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<\/a>\r\nThese documents add potential international treaty enforcement of\r\n“mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products\r\nor environment or labor to all the reasons\r\n\r\nEFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty<\/a>\r\nand the\r\n\r\nLNG export pressures for TPP<\/a> that would drive up the price of fracked\r\n“natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit\r\nof a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.\r\n\r\nThe deep divisions among the negotiating countries\r\nexposed in the\r\n\r\nIntellectual Property Rights Chapter<\/a> (Wikileaks 13 November 2013)\r\napparently have not closed since.\r\nThe two documents from the\r\n\r\nSalt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting of 19-24 November 2013<\/a>\r\n(Wikileaks 9 December 2013) are:\r\n \r\nIn the Market Access Chapter, apparently Australia, Peru, Singapore, \r\nBrunei and Japan all have reservations about distinctive products.\r\nIn the SPS Chapter, apparently New Zealand, Peru, Canada, Malaysia,\r\nand Japan actually want some “Science and Risk Analysis — Pre-Market Approval”.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe E-Commerce chapter includes “Software secure code”,\r\non which Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam have reserved positions.\r\nAfter the Edward Snowden revelations of NSA spying on pretty much everybody\r\nin the world through software and hardware back doors,\r\nit will be very ironic if autocratic Singapore and Vietnam save the world\r\nfrom enshrining such tactics in international treaty.\r\nOf course, we don’t know that that’s what’s proposed in that chapter,\r\nbecause we haven’t seen the text.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThese negotiations aim to reaffirm how important it is for trade and\r\nenvironmental policies to work together for the benefit of both.\r\nThey focus on how WTO rules are to apply to WTO members that are\r\nparties to environmental agreements, in particular to clarify the\r\nrelationship between certain trade measures taken under the\r\nenvironmental agreements, and WTO rules.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nI would bet “for the benefit of both” means for the profit\r\nof multi-national corporate executives.\r\nFor example:\r\n \r\nThere are over 250 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)\r\ndealing with various environmental issues which are currently in\r\nforce. About 20 of these include provisions that can affect trade.\r\nFor instance, they may contain measures that prohibit trade in\r\ncertain species or products, or that allow countries to restrict\r\ntrade in certain circumstances.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nThat corporate profit is paramount is spelled out:\r\n \r\nOn the other hand, WTO rules do allow members to derogate from their\r\nobligations in some cases, for instance where a measure is aimed at\r\nthe conservation of natural resources, provided certain conditions\r\nare met.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nSo by WTO MEA standards trade is an “obligation” while\r\nconserving natural resources such as the air we breathe\r\nand the water we drink are merely to “derogate” under\r\n“certain conditions” determined by multi-national corporations.\r\n \r\nShould we let the TPP turn the WTO’s MEA “mandate” into international law?\r\n \r\nTwo Environment chapter sections on Biodiversity are each rejected by\r\ndifferent long lists of countries.\r\n \r\nThree items on Climate change related to the Environment chapter\r\ninclude one that says “shorten the article” that is rejected by every\r\ncountry except the U.S.\r\nHow about instead we have an international treaty about stopping climate change?\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe U.S. apparently wants “New elements of Penal System:\r\nEstablishment of criminal offenses for unintentional infringements of\r\ncopyright,\r\nrelated rights and trademarks”.\r\nDoes that sound like a good idea to you?\r\nFortunately, every other country rejects that idea.\r\n \r\nThe U.S. also wants “Pharmaceuticals: Data protection”;\r\nfortunately also rejected by every other country.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThis document is a\r\n\r\nset of “excerpts from internal government commentary on the state of the TPP negotiations”.<\/a>\r\n \r\nThe U.S. wants corporations to be able to sue governments.\r\n \r\n…The most important issue for the majority of members… is the proposal\r\nby the U.S. to apply ISDS to investment Agreements and investment\r\nAuthorizations.\r\nThe United States, as in previous rounds, has shown no flexibility\r\non its proposal, being one of the most significant barriers to closing\r\nthe chapter, since under the concept of Investment Agreement\r\nnearly all significant contracts that can be made between a State\r\nand a foreign investor are included.\r\n \r\n…it covers important concessions including mining, administrative\r\nor special operating contracts for hydrocarbon exploration,\r\npublic works concessions (roads, highways, bridges, infrastructure, etc.)\r\nand it would override the choice of forum provisions in these contracts…\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nWikipedia’s definition<\/a>:\r\n \r\nInvestor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is a provision in\r\ninternational trade treaties and international investment agreements\r\nthat grants an investor the right to initiate dispute settlement\r\nproceedings against a foreign government in their own right under\r\ninternational law. For example, if an investor invests in country\r\n“A”, which is a member of a trade treaty, but then country A\r\nbreaches that treaty, then that investor may sue country A’s\r\ngovernment for the breach.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nThe\r\n\r\nEuropean Commission’s definition<\/a>:\r\n \r\nISDS is a procedural mechanism provided for in international\r\nagreements on investment. Countries sign such agreements in order to\r\nset out ground rules when foreign companies invest on their\r\nterritory, for example by building factories. ISDS allows an\r\ninvestor from one country to bring a case directly against the\r\ncountry in which they have invested before an arbitration tribunal.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nDo you want Monsanto to be able to sue the U.S. because your state\r\nhas implemented a GM-labelling law?\r\n \r\nFortunately, there is great disagreement among the TPP-negotiating countries:\r\n \r\n…As an overview, it should be mentioned that the U.S. is exerting\r\ngreat pressure to close as many issues as possible this week.\r\nHowever the Chapters that were reviewed by the CNs (Chief\r\nNegotiators) today did not record much progress. This pressure will\r\nincrease with every passing day.\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n…[U.S. Chief] met with all twelve countries and said that they\r\nwere not progressing according to plan.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S. because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines feeding liquid natural gas exports? Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people for unintentional infringement of copyright? Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law? Then you oppose the TPP. After the […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[202,47,14,16,70,321,2,41,132,20,6124,6687,22,3],"tags":[8750,8704,8701,8699,8718,7356,8741,8702,12,7375,8712,7354,7355,8700,1869],"class_list":["post-7352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-environment","category-ethics","category-food-and-drink","category-government","category-health-care","category-internet-access-speed","category-law","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-politics","category-transparency","tag-agriculture","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-health-care","tag-intellectual-property","tag-internet-access-speed","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-patents","tag-politics","tag-tpp","tag-trans-pacific-partnership","tag-transparency","tag-wikileaks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1UA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7352"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7354,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}TPP Country Positions<\/a><\/H3>\r\nThis document is\r\n\r\na table of national positions<\/a>\r\non a long list of topics, chapter by chapter.\r\nThe extreme breadth of this secret treaty is enough to wonder\r\nwhy it would ever be proposed in the first place,\r\nand even more why such an extreme trans-national treaty would\r\nbe negotiated in secret:\r\nMarket Access, Rules of Origin, Customs, SPS,\r\nTBT, Government Procurement, Competition, Investment, Services, E-Commerce, Environment,\r\nLabour issues, Legal,\r\nand\r\nIntellectual Property.\r\n
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tpp-salt-lake-positions-002-small.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nThere’s a TPT TBT chapter.\r\nTBT is\r\nTechnical Barriers to Trade\r\nas in the\r\n\r\nWorld Trade Organization TBT Agreement<\/a>, which\r\n“seeks to ensure that technical negotiations and standards, as well as testing and certification procedures, do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.”\r\nIn other words, countries should kow-tow to multi-national corporate trade desires.\r\nThat TPP Chapter has an “Organics Annex” which nobody but the U.S. has approved\r\nand which Australia and Japan reject.\r\nWhat’s in that Annex?\r\nSoftware secure code<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
\r\n\r\nMultilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA)<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tpp-salt-lake-positions-003-small.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nThe Environment chapter has several items on\r\n“MEAs”, which presumably\r\nare once again defined by the World Trade Organization, as in its\r\n\r\nDoha mandate on multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)<\/a>:\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
Biodiversity<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
Climate change<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
Legal<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tpp-salt-lake-positions-004-small.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nIn the Legal chapter, Malaysia and the U.S. want a “Tobacco exception”,\r\non which each other country has a reserved position.\r\nAnd all other countries reject the U.S. proposal for “entry into force”.\r\nIntellectual property and prison<\/a><\/H4>\r\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tpp-salt-lake-positions-005-small.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nAnd the U.S. and Singapore want\r\n“Patents: extend protection to new uses (plants, animals, surgical procedures)”.\r\nFortunately, every other country except Japan rejects that,\r\nand Japan has a reserved position.\r\nA TPP state of play<\/a><\/H3>\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
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<\/a>\r\nThe next step of the plan is the\r\n\r\nfast track authority in the U.S. Congress<\/a>\r\nthat\r\n\r\nyou can oppose using a handy form by EFF<\/a>.\r\n