Why So Secretive?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership as Global Coup
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, Occupy.com
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the
most secretive and “least transparent” trade negotiations in history.
Luckily for the populations and societies that will be affected by
the agreement, there are public research organizations and alternative
media outlets campaigning against it – and they’ve even released several
leaks of draft agreement chapters. From these leaks, which are not
covered by mainstream corporate-controlled news outlets, we are able to
get a better understanding of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership
actually encompasses.
For example, public interest groups have been warning that the TPP
could result in millions of lost jobs. As a letter from Congress to
United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated, the TPP “will create
binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,” including
“those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food,
agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment,
professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government
procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy,
telecommunications and other service sector regulations.”
In other words, as promised, the TPP goes far beyond “trade.”
Dubbed by many as “NAFTA on steroids” and a “corporate coup,” only
two of the TPP’s 26 chapters actually have anything to do with trade.
Most of it grants far-reaching new rights and privileges to
corporations, specifically related to intellectual property rights
(copyright and patent laws), as well as constraints on government
regulations.
The leaked documents revealed that the Obama administration “intends
to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations,”
as Obama and Kirk have emerged as strong advocates “for policies that
environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions
have long rejected for eroding key protections currently in domestic
laws.”
In other words, the already ineffective and mostly toothless
environmental, financial, and labor regulations that exist are
unacceptable to the Obama administration and the 600 corporations
aligned with the TPP who are giving him his orders.
The agreement stipulates that foreign corporations operating in the
United States would no longer be subject to domestic U.S. laws regarding
protections for the environment, finance or labor rights, and could
appeal to an “international tribunal” which would be given the power to
overrule American law and impose sanctions on the U.S. for violating the
new “rights” of corporations.
The “international tribunal” that would dictate the laws of the
countries would be staffed by corporate lawyers acting as “judges,” thus
ensuring that cases taken before them have a “fair and balanced”
hearing – fairly balanced in favor of corporate rights above anything
else.
A public interest coalition known as Citizens Trade Campaign
published a draft of the TPP chapter on “investment” revealing
information about the “international tribunal” which would allow
corporations to directly sue governments that have barriers to
“potential profits.”
Arthur Stamoulis, the executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign,
explained that the draft texts “clearly contain proposals designed to
give transnational corporations special rights that go far beyond those
possessed by domestic businesses and American citizens... A proposal
that could have such broad effects on environmental, consumer safety and
other public interest regulations deserves public scrutiny and debate.
It shouldn’t be crafted behind closed doors.”
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a public interest organization,
undertook an analysis of the leaked document on investment and explained
that the international corporate tribunal would allow corporations to
overturn national laws and regulations or demand enormous sums in
compensation, with the tribunal “empowered to order payment of unlimited
government Treasury funds to foreign investors over TPP claims.”
Even under NAFTA, over $350 million has been paid by NAFTA-aligned
governments to corporations for “barriers” to investment “rights,”
including toxic waste dumps, logging rules, as well as bans on various
toxic chemicals.
Because let’s be clear: for corporations, such regulations and
concerns over health, safety and environmental issues are perceived
solely as “barriers” to investment and profit. Thus their “government”
would sue the foreign government on behalf of the corporation, on the
premise that such regulations led to potential lost profits, for which
the corporation should be compensated.
The TPP allows the corporations to directly sue the government in
question. All of the TPP member countries, except for Australia, have
agreed to adhere to the jurisdiction of this international tribunal, an
unelected, anti-democratic and corporate-staffed kangaroo-court with
legal authority over at least ten nations and their populations.
Further, TPP countries have not agreed on a set of obligations for
corporations to meet in relation to health, labor or environmental
standards, and thus a door is opened for corporations to obtain even
more rights and privileges to plunder and exploit. Where corporate
rights are extended, human and democratic rights are dismantled.
One of the most important areas in which the TPP has a profound
effect is in relation to intellectual property rights, or copyright and
patent laws. Corporations have been strong advocates of expanding
intellectual property rights, namely, their intellectual property
rights.
Pharmaceutical corporations are major proponents of these rights and
are likely to be among the major beneficiaries of the intellectual
property chapter of the TPP. The pharmaceutical industry ensured that
strong patent rules were included in the 1995 World Trade Organization
agreement, but ultimately felt that those rules did not go far enough.
Dean Baker, writing in the Guardian, explained that stronger patent
rules establish “a government-granted monopoly, often as long as 14
years, that prohibits generic competitors from entering a market based
on another company’s test results that show a drug to be safe and
effective.” Baker noted that such laws are actually “the opposite of
free trade” since they “involve increased government intervention in the
market” and “restrict competition and lead to higher prices for
consumers.”
Essentially, what this means is that in poor countries where more
people need access to life-saving drugs, and at cheaper cost, it would
be impossible for companies or governments to manufacture and sell
cheaper generic brands of successful drugs held by multinational
corporate patents. Such an agreement would hand over a monopoly of
price-controls to these corporations, allowing them to set the prices as
they deem fit, thus making the drugs incredibly expensive and often
inaccessible to the people who need them most.
As U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman correctly noted, “In many parts of
the world, access to generic drugs means the difference between life and
death.”
The TPP is expected to increase such corporate patent rights more
than any other agreement in history. Generic drug manufacturers in
countries like Vietnam and Malaysia would suffer. So would sales of
larger generics manufacturers in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, which
supply low-cost drugs to much of the world.
While the United States has given up the right to negotiate drug
prices with pharmaceutical corporations (hence the exorbitant price for
drugs purchased in the U.S.), countries like New Zealand and even Canada
to a lesser extent negotiate drug prices in order to keep the costs
down for consumers. The TPP will grant new negotiating privileges to
corporations, allowing them to appeal decisions by governments to
challenge the high cost of drugs or to go with cheap alternatives.
Referring to these changes, the U.S. manager of Doctors Without Borders’
Access to Medicines Campaign stated, “Bush was better than Obama on
this.”
But that’s not all the TPP threatens: Internet freedom is also a major target.
The
Council of Canadians and
OpenMedia,
major campaigners for Internet freedom, have warned that the TPP would
“criminalize some everyday uses of the Internet,” including music
downloads as well as the combining of different media works. OpenMedia
warned that the TPP would “force service providers to collect and hand
over your private data without privacy safeguards, and give media
conglomerates more power to send you fines in the mail, remove online
content – including entire websites – and even terminate your access to
the Internet.”
Also advanced under the TPP chapter on intellectual property rights,
new laws would have to be put in place by governments to regulate
Internet usage. OpenMedia further warned that, from the leaked documents
on intellectual property rights, “there can be heavy fines for average
citizens online,” adding: “you could be fined for clicking on a link,
people could be knocked off the Internet and web sites could be locked
off.”
The TPP, warned OpenMedia founder Steve Anderson, “will limit
innovation and free expression.” Under the TPP, there is no distinction
between commercial and non-commercial copyright infringement. Thus,
users who download music for personal use would face the same penalties
as those who sell pirated music for profit.
Information that is created or shared on social networking sites
could have Internet users fined, have their computers seized, their
Internet usage terminated, or even get them a jail sentence. The TPP
imposes a “three strikes” system for copyright infringement, where three
violations would result in the termination of a household’s Internet
access.
So, why all the secrecy? Corporate and political decision-makers
study public opinion very closely; they know how to manipulate the
public based upon what the majority think and believe. When it comes to
“free trade” agreements, public opinion has forced negotiators into the
darkness of back-room deals and unaccountable secrecy precisely because
populations are so overwhelmingly against such agreements.
An opinion poll from 2011 revealed that the American public has –
just over the previous few years – moved from “broad opposition” to
“overwhelming opposition” toward NAFTA-style trade deals.
A major NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll from September of 2010
revealed that “the impact of trade and outsourcing is one of the only
issues on which Americans of different classes, occupations and
political persuasions agree,” with 86% saying that outsourcing jobs by
U.S. companies to poor countries was “a top cause of our economic woes,”
with 69% thinking that “free trade agreements between the United States
and other countries cost the U.S. jobs.” Only 17% of Americans in 2010
felt that “free trade agreements” benefit the U.S., compared to 28% in
2007.
Because public opinion is strongly – and increasingly – against “free
trade agreements,” secrecy is required in order to prevent the public
from even knowing about, let alone actively opposing, agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And this, as U.S. Trade Representative
Kirk explained, is a very “practical” reason for all the secrecy.
