Wikileaks Publish Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

[HeliX]

Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states.

The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent ofglobal GDP.

 

Not exactly light reading, though.

 

http://wikileaks.org/tpp/

 

Enjoy.

[Chinahand]

It is going to be increasingly difficult for different countries to negotiate if their negotiating positions are leaked.

 

There is a huge amount of give and take in these sorts of haggles with compromises given in one area for concessions in another - vested interests can wreck agreements if they force a compromise to be unwound - it can break the delicate balance of the whole agreement as concessions are then withdrawn elsewhere.

 

The whole idea is that the final document is only released when the agreements are done with both the good news and the bad news there to be balanced out when the public see what has been agreed.

 

Politics is the art of the possible - it involves gives and takes.

 

This sort of leaking damages that - both Tea Partiers and Occupiers want paralysis. That really isn't a good thing.

[Tarne]

I feel like a div for saying it, but after a quick glance at it, "so what?". It just looks like a standard agreement, with the US trying to push patents their way.

[Truth Seeker]

The TPP Agreement is for Corporations. Just one example is, how are countries going to ban importing GMO's? You can bet the people won't be given a Referendum on the TPP Agreement.

 

[slinkydevil]

[pongo]

@Chinahand

 

I have this alternative perspective:

 

Wikileaks exists today as is a PR conduit and is, more or less, semi-mainstream. Leak is often just another word for Press Release. The guerilla marketing version perhaps.

 

There is a pretence amongst some politicians that Wikileaks is somehow out there - and yet, as is repeatedly noted but largely ignored - most of what actually gets published seems to be effectively officially passed (more or less) for publication. And lots of the content is redacted. See here for example (NY Times - but also apparently relates to Der Spiegel and the Guardian).

 

I have the strongest impression that Wikileaks is already semi establishment. I would bet that in 20 or 30 years time many who are associated today with Wikileaks (and those around Snowden too) will be considered elder-statesmen. Just as Carl Bernstein and, especially, Bob Woodward are establishment figures today. It is well documented that Woodward already had, at the least, very close links with branches of Government. And FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, no less, ultimately admitted to having been ‘Deepthroat’.

 

Today’s social agitators are tomorrow’s rulers. The process is speeding up. Today there is no avant-garde because, now quicker than ever, everything which is new is always so quickly co-opted. It is exactly the same with politics. Occupy and the Tea Party movements were co-opted by the unions (and others) and the Republican Party mainstream respectively almost before most people had ever heard of them. They were both, almost instantly, mainstream. Despite appearances.

 

What we increasingly see today, I believe, is factions within the political and economic structures leaking against each other - and many different takes on what represents the national interest. The news is incredibly easy to write. So what is going on with these latest leaks about the trade negotiations etc? It's 1 chapter. One chapter about patents and copyrights. IMO this is not a story about Wikileaks - the real story is who leaked it and to what end. One guess (given that it is a single chapter) would be that it is a distraction. Whilst everyone gets hot and bothered about “internet freedom” etc. Where are the other chapters ?

 

lol

[Chinahand]

TPP has been agreed.

 

Providing it is ratified - a whole new battle - it is pretty significant and gives Obama quite some kudos. He's achieved two pretty significant policy goals with Obama care in the domestic arena and TPP internationally.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34444799

[Albert Tatlock]

TPP has been agreed.

 

Providing it is ratified - a whole new battle - it is pretty significant and gives Obama quite some kudos. He's achieved two pretty significant policy goals with Obama care in the domestic arena and TPP internationally.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34444799

Though he deserves a Nobble Peace Award.