Politics Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

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DivideandMultiply

DivideandMultiply

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Between the lines.
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Why the ridiculous level of secrecy and how worried should we be?

For example it is likely to include draconian SOPA like stipulations, for copyright protection and enforcement, yet the public have no way of knowing the exact contents.

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Place Greater Liability on Internet Intermediaries: The TPP would force the adoption of the US DMCA Internet intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety.

Regulate Temporary Copies: Treat temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without copyright holders' authorization as copyright infringement.

Expand Copyright Terms: Create copyright terms well beyond the internationally agreed period in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Enact a "Three-Step Test" Language That Puts Restrictions on Fair Use: The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is putting fair use at risk with restrictive language in the TPP's IP chapter.

Escalate Protections for Digital Locks: It will compel signatory nations to enact laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures or TPMs) [PDF] that mirror the DMCA and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offense even when no copyright infringement is involved.

Adopt Criminal Sanctions: Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation, based on the provisions of the 1997 US No Electronic Theft Act.
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https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

http://keionline.org/node/1091

Likewise, it seems the Abbott government will agree to investor state dispute clauses, which Australia had thankfully avoided in the past, primarily due to Howard of all people.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/trade-treaty-stance-the-same-despite-promise-20130922-2u7wm.html
US companies are enthusiastic users of the provisions. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says a record 58 cases were under way last year. In one, a US resource company is suing Canadian province of Quebec for imposing a moratorium on coal seam gas extraction while it examines claims of environmental damage.
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http://www.smh.com.au/business/trade-treaty-stance-the-same-despite-promise-20130922-2u7wm.html

Caving on this issue could be a nightmare for Australia, as government will constantly face very costly legal challenges and settlements on a whole host of issues, especially when dealing with famously litigious corporations, with enormously deep pockets over issues such as environmental, financial or health and safety regulations. The flow on effect from this is that industry regulation may not be determined by public need, but simply the hopes of limiting government exposure to litigation.

The whole process appears to be a terrifying betrayal of the public's interest, for the sake of promoting the financial interests of a cadre of US multinational corporations.

So I know it has been discussed a little, but surely the fact that the full contents of the TPP are only available to a handful of government officials, under the strictest terms of secrecy, should set alarm bells ringing. Yet the contents are fully available to a core group of powerful US lobbyists plus associated corporations, who helped draft the agreement.

In fact in Australia even the press are now being banned from "stakeholder" briefings by DFAT.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-dfat?CMP=soc_568

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/10/30/dfat-blocks-media-public-tpp-briefing/
 

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Why would we enter into such a treaty with a nation with such a shocking human rights record against its own citizens, then there's their record against other nations, unparalleled in modern times.
 
DivideandMultiply said:
Likewise, it seems the Abbott government will agree to investor state dispute clauses, which Australia had thankfully avoided in the past, primarily due to Howard of all people.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/trade-treaty-stance-the-same-despite-promise-20130922-2u7wm.html

Caving on this issue could be a nightmare for Australia, as government will constantly face very costly legal challenges and settlements on a whole host of issues, especially when dealing with famously litigious corporations, with enormously deep pockets over issues such as environmental, financial or health and safety regulations. The flow on effect from this is that industry regulation may not be determined by public need, but simply the hopes of limiting government exposure to litigation.

The whole process appears to be a terrifying betrayal of the public's interest, for the sake of promoting the financial interests of a cadre of US multinational corporations.
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This is the part that really concerns me - clauses such as these could make any meaningful industry regulation virtually impossible (by virtue of the possible lawsuits). Beyond that, the entire idea that a corporation should be able to litigate against a government simply because some act of government has curtailed their ability to make as much profit is an affront to democratic society - the relinquishing of the right to reasonably regulate. The fact that this possibility has not received more public attention worries me: the ramifications of such clauses are damaging and wide-reaching. A clause such as this serves no-one but the wealthy corporations.
 
DivideandMultiply said:
This is a genuine concern. Profit and greed, before health and welfare.
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Of course, it is important for pharmaceutical companies to make profit. That's how we get life-saving drugs. The issue is the short-sighted of the TPPA, and the scary consequences it could lead to. We watch and wait.
 

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samFFC said:
Of course, it is important for pharmaceutical companies to make profit. That's how we get life-saving drugs. The issue is the short-sighted of the TPPA, and the scary consequences it could lead to. We watch and wait.
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Oh I agree, but not on the basis of unreasonable laws, which give disproportionate rights to industry at the expense of the public.

In fact, you might say the profit motive and current IP laws in some cases lead to more harm than good re life saving drugs. Pharmaceutical giants are less likely to research cures, than treatments, due to the margins and have substantial incentive to fund/buy the IP, then shelve promising research which offers alternatives to their products.

Big pharma is one of the least scrupulous industries, where IP hoarding, industrial espionage, political strongarming, corruption and abuse of patency laws is common place.
 
DivideandMultiply said:
In fact, you might say the profit motive and current IP laws in some cases lead to more harm than good re life saving drugs. Pharmaceutical giants are less likely to research cures, than treatments, due to the margins and have substantial incentive to fund/buy the IP, then shelve promising research which offers alternatives to their products.

.
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Very fair point. And you can definitely see it in the way that drugs for high blood pressure and lipids (eg. Lipitor) are far more researched and distributed than potential life saving antibiotics/anti-virals etc.. And the TPPA is certainly not going to help this!
 
Still really worried about this - every comment the government does make on it (and that's not many) seems to imply that they'll put one into the TPP. Business groups like the ACCI are saying it's a good idea and should be considered: seems we're going to get our first bitter taste of what an Australia "open for business" is really like...
 
samFFC said:
Of course, it is important for pharmaceutical companies to make profit. That's how we get life-saving drugs.
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The majority of R&D spending from established phama's is for "me too" drugs, specifically designed to flout IP laws (protected by TRIPs - no surprise regional TAs are trying to go further than the WTO for IPRs given the collapse of the Doha round).
This is even without considering the ~90% proportion of R&D spending that is aimed at 10% of global population.

Regardless, it's the submission of national sovereignty to the power of the ISDS as a result of the TPP which is the most worrying aspect. State laws that look to restrict/ban coal seam gas exploration for example could come at huge financial penalty to the taxpayer given how the DSS works as part of the WTO - and how the NAFTA dispute settlement system has been working against Canadian interests.
 
I actually can't see any real benefit in the TPP for Australia. The costs that will be incurred and potential costs are enormous and massively negative for us, the benefits are small in comparison and basically strip further away what we currently recognise as Australian icons.

For mine I hate it and hope it collapses, unfortunately I have no faith in Abbott to look after Australia's real interests instead he rather the glory of saying look what I signed and let future geenrations clean up the mess.
 
Mofra said:
The majority of R&D spending from established phama's is for "me too" drugs, specifically designed to flout IP laws (protected by TRIPs - no surprise regional TAs are trying to go further than the WTO for IPRs given the collapse of the Doha round).
This is even without considering the ~90% proportion of R&D spending that is aimed at 10% of global population.

Regardless, it's the submission of national sovereignty to the power of the ISDS as a result of the TPP which is the most worrying aspect. State laws that look to restrict/ban coal seam gas exploration for example could come at huge financial penalty to the taxpayer given how the DSS works as part of the WTO - and how the NAFTA dispute settlement system has been working against Canadian interests.
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samFFC said:
http://wikileaks.org/tpp/
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...and this is the big concern:

Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards. The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence. The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.
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Looks like the mainstream media are starting to cotton on to the huge potential (likely, if the WTO/NAFTA impacts are assessed as a precedent) negatives of the TPP.

I have no idea why Abbott, for all of his cost of living mantra, would sign up to this including the ISDS which is the real kicker.
 
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