THE REALITY OF TOP SECRET TRADE AGREEMENTS - WHY IS THE PUBLIC KEPT IN THE DARK?

THE REALITY OF TOP SECRET TRADE AGREEMENTS

WHY IS THE PUBLIC KEPT IN THE DARK?

Stes de Necker

Currently, no less than three highly controversial and top secret trade agreements, that will affect the lives of every person on this planet, are being ironed out. Yet we apparently have no right to decide whether we want them- or even to know the exact details of the draft legislation.

These are the:

• TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Partnership Agreement) 
• TISA (Trade in Services Agreement) and
• TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement)

1. Trans-Atlantic Partnership Agreement

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in particular, is of huge concern.

The TTIP is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US.

As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations.

Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic.

This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.

But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are six other reasons why we everyone should be scared of TTIP: 

1 The National Health Service 

Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS.

The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to the Huffington Post, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table.

2 Food and environmental safety

TTIP’s ‘regulatory convergence’ agenda will seek to bring EU standards on food safety and the environment closer to those of the US. But US regulations are much less strict, with 70 per cent of all processed foods sold in US supermarkets now containing genetically modified ingredients.

By contrast, the EU allows virtually no GM foods. The US also has far laxer restrictions on the use of pesticides. It also uses growth hormones in its beef which are restricted in Europe due to links to cancer.

US farmers have tried to have these restrictions lifted repeatedly in the past through the World Trade Organisation and it is likely that they will use TTIP to do so again.

The same goes for the environment, where the EU’s REACH regulations are far tougher on potentially toxic substances. In Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used; in the US the opposite is true: any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. As an example, the EU currently bans 1,200 substances from use in cosmetics; the US just 12.

3 Banking regulations

TTIP cuts both ways. The UK, under the influence of the all-powerful City of London, is thought to be seeking a loosening of US banking regulations. They were put into place after the financial crisis to directly curb the powers of bankers and avoid a similar crisis happening again. TTIP, it is feared, will remove those restrictions, effectively handing all those powers back to the bankers.

4 Privacy

Remember ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)? It was thrown out by a massive majority in the European Parliament in 2012 after a huge public backlash against what was rightly seen as an attack on individual privacy where internet service providers would be required to monitor people’s online activity. 

It’s feared that TTIP could be bringing back ACTA’s central elements, proving that if the democratic approach doesn’t work, there’s always the back door. An easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trials are also thought to be on the cards.

5 Jobs

The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment.

Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses.  The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised.

6 Democracy

TTIP’s biggest threat to society is its inherent assault on democracy. One of the main aims of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments.

ISDSs are already in place in other bi-lateral trade agreements around the world and have led to such injustices as in Germany where Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Here we see a public health policy put into place by a democratically elected government being threatened by an energy giant because of a potential loss of profit. Nothing could be more cynically anti-democratic.

There are around 500 similar cases of businesses versus nations going on around the world at the moment and they are all taking place before ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corporate lawyers appointed on an ad hoc basis, which according to War on Want’s John Hilary, are “little more than kangaroo courts” with “a vested interest in ruling in favour of business.”

Like most people we have no say whatsoever in whether TTIP goes through or not.  All we can do is tell as many people about it as possible. We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.

2. The Trade in Services Agreement 

TiSA is a proposed international trade treaty between 23 Parties, including the European Union and the United States. The agreement aims at liberalizing the worldwide trade of services such as banking, health care and transport.

 Criticism about the secrecy of the agreement arose after a classified draft of the agreement was leaked in June 2014.   

The process was an initiative of the United States.

It was proposed to a group of countries meeting in Geneva and called the “Really Good Friends”. All negotiating meetings took place in Geneva. The EU and the US are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes. The participating countries started crafting the proposed agreement in February 2012 and presented initial offers at the end of 2013.

The agreement covers about 70% of the global services economy. Its aim is privatizing the worldwide trade of services such as banking, healthcare and transport.

Services comprise 75% of American economic output; in EU states, almost 75% of its employment and gross domestic product.

Initially having 16 members, TISA has been expanded to include 23 parties. Since the European Union represents 28 member states, there are 50 countries represented.

The number of countries represented in each continent are: 32 in Europe, 7 in Asia, 5 in North America, 3 in South America, 2 in Oceania, and 1 in Africa.

The agreement has also been heavily criticized for the secrecy around the negotiation.

The cover page of the leaked draft states: "Declassify on: Five years from entry into force of the TISA agreement or, if no agreement enters into force, five years from the close of the negotiations."

Because of this practice it is not possible to be informed about the liberalizing rules that the participating countries propose for any future agreement.

A preliminary analysis of the Financial Services Annex by prominent free trade critic Professor Jane Kelsey, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand, states that:  

"The TiSA treaty would further liberalize trade and investment in services, and expand "regulatory disciplines" on all services sectors, including many public services.

The "disciplines," or treaty rules, would provide all foreign providers access to domestic markets at "no less favorable" conditions as domestic suppliers and would restrict governments' ability to regulate, purchase and provide services. This would essentially change the regulation of many public and privatized or commercial services from serving the public interest to serving the profit interests of private, foreign corporations.”

Impacts of the law may include "whether people can get loans or buy insurance and at what prices as well as what jobs may be available."

Dr. Patricia Ranald, a research associate at the University of Sydney, said:

“Amendments from the US are seeking to end publicly provided services like public pension funds, which are referred to as 'monopolies' and to limit public regulation of all financial services ... They want to freeze financial regulation at existing levels, which would mean that governments could not respond to new developments like another global financial crisis."

Regarding the secrecy of the draft, Professor Kelsey commented: "The secrecy of negotiating documents exceeds even the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and runs counter to moves in the WTO towards greater openness." Johnston adds, "It is impossible to obey a law or know how it affects you when the law is secret."

3. The Trans-Pacific Partnership 

The TPP is a trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy, which was reached on 5 October 2015 after 7 years of negotiations.

The agreement's stated goal had been to "promote economic growth; support the creation and retention of jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in our countries; and promote transparency, good governance, and enhanced labor and environmental protections."

Among other things, the TPP Agreement contains measures to lower trade barriers such as tariffs, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (but states can opt out from tobacco-related measures).

The United States government has considered the TPP as the companion agreement to the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the broadly similar agreement between the United States and the European Union.

Historically, the TPP is an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4), which was signed by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2005.

Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the total number of participating countries in the negotiations to twelve.

Current trade agreements between participating countries, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, will be reduced to those provisions that do not conflict with the TPP, or that provide greater trade liberalization than the TPP.

Participating nations reached agreement on 5 October 2015.

Implementing the TPP has been one of the trade agenda goals of the Obama administration in the US.

On 5 October 2015 (then) Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper expected "signatures on the finalized text and deal early in the new year, and ratification over the next two years." A version of the text of the treaty "Subject to Legal Review (...) for Accuracy, Clarity and Consistency" was made public on 5 November 2015, the same day President Obama notified Congress that he intends to sign it.

A number of global health professionals, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, trade unions, advocacy groups, and elected officials have criticized and protested against the treaty, in large part again because of the secrecy of negotiations, the agreement's expansive scope, and controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public.

In December 2014 Senator  Bernie Sanders denounced the TPP saying:

“Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system. If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.” 

A June 2015 article in the New England Journal of Medicine summarized concerns about TPP's impact on healthcare in developed and less developed countries including potentially increased prices of medical drugs due to patent extensions, which it claimed, could threaten millions of lives.

Extending "data exclusivity" provisions would "prevent drug regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration from registering a generic version of a drug for a certain number of years."

International tribunals that have been a part of the proposed agreement could theoretically require corporations be paid compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation's regulations. That in turn might interfere with domestic health policy.

A number of United States Congressional members, including Senator Bernard Sanders and Representatives Sander M. Levin, John Conyers, Jim McDermott and the now-retired Henry Waxman, as well as  John Lewis, Charles B. Rangel, Earl Blumenauer, Lloyd Doggett and then-congressman Pete Stark, expressed concerns about access to medicine.

By protecting intellectual property in the form of the TPP mandating patent extensions, access by patients to affordable medicine in the developing world could be hindered.

Additionally, they worried that the TPP would not be flexible enough to accommodate existing non-discriminatory drug reimbursement programs and the diverse health systems of member countries.

Opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in New Zealand said U.S. corporations were hoping to weaken the ability of its domestic agency Pharmac to get inexpensive, generic medicines by forcing it to otherwise pay considerably higher prices for brand name drugs.

Physicians and organizations including Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) also expressed concern.

In 2014, Noam Chomsky warned that the TPP is "designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximise profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity."

Senator Bernie Sanders who opposes fast track, stated that trade agreements like the TPP "have ended up devastating working families and enriching large corporations."

Another Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, reported, "... I'll be undismayed and even a bit relieved if the T.P.P. just fades away", and said that "... there isn't a compelling case for this deal, from either a global or a national point of view." Krugman also noted the absence of "anything like a political consensus in favor, abroad or at home."

Economist Robert Reich contends that the TPP is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom, giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits."

Considering the impact all three of these trade deals will have on democracy, human rights, food, health, safety and the environment, public awareness should be widespread.

Free Trade is definitely not the core objectives of these trade agreements.

 

Given the global shifts of power with the emergence of new actors, mainly the BRICS countries and in particular China, it is no wonder that questions arise whether the hidden agenda of the TTIP could be part of a broader “West against the Rest” strategy to shore up a US-European alliance against the perceived threat posed by emerging economies in trade and investment negotiations.

With this shift of power, the EU and U.S. trade officials have been frustrated by their inability to obtain all of their negotiating objectives at the WTO and other multilateral forums. However, a key question would be how these trade agreements would affect developing countries’ standing in multilateral negotiations.

The major risk with respect to multilateralism derives from the fact that in an age of an uncertain globalization process and an unclear “new world order,” these trade agreements, in their intention to cement the latter based on the two Western economic superpowers, could actually exacerbate the rivalry of economic blocs and thus deepen the present economic and institutional global crisis.

Worryingly, a huge number of people know next to nothing about these developments.