exception; the rest are in Neverland. The Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson wrote in his newsletter, before dismissing the idea: "I am told that columnists on the Guardian and the Independent claim it will hugely advantage US multinational companies to the detriment of Europe." We said no such thing, as he would know had he read the articles, rather than idiotically relying on hearsay. The treaty is likely to advantage the corporations of both the US and the EU, while disadvantaging their people. It presents a danger to democracy and public protection throughout the trading area.

Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs interested in the sovereignty of parliament, has published an early-day motion on the issue. It has so far been signed by seven MPs. For the government, Clarke argues that to ignore the potential economic gains "in favour of blowing up a controversy around one small part of the negotiations, known as investor protection, seems to me positively Scrooge-like".

Quite right too. Overriding our laws, stripping away our rights, making parliament redundant: these are trivial and irrelevant beside the issue of how much money could be made. Don't worry your little heads about it.

[parel]

standing by.

WikiLeaks ‏@wikileaks 17m
We will shortly release the negotiation positions for every country, on every issue of the 13 #TPP chapters coming out of the last round.

and voila!

Today, 9 December 2013, WikiLeaks has released two more secret TPP documents that show the state of negotiations as the twelve TPP countries began supposedly final negotiations at a trade ministers’ meeting in Singapore this week.

One document describes deep divisions between the United States and other nations, and "great pressure" being exerted by the US negotiators to move other nations to their position. The other document lists, country-by-country, the many areas of disagreement remaining. It covers intellectual property and thirteen other chapters of the draft agreement. This suggests that the TPP negotiations can only be concluded if the Asia-Pacific countries back down on key national interest issues, otherwise the treaty will fail altogether."
http://wikileaks.org/Second-release-of- ... tml?update

[cptmarginal]

Bravo...

[seemslikeadream]

Chickens Coming Home To Roost
By Charles P. Pierce at 10:15am
WikiLeaks and The Huffington Post have raised all kinds of unshirted hell this morning by publishing a trove of documents relating to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the gigantic new trade agreement which was negotiated largely in secret -- unless, of course, you were a CEO or a lobbyist who worked for one -- and which the administration is seeking to "fast-track" through Congress so as to avoid the kind of public scrutiny to which deals like this rarely stand up. OK, that last part's me, but you get the point.
One of the most controversial provisions in the talks includes new corporate empowerment language insisted upon by the U.S. government, which would allow foreign companies to challenge laws or regulations in a privately run international court. Under World Trade Organization treaties, this political power to contest government law is reserved for sovereign nations. The U.S. has endorsed some corporate political powers in prior trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, but the scope of what laws can be challenged appears to be much broader in TPP negotiations.
The documents say pretty much what you'd expect them to say -- that the provisions of the TPP grant multinational corporations vast new powers and that, among these, are virtual veto-powers over local environmental and labor laws, and that the agreement is a virtual Christmas tree on which corporations have hung all of their fondest individual wishes regarding future profiteering. (The drug companies seem particularly hopeful, which is to say incredibly greedy.) Large financial institutions seem happy, too.
The U.S. is also facing major resistance on bank regulation standards. The Obama administration is seeking to curtail the use of "capital controls" by foreign governments. These can include an extremely broad variety of financial tools, from restricting lending in overheated markets to denying mass international outflows of currency during a financial panic. The loss of these tools would dramatically limit the ability of governments to prevent and stem banking crises.
(Let us pause right here to acknowledge that any counter-argument based on what a schmuck you think Julian Assange is will be ruled out of order as immaterial and irrelevant to the matter at hand. Thank you.)
The TPP, which will materially affect the lives , in one way or another, of every American who works for a living, has been criminally undercovered in the United States media -- and I include the blog in this, as well -- while it has been negotiated in secrecy among a corporate class beyond the reach of democratic accountability, and a corporate class that most people around the world have no earthly reason to trust any more. The administration inexcusably is trying to short-circuit debate on what would be a massive reconfiguration of the relationship between the American government and the universe of international business and finance, which latter is acting in this matter very much the way a state would if it were negotiating a treaty -- or, say, the terms of a surrender, not that I'm negative on the whole business or anything. The lack of any kind of accountability, let alone transparency -- in which I include the media, and in which I definitely include this blog -- on something of this magnitude seems so, well, transparently, unAmerican that it almost beggars argument. And if there is no official accountability, then, thank god, there is going to be unofficial accountability and renegade transparency, and that's just tough. I don't want to hear official blatherings about "outdated" documents. I want to know what deals my government is cutting with people from whom I, at this point, wouldn't buy an apple.

[parel]

Well, you coulda bet the farm on Abbott selling out.

Abbott Government caves in to US demands in TPP talks

Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 9:07 pm
Press Release: Patricia Ranald
Abbott Government caves in to US demands on stronger patents and higher prices for medicines in TPP talks

A report from the Singapore TPP talks today in the specialized US trade journal, The Washington Trade Daily, claims that Australia, New Zealand and Canada have agreed to drop their objections to US proposals on medicines in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks due to finish in Singapore today,” Dr Patricia Ranald, Convenor of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said today.

“This would mean that the Australian Government has agreed to extreme US demands for longer and stronger patent laws which will delay the availability of cheaper generic medicines and mean higher prices for medicines,” said Dr Ranald.

“This report makes a mockery of the assurances given by Trade Minister Robb that he would not agree to anything that would undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

“The current patent term for medicines is already 20 years, but the US wants extensions of 5 years in some circumstances. The PBS controls the wholesale price for new medicines by comparing the medical effectiveness and price of new patented medicines with existing medicines, including cheaper generic medicines. Longer patents will mean higher costs for new medicines in the PBS, and higher prices for longer for other medicines, because of the delay in generic medicines coming onto the market. This will mean higher costs for government, which will be passed on to consumers,” explained Dr Ranald.

“Agreement to another US demand to extend data exclusivity for biologic medicines from 5 to 12 years would delay cheaper generic medicines even further by delaying the access to clinical data which generic companies need before they can commercialise cheaper versions of drugs”, said Dr Ranald.

This revelation shows that the Minister’s assurances mean nothing when negotiations take place in secret and we don’t know the result until after the deal is done. We call for the release of the text of the TPP for full public and parliamentary discussion before it is signed,” said Dr Ranald.

ends

New Zealand too. All but one developing nation apparently. Malaysia is my guess cuz they staunch. Vietnam a possiblity.

Groser sells out - not even for 30 pieces of silver

Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 6:46 pm
Press Release: Professor Jane Kelsey
Groser sells out on medicines at TPPA Singapore Ministerial - not even for 30 pieces of silver!

‘Forget all the glib promises that the National Government will protect the “fundamentals” of Pharmac and defend of our public health system in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations’ said Professor Jane Kelsey who is monitoring the TPPA trade ministers’ meeting in Bali.

‘Also forget all the plaudits for New Zealand’s strong positions that were revealed in the intellectual property text posted by Wikileaks last month’.

Washington Trade Daily has reported that ministers from all TPPA countries, except one developing country, have dropped their objections to the US-based intellectual property chapter, with some modifications.

That means Australia, New Zealand and Canada have agreed to a ‘very high standards’ text with unspecified transition clauses for developing countries.

‘We assume “high quality” is code for the same position the US was pushing in the leaked chapter on crucial questions of data exclusivity, including on biologics (eg cancer medicines), patent linkage and patent term extensions’, Kelsey said.

‘Groser has sold out, as I always suspected he would. But we also hear that the US has not tabled any significant proposals for agricultural market access. So he has played Judas with our health system, without even 30 pieces of silver in return.’

ends

[conniption]

WikiLeaks Releases the Secret Draft Text for the Entire #TPP Environment Chapter + Kevin Zeese...
Posted on January 15, 2014 by dandelionsalad

[Pele'sDaughter]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141 ... alth.shtml

For years, we've discussed the ridiculous and unnecessary secrecy concerning trade agreements negotiated by the USTR. The text of the negotiating documents and even the US's general position is kept secret until the very end, at which point concerns from the public and innovators no longer matter. Instead, the USTR relies on legacy industry "advisors" who are mostly interested in protecting what they have from disruption, change and innovation. For all the talk of how these agreements are "free trade" agreements, they tend to be anything but. They are focused on protecting a few industries against competition, disruption and innovation. The former US Trade Rep Ron Kirk was unusually honest a few years ago in admitting that these agreements would never get adopted if the public actually knew what was in them. A year ago, Wikileaks helped leak the "Intellectual Property" chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and now it's done so again with a more recent version of the chapter. Public Citizen has put together a thorough analysis, highlighting a key change: the US pushing to delay access to affordable treatments for cancer and other diseases, in direct contrast to the pledges of the Obama administration.

Large brand-name drug firms want to use the TPP to impose rules throughout Asia that will raise prices on medicine purchases for consumers and governments, and be in effect for the next several decades. With billions at stake, Big Pharma wants the TPP to be a road map for rules that will govern Pacific Rim economies for the next several decades.

A U.S. proposal in the text – to provide long automatic monopolies for biotech drugs or biologics, which includes most new treatments for cancer – contradicts the policies included in recent White House budgets and if adopted would undermine key cost savings touted by the administration. The past budgets have included a specific pledge to shorten the same monopoly periods so as to reduce cost burdens on Medicare and Medicaid.

If the TPP is ratified with this U.S.-proposed provision included, Congress would be unable to reduce monopoly periods without risking significant penalties and investor-state arbitration.

Thankfully, other countries appear to be pushing back on this proposal, but the US is always the 800-pound gorilla in these negotiations. Still, as Wikileaks summarizes, the US is pushing strongly for "drug-company friendly" language that undermines existing agreements under TRIPS. In particular, TRIPS has long allowed countries to authorize the production of cheaper generic drugs to deal with significant health problems. Big Pharma -- showing how it really feels about public health -- has been angry about this for years, and appears to be using TPP as a vehicle to try to undermine it. Of course, they know better than to kill off this provision entirely, but rather, are looking to undermine it. Wikileaks explains:

Also new in the May 2014 text is a "drug company-friendly" version of the TRIPS agreement for compulsory licensing of vital drugs patents. This is a diminished version of the TRIPS agreement that was present in the 2013 text. In theory, by issuing a compulsory licence, a government can authorise cost-cutting generic competition with patented drugs, in exchange for royalty payments to the patent holder. It is a key tool to promote affordable access to medicines. The new exceptions are set out here and here, having deleted the option for "Other Use Without Authorisation of the Right Holder" in the August 2013 text. The current global norms for justifying exceptions to patents are set out in the TRIPS agreement under either Article 30 or 31. Article 30 is a 3-step test that is restrictive in what it grants exceptions for, and is open to interpretation with regards to procedures for doing these tests. Article 31 (referred to in the August 2013 text and now gone) is the one generally used on all compulsory licensing for HIV and cancer drugs. Whilst it is more restrictive, it is limited to cases where patent holders are paid, so as long as a drug qualifies (as most HIV and cancer drugs do) it is possible to get an exception to the patent held by big pharmaceutical companies, breaking big pharma's monopoly on life-saving drugs.

However, the new version of the text of the TPP IP Chapter has deleted the option to use this assessment procedure, requiring many judgement calls on aspects such as how this might "prejudice" the patent holder. This will mean that the procedure is more restrictive and open to interpretation, and therefore lobbying and manipulation. In short, the TPP will greatly reduce the ability for creating more affordable drugs to save more lives, and increase the pharmaceutical industry's ability to retain monopolies.

Elsewhere in the document, we see that the US and Japan (who appear to be aligned a lot against everyone else) are pushing for the following:

For greater certainty, a Party may not deny a patent solely on the basis that the product did not result in an enhanced efficacy of the known product when the applicant has set forth distinguishing features establishing that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application.

Consider this to be the "Eli Lilly clause." As you may recall, Eli Lilly is currently demanding $500 million from Canada under a corporate sovereignty ("investor state dispute settlement" or ISDS) tribunal, because Canada rejected some of its patents for not being any more effective than existing offerings. For most of us, it seems like a perfectly reasonable reason to reject a patent: your patented drug doesn't do anything to make it more useful than existing products. Canadian law agrees. But big pharma, like Eli Lilly flips out, because they want to produce new drugs that they can patent as old patents run out, hoping to trick people into wanting the new, much more expensive "new new thing" rather than the old, generic, cheaper offering that is just as (if not more) effective.

A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing. Instead, the US and Japan say it should only be cancelled on grounds that would have been justified for refusing to grant the patent in the first place. In other words, most of the countries recognize that patents can be abused in anti-competitive ways and want to protect against that. The US and Japan, on the other hand, appear to be happy with enabling anti-competitive abuses with patents. That says something.

In the copyright section, it appears that US goes beyond existing US law in asking that "making available" be considered one of the exclusive rights protected under copyright law. Some US courts consider "making available" to be considered part of the "distribution" right, but others have disagreed (saying that the distribution right only covers works that have actually been, you know, distributed). While the legacy entertainment industry likes to pretend this is settled law and merely making available equals distribution, that's not entirely clear. No matter, in the agreement, the US (and Japan) push to require everyone to include "making available" as an exclusive right for copyright holders.

There was great fanfare a few years ago when the USTR announced that, for the first time ever, it would include some language about fair use to appease those who were concerned about how these agreements only ratcheted up the enforcement side of copyright, and not the public's rights. Except, when the details finally leaked, we realized the proposed language was actually about limiting fair use by putting a much stricter definition on it. That language is still in the agreement. There still appears to be debate about copyright term length, with at least some pushing to extend the copyright term, because, hey, copyright terms always expand. This comes despite even the head of the Copyright Office agreeing that copyright terms should be reduced.

The US is also looking to definitively kill off any chance of an Aereo-like solution (even if Congress were to pass a law in response to the Supreme Court), by saying that such a service shall not be allowed without authorization of the copyright holder. The agreement would also extend broken anti-circumvention rules that block non-infringing and perfectly reasonable uses. The US is (of course) pushing for more criminal copyright efforts (Vietnam and Malaysia are pushing back). The US, against pretty much everyone else, is also pushing for statutory damages to be a necessary option for civil copyright cases, despite the massive problems we've seen with statutory damages in the US and how it enables shady practices like copyright trolling.

There's a lot of debate about whether or not recording a movie in a theater should be a criminal act. The US, of course, is pushing for what appears to be an extreme definition where any recording should absolutely be seen as criminal. Other countries would like it to be more flexible, leaving it up to the countries to decide if they want to make it criminal. Singapore says the taping should be willful, and Mexico says it should only apply to a significant part of the film. The US doesn't care. If you accidentally record a bit of a movie? Go to jail.

There's a lot more in there, but, once again you can clearly see why the US remains so against any transparency at all in these negotiations. Having to actually answer for why they're only concerned with protecting the rights of the legacy copyright industry and pharmaceutical industries, while paying little to no attention to the impact on public health, knowledge and innovation, would apparently put a damper on their future job prospects.

[seemslikeadream]

Leaked draft confirms TPP will censor Internet and stifle Free Expression worldwide



Are you tired of the secrecy and extreme Internet censorship proposals in the TPP? Be sure to check out our positive alternative, crowdsourced from over 300,000 people in 155 countries around the globe - learn more at Our Digital Future.

October 16, 2014 – This morning Wikileaks published a second leaked draft of the Intellectual Property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The draft confirms people’s worst fears about Internet censorship. That’s according to community-based organization OpenMedia, which is leading a large international Fair Deal Coalition aimed at securing balanced copyright rules for the 21st Century.

“It is hugely disappointing to see that, yet again, Canadians - and members of the public worldwide - have to be informed about these critical issues through leaked drafts, instead of through democratic engagement on the part of governments and elected officials,” said OpenMedia Campaigns Coordinator Meghan Sali. “When will our decision-makers recognize that negotiating serious issues - especially proposals that would censor our use of the Internet - must be considered and debated democratically instead of in secret meetings with industry lobbyists?”

Sali continued, “It is now clearer than ever that we need a positive alternative to this secretive process. It is unacceptable to design and impose new laws through closed-door processes that disenfranchise individuals around the world and shut off debate on important issues that will affect all of our futures. This is what the Our Digital Future report, released just yesterday, is all about - challenging the notion that we can’t make these laws in a more democratic manner.”

Already, over 3.1 million people have spoken our against the secrecy surrounding the TPP negotiations at StopTheSecrecy.net, and demanded that decsion-makers release information to the public about the contents of the agreement, as well as make greater efforts to engage citizen stakeholders in the process.

This morning, copyright and digital rights expert, Prof. Michael Geist, weighed in on his blog about the most recent leaked draft, noting that the Canadian negotiators have been opposing U.S. pressure to introduce stricter enforcement for patent and copyright law - with the strongest pushback coming in the “patents, enforcement, trademarks and copyright sections.”

Geist writes on his blog: “As the treaty negotiations continue, the pressure to cave to U.S. pressure will no doubt increase, raising serious concerns about whether the TPP will force the Canadian government to overhaul recently enacted legislation that it has steadfastly defended as reflecting a balanced, “made in Canada” approach.”

With the next round of TPP negotiations taking place in Australia at the end of October, pressure is mounting on negotiators to finalize the agreement, and copyright issues are a main stumbling block to achieving the consensus needed to finish negotiations. This leaked document may contribute additional strain to already tense negotiations.

Early legal analysis of the leaked TPP IP chapter can be found through Fair Deal Member KEI here: http://keionline.org/node/2108



About OpenMedia.ca

OpenMedia.ca is an award-winning community-based organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy by engaging hundreds of thousands of people in protecting our online rights.

Through campaigns such as StopTheMeter.ca and StopSpying.ca, OpenMedia.ca has engaged over half-a-million Canadians, and has influenced public policy and federal law.

About the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement:

The TPP is one of the most far-reaching international free trade agreements in history. We know from leaked TPP draft texts that participating nations would be bound to much stricter and more extreme copyright laws than now exist under current national laws. These new rules would criminalize much online activity, invade citizens’ privacy, and significantly impact our ability to share and collaborate online.

Negotiators from 12 of the TPP negotiating nations—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Peru, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States— are meeting in Asia this week to discuss these changes without input from the public, creators, or most businesses. The negotiating documents are classified—unless you are one of just 600 industry lobbyists permitted to participate.

U.S. negotiators are pushing hard to force smaller nations into accepting a censored Internet. However, reports have indicated that the intellectual property provisions have been quite a “challenging” issue for those behind the agreement.

Hundreds of thousands of people have supported campaigns organized by OpenMedia to speak out about Internet censorship and the secrecy surrounding the TPP.

-30-

Contact

David Christopher
Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca
1-778-232-1858
david@openmedia.ca