WASHINGTON - The latest round of
negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), potentially the largest free -trade
agreement to be signed by the United States, began
Tuesday with a blanket of secrecy over their
content.
Despite claims by the US
government of considerable transparency in the
process, the talks, being held in Dallas, are
covering material that has remained almost
completely out of the public's eye.
"Because the negotiations have been
conducted in extreme secrecy, we have no idea yet
what is in the text," says Rashmi Rangnath, a
director with Public Knowledge, an advocacy group
here in Washington. "What we do know is that lack of
transparency tends to
skew the text of such agreements in favor of large
corporations."
Although a draft of the
chapter on intellectual property rights was leaked
in February, much of the rest of the 26 chapters
have been kept away from public scrutiny.
Some outside of the negotiations have had
significant time with the chapters, however. Early
drafts of TPP content have reportedly been
discussed at length with large corporate
interests, such as 20th Century Fox, which has a
key stake in intellectual property-related
regulations.
Thus far, the justification
for this secrecy has been minimal. "Basically we
have been told two things," Rangnath says. "First,
that this is precedent. And second, that this
level of secrecy is necessary during negotiations
in order to arrive at a compromise." The TPP
would be a free-trade agreement between the US and
eight Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, Brunei,
Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and
Vietnam. Canada, Japan and Mexico are also
expected to join the talks, although the Japanese
have yet to make a final decision on the matter.
The possibility of future Indian and
Chinese participation is being held out as a
far-off, though for many tantalizing prospect.
Proponents suggest that, if the TPP
passes, it could boost intra-regional trade by
more than US$1 trillion per year by 2025.
While the official talks are to be held
May 11-13, the full 12th round is said to be
stretching from May 8-18. This is an unusually
lengthy period for face-to-face negotiations,
particularly given that the 11th round took place
only two months ago, in March in Australia.
According to observers, the President
Barack Obama administration is pushing for as many
such rounds as possible before the end of the
year, in an attempt to bull through the
far-reaching agreement.
It is unclear
whether that timetable is possible, however, as
pushback against the TPP has continued in recent
months, from governments and civil society.
Over the past week alone, members of the
US government have urged Obama to alter certain
draft provisions of the agreement, while a US
business lobbyist has rued a great "gap between
the ambitious vision of our leaders and what is
being proposed at the negotiating table".
Longstanding criticism also has yet to
abate. Much of this comes from the fact that, for
most countries, the TPP would not offer many trade
benefits - including, most importantly, greater
access to US markets.
Simultaneously, US
negotiators are pushing for significant
concessions from potential members.
"This
is very unusual for a free-trade agreement," said
Sean Flynn, director of the Information Justice
Program at American University here in Washington.
"There is very little 'carrot'" to counteract some
of the more strident compromises.
Flynn
said that Chile, Australia, Singapore and Peru
have each expressed public reticence over the
current contours of the TPP, given that these
countries already have expansive trade agreements
with the United States. "This means that Vietnam,
Brunei and Malaysia would pay the highest cost."
According to what has been seen from the
leaked chapter on intellectual property rights,
the TPP appears to be pushing a "maximalist",
enforcement-focused approach, he said.
This directly counters the "development
agenda" that has been evolved in institutions such
as the United Nations' World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), through processes involving
significant input by developing countries, outside
of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"The US clearly wants to go beyond
international standards on intellectual property -
beyond WIPO," says Krista Cox, an attorney at
Knowledge Ecology International, an NGO here in
Washington.
For developing countries, some
of the most direct impacts of this expansion of
punitive powers over intellectual property could
be on health issues.
While US global
health policy has seen significant strengthening
over the past five years, passage of the TPP
"would start rolling this back", said Peter
Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines
Program at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy
group here.
Worldwide over the past 10
years, prices for HIV-related medicines, for
instance, have fallen by 99%, largely driven by
competition from generic drugs. While the fight
against generics by large pharmaceutical interests
has largely shifted away from the WTO, Maybarduk
suggests, the TPP agreement signals the next
iteration of that effort.
"The TPP could
well be the worst that we have seen," Maybarduk
says. "Not only does it run contrary to the US's
own pledges on global AIDS work, but the TPP will
set the template for the entire Asia-Pacific
region. That could have an impact on half of the
world's population."
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