TTIP, TTP and TiSA

[KB]

These nifty pieces of legislation are being fast tracked through congress and will be unavailable for public review...for 4 years...It's a trade agreement between EU and US as well as others.

Together the TTP and TTIP would cover at least 60% of global GDP

If it wasn't for the leaks this wouldn't be a thread......

Here is a PDF of draft from March (10 pages)

http://corporateeurope.org/sites/de...posal_regulatory_cooperation_march_2015_0.pdf

This is what was found out about the lobbying in regard to the TTIP

http://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/07/who-lobbies-most-ttip

http://corporateeurope.org/pressrel...obbyist-eu-us-trade-deal-new-research-reveals

EU citizens don't want to see these passed and have been making it known for at least 8 months (TTIP)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/18/us-trade-protests-germany-idUSKBN0N90LO20150418

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/pages/ttip_home

Here is a brief summary (TTIP):

http://corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2015/04/ttip-leak-eu-proposal-undermines-democratic-values

TTIP leak: EU proposal undermines democratic values

• 

April 20th 2015 International trade

According to a leaked European Commission proposal in the ongoing EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, EU member state legislative initiatives will have to be vetted for potential impacts on private business interests.

The proposal forms part of a wider plan for so-called “regulatory cooperation”. Civil society groups have already denounced earlier iterations of this plan as being a tool to stop or roll back regulation intended to protect the public interest. The new elements in the leaked proposal expand the problem, according to civil society organisations.

Civil society groups have condemned the “regulatory exchange” plan as an affront to parliamentary democracy. “This is an insult to citizens, elected politicians and democracy itself”, says Max Bank of Lobby Control.

The “regulatory exchange” proposal will force laws drafted by democratically-elected politicians through an extensive screening process. This process will occur throughout the 78 States, not just in Brussels and Washington DC. Laws will be evaluated on whether or not they are compatible with the economic interests of major companies. Responsibility for this screening will lie with the 'Regulatory cooperation body, a permanent, undemocratic, and unaccountable conclave of European and American technocrats.

“Both the Commission and US authorities will be able to exert undue pressure on governments and politicians under this measure as these powerful players are parachuted into national legislative procedures. The two are also very likely to share the same agenda: upholding the interests of multinationals,” says Kenneth Haar of Corporate Europe Observatory.

“The Commission proposal introduces a system that puts every new environmental, health, and labour standard at European and member state level at risk. It creates a labyrinth of red tape for regulators, to be paid by the tax payer, that undermines their appetite to adopt legislation in the public interest,” says Paul de Clerck of Friends of the Earth Europe.

Screening under the regulatory exchange plan could take place from before a proposal is formally tabled until it is adopted, and on existing regulations, providing continuous opportunities to weaken and delay regulatory acts. Articles 9 and 11 detail how it would work.

“What’s perhaps most scary about this proposal is its potential application to existing regulation – not just paralyzing future legislation but sending us backward,” says David Azoulay at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “Not only will it extend an outrageously burdensome process on future legislation, but any current legislation in the public interest that doesn’t sit well with trade interests on either side of the Atlantic could be subjected to the same process to make it conform to corporate interests.”

Write up from the US Side:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/1...trans-pacific-partnership.html?referrer=&_r=0

Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama on Trade Accord

By JONATHAN WEISMAN
APRIL 16, 2015

WASHINGTON — Key congressional leaders agreed on Thursday on legislation to give President Obama special authority to finish negotiating one of the world’s largest trade accords, opening a rare battle that aligns the president with Republicans against a broad coalition of Democrats.

In what is sure to be one of the toughest fights of Mr. Obama’s last 19 months in office, the “fast track” bill allowing the White House to pursue its planned Pacific trade deal also heralds a divisive fight within the Democratic Party, one that could spill into the 2016 presidential campaign.

With committee votes planned next week, liberal senators such as Sherrod Brown of Ohio are demanding to know Hillary Rodham Clinton’s position on the bill to give the president so-called trade promotion authority, or T.P.A.

Trade unions, environmentalists and Latino organizations — potent Democratic constituencies — quickly lined up in opposition, arguing that past trade pacts failed to deliver on their promise and that the latest effort would harm American workers.

The deal was struck by Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the Finance Committee chairman; Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s ranking Democrat; and Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It would give Congress the power to vote on the more encompassing 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which President Bill Clinton pushed through Congress despite opposition from labor and other Democratic constituencies.

While supporters have promised broad gains for American consumers and the economy, the clearest winners of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement would be American agriculture, along with technology and pharmaceutical companies, insurers and many large manufacturers that say they could also expand United States’ exports to the other 11 nations in Asia and South America that are involved.

President Obama embraced the legislation immediately, proclaiming “it would level the playing field, give our workers a fair shot, and for the first time, include strong fully enforceable protections for workers’ rights, the environment and a free and open Internet.”

“Today,” he added, “we have the opportunity to open even more new markets to goods and services backed by three proud words: Made in America.”

But Mr. Obama’s enthusiasm was tempered by the rancor the bill elicited from some of his strongest allies. To win over the key Democrat, Mr. Wyden, the Republicans agreed to stringent requirements for the deal, including a human rights negotiating objective that has never existed on trade agreements.

The bill would make any final trade agreement open to public comment for 60 days before the president signs it, and up to four months before Congress votes. If the agreement, negotiated by the United States trade representative, fails to meet the objectives laid out by Congress — on labor, environmental and human rights standards — a 60-vote majority in the Senate could shut off “fast-track” trade rules and open the deal to amendment.

“We got assurances that U.S.T.R. and the president will be negotiating within the parameters defined by Congress,” said Representative Dave Reichert, Republican of Washington and a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. “And if those parameters are somehow or in some way violated during the negotiations, if we get a product that’s not adhering to the T.P.A. agreement, than we have switches where we can cut it off.”

To further sweeten the deal for Democrats, the package includes expanding trade adjustment assistance — aid to workers whose jobs are displaced by global trade — to service workers, not just manufacturing workers. Mr. Wyden also insisted on a four-year extension of a tax credit to help displaced workers purchase health insurance.

Both the Finance and Ways and Means committees will formally draft the legislation next week in hopes of getting it to final votes before a wave of opposition can sweep it away. “If we don’t act now we will lose our opportunity,” Mr. Hatch said.

At a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday morning, Jacob J. Lew, the Treasury secretary, and Michael Froman, the United States trade representative, pleaded for the trade promotion authority.

“T.P.A. sends a strong signal to our trading partners that Congress and the administration speak with one voice to the rest of the world on our priorities,” Mr. Lew testified.

Even with the concessions, many Democrats sound determined to oppose the president. Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, condemned the bill as “a major step backward.”

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and virtually every major union — convinced that trade promotion authority will ease passage of trade deals that will cost jobs and depress already stagnant wages — have vowed a fierce fight. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. announced a “massive” six-figure advertising campaign to pressure 16 selected senators and 36 House members to oppose fast-track authority.

“We can’t afford to pass fast track, which would lead to more lost jobs and lower wages,” said Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “We want Congress to keep its leverage over trade negotiations — not rubber-stamp a deal that delivers profits for global corporations, but not good jobs for working people.”

In all, the bill sets down 150 negotiating objectives, such as tough new rules on intellectual property protection, lowering of barriers to agricultural exports, labor and environmental standards, rule of law and human rights. Reflecting the modern economy, Congress would demand a loosening of restrictions on cross-border data flow, an end to currency manipulation and rules for competition from state-owned enterprises.

Businesses and business lobbying groups lined up behind the bill as fast as liberal groups and unions arrayed in opposition. “With facts and arguments, we’ll win this trade debate and renew T.P.A.,” vowed Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

It all made for a dizzying change of tone in a Washington where partisan lines have hardened. Republican leadership fell firmly behind T.P.A. Business groups battling the president on climate change, taxes and health care urged Congress to expand his trade powers.

But a sizable minority of Republicans — especially in the House — are reluctant to give the president authority to do anything substantive. Whether Republican leaders can get their troops in line, and how Mr. Obama can round up enough Democratic votes, might be the biggest legislative question of the year.

Mr. Reichert, the Republican lawmaker, said 20 or fewer Democrats currently support the measure in the House; last year, House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said he would need 50.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat, said he will demand the inclusion of legislation to combat the manipulation of currency values, especially by China. “China is the most rapacious of our trading partners, and the stated goal of this deal is to lure these other countries away from China,” Mr. Schumer said. “It’s not at all contradictory to finally do something with China’s awful trade practices.”

Mr. Brown said the negotiating objectives must be turned into solid requirements. “I don’t think negotiating objectives without more enforcement mechanisms get you very far,” he said. “Negotiating objectives are, ‘Hey U.S.T.R., try to get this,’ and they’ll say, ‘We tried.’ We need something better than that.”

Others appeared dead set against the accord.

“Over and over again we’ve been told that trade deals will create jobs and better protect workers and the environment,” said Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “Those promises have never come to fruition.”

There are a few others like this on the table as well TPP and TiSA.

All 3 have a large amount of secrecy around them and all 3 are going to make an attempt at being fast tracking then closed to the public for 4 years.

Here is some reading on TiSA:

http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/report_tisa_eng_lr2.pdf

Here is some on TPP:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/20...ve-trade-deal-spells-out-plan-corporate-power

http://www.flushthetpp.org/stopping...ential-to-work-for-a-universal-health-system/

Here is the TPP draft released by Wikileaks

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/

Summary

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 of global GDP.

 

[Man Called X]

Yup, there's no new world order forming. Not in the slightest.

 

[KB]

Yup, there's no new world order forming. Not in the slightest.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...eignty-regardless-ratification-votes-eu.shtml

European Commission's Clever Ruse To Introduce Corporate Sovereignty Regardless Of Ratification Votes In EU
from the whatever-happened-to-democracy? dept

Because of the complicated nature of power-sharing in the European Union, some international agreements require the approval of both the European Parliament and of every Member State -- so-called "mixed agreements." It is generally accepted that both the Canada-EU trade agreement (CETA) and TAFTA/TTIP are mixed agreements, and will therefore require a double ratification: by the full European Parliament, and all the EU governments. Indeed, the European Commission has frequently cited this fact to bolster its assertion that both CETA and TAFTA/TTIP are being negotiated democratically, since the European public -- through their representatives -- will have their say in these final votes.

But a disturbing analysis published by Greenpeace on its Austrian pages (original in German), suggests that built into the CETA agreement, which is currently going through a "legal scrub" before being presented for ratification (pdf), are a couple of sections that will allow the European Commission to introduce the corporate sovereignty provisions anyway. According to Article X.06 3(a):

This Agreement shall be provisionally applied from the first day of the month following the date on which the parties have notified each other that their respective relevant procedures have been completed.

This means that CETA would enter into force provisionally as soon as the European Commission and the Canadian government have notified each other that "relevant procedures have been completed." There's no explicit requirement there for those "relevant procedures" to include ratification by the European Parliament or the EU Member States: the European Commission might claim that the "relevant procedures" simply meant things like the legal scrub. One of the provisions of CETA is a deeply-problematic corporate sovereignty chapter, so this too would enter into force at this point, regardless of what national governments might want.

Now suppose that the European Parliament, or one of those Member States, does not ratify CETA, perhaps because of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, in which case the entire agreement would fail. But here's what Article X.07 4 says happens in this case:

If the provisional application of this Agreement is terminated and it does not enter into force, a claim may be submitted pursuant to the provisions of this Agreement, regarding any matter arising during the period of the provisional application of this Agreement, pursuant to the rules and procedures established in this Agreement, and provided no more than three (3) years have elapsed since the date of termination of the provisional application.

In other words, even if CETA is rejected in Europe, thus causing the provisional application to be terminated, claims under the ISDS chapter would still be possible up to three years afterwards for investments made during the provisional period. This is no mere theoretical possibility: it isexactly what happened to Russia with the Energy Charter Treaty, which it never ratified, but where an ISDS tribunal made an award of $50 billion against the country because of the treaty's provisional application. What's even more troubling is that the European Commission proposes to add similar clauses to TAFTA/TTIP, as the Greenpeace article notes:

A representative of the European Commission at a press briefing session in Vienna on Tuesday confirmed to Greenpeace that the Commission intends to propose a "provisional application" for TTIP too.

This would be even worse than putting such sections in CETA, because ISDS in TAFTA/TTIP will apply retrospectively to all existing investments, as the negotiating mandate specifies (pdf):

The investment protection chapter of the Agreement should cover a broad range of investors and their investments, intellectual property rights included, whether the investment is made before or after the entry into force of the Agreement.

This would allow corporate sovereignty provisions applying to huge numbers of existing investments to enter into force and remain there for some years even if TTIP were rejected by the European Parliament or one of the national governments. So much for the European Commission's much-vaunted "democracy" -- and another compelling reason to take the ISDS chapter out of both CETA and TAFTA/TTIP.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

 

[Man Called X]

Your corporate overlords folks. If there's one thing the world needed, it was corporations existing as basically the same thing as nations.

HOORAY!

Can I move to GoogleLand?

 

[Ohdang]

Your corporate overlords folks. If there's one thing the world needed, it was corporations existing as basically the same thing as nations.

HOORAY!

Can I move to GoogleLand?

Well if I had to pick one, that's my choice. I think they'd win the war with AppleLand.

My backup nation is probably AmazonLand. I already basically buy everything from them anyway and someone has to stop WalmartLand from world domination.

 

[Man Called X]

Well if I had to pick one, that's my choice. I think they'd win the war with AppleLand.

My backup nation is probably AmazonLand. I already basically buy everything from them anyway and someone has to stop WalmartLand from world domination.

Yeah, I'm not wearing a fucking turtleneck everywhere like AppleLand wants. Now the United States of Walmartington I want nothing to do with. People going to Church to praise Sam.

 

[The Oi]

I'll just be over at Brazzers Island

 

[Man Called X]

I'll just be over at Brazzers Island

Think of the thousands you'll save on facials every year!

 

[The Oi]

Think of the thousands you'll save on facials every year!

And if I ever get bored there, it's just a quick swim over to Youporn Village.