New Zealand Not For Sale Trans Pacific Partnership Digest Notes from the Seventh Round of TPPA Negotiations in Vietnam Last week I attended the seventh round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that took place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I was able to meet negotiators from all nine negotiating parties and was able to discuss our concerns regarding the proposed U.S. IP chapter for the TPPA, including, in particular, access to medicines and the right to health. I was also able to distribute the joint civil society comments previously submitted to the U.S. Government to IP negotiators from Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Although the round was originally scheduled to begin on 20 June, negotiations on some areas, including services, began three days earlier without warning or notice to registered stakeholders. Unlike past negotiating rounds, such as the February round in Santiago, Chile, stakeholders were not permitted in the corridors of the negotiating venue. The TPPA contains several controversial areas, among them, IP.
TPP Watch TPPA Community Organisation Statement to the Australian Government | AFTINET [img_assist|nid=244|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=69]TPPA Campaign: Don’t trade away health, labour, cultural and environmental policies More than thirty Australian unions and community groups today, Sunday 14th March 2010, asked the Trade Minister to safeguard the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Australian local content in media, regulation of GE food, regulation of foreign investment and industry policies that support local employment in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations which start on Monday March 15. The following is the joint statement: The Australian Government is involved in negotiations for a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) with the US, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand and Vietnam to develop a multilateral agreement based on the bilateral agreements the US has with five of these countries. This will resurrect all of the issues that were debated in the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
TPPA 'threatens national sovereignty' The next round of secret talks to negotiate details of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement will be held soon in Peru. The agreement has been negotiated in secret since March 2010 by the US and eight other countries; Washington is attempting to force the others to accept it. The TPPA has one aim, to ensure that big American multinationals are able to make more money out of the eight countries - Peru, Malaysia, Australia, Chile, Vietnam, New Zealand, Brunei, and Singapore - which are part of the negotiations. Despite the secrecy, there are some intrepid souls who are mounting opposition. A website called TPP Watch is trying to create awareness about the deal and Professor Kelsey often issues media releases which are posted on the site. Given that a major part of the agreement is built around IP and copyright, the outcome is of great interest to those in the field of technology. iTWire: Simply put, what is the TPPA? JK: The proposed TPPA is far-reaching on several levels.
Foreign Control Watchdog 127 TPPA: Are We There Yet? No, And Hopefully Never Will Be by Murray Horton What Star-Struck NZ Journos Didn’t Tell Us About U.S. And TPPA by Jane Kelsey TPPA And The Democratic Deficit by Bill Rosenberg Trade Deal Threatens Alcohol Reform And Democracy by Viola Palmer Earthquake Update by Murray Horton Political Quake Behind Christchurch Rebuild by Fiona Farrell A Risky Business: Or, How Insurance Companies (And Friends) Rule The World by Liz Gordon Food, Crisis, And The Global Economy: Countering NZ’s Corporate Bonding by Dennis Small Don Brash – The Brown Man’s Burden by John Minto Back To The Future: Small Communities Point The Way? Reviews by Jeremy Agar Operation 8 A Film by Errol Wright and Abi King-Jones Ill Fares The Land by Tony Judt A History Of The World Since 9/11 by Dominic Streatfield Biggest Ever Donations To CAFCA & The Organiser Thank You, Ron Resnick by Murray Horton Please Sign Petition Against Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement email Back to Foreign Control Watchdog home page
What's Actually in the TPP? The blogosphere is abuzz with speculation that the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is much worse than SOPA. Is this true? Since the text is currently top secret, there is no way to tell. Of course, that’s part of the problem. But, after tracking international intellectual property (IP) issues here a PK for a number of years, I can try to make an educated guess about what may be in TPP’s IP chapter and how it may affect you. First some background for those unfamiliar with the TPP. Let’s focus on the IP chapter. Protecting incidental copies. Of course, the provisions of TPP could be much worse. So, we remain in the dark, unable to effectively advocate for your rights. Protesters Occupy TPPA conference Anti-TPPA protesters gathered outside the Melbourne Convention Centre on March 1. Photo: Wil Wallace Writer and Occupy Melbourne activist Wil Wallace took part in a March 1 protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a new free trade agreement currently under negotiation between nine nations, including Australia and the United States. Wallace’s account of the protest is below. It was a cold and wet morning, the sky grey and the sun hardly even up as activists started to flow to the entrance of the Melbourne Convention Centre on March 1. Though many were wearing bleary faces there was an air of nervous excitement as numbers grew and they became eager for the day’s action to begin. We were there to protest the 11th round of secret negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), conducted by delegates from at least nine countries. The secrecy surrounding the agreement is one of the more worrying aspects of such a pervasive and invasive agreement.
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement | Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Republic of Korea's interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership The Republic of Korea has formally expressed interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Australia and other TPP countries have welcomed its interest and are now undertaking a bilateral process with Korea to discuss its readiness to join. To assist in this process we would welcome further submissions and comments from stakeholders considering Korea's possible involvement in the TPP. Submissions can be made by email to tpp@dfat.gov.au. TPP Meetings 19-24 November 2013, Salt Lake City Chief negotiators for the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement countries have reported significant progress after six days of intensive meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah. The work of the chief negotiators this week has significantly narrowed the number of issues to be addressed directly by the TPP Ministers at their upcoming meeting in Singapore. TPP Leaders' meeting in Bali – October 2013 Trans-Pacific Partnership Leaders Statement
Newly Leaked TPP Investment Chapter Contains Special Rights for Corporations A leaked draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) investment chapter has been published online by Citizens Trade Campaign, the same coalition that first published TPP proposals from the United States on intellectual property, regulatory coherence and drug formularies in late 2011. Draft texts are said to exist for some 26 separate chapters, none of which have ever been officially released by trade negotiators for public review. “Americans deserve the right to know what U.S. negotiators are proposing in our names,” said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign. ”In the absence of transparency on the part of our government, we have a responsibility to share what information we receive about the TPP with the public.” During the last round of TPP negotiations held in Addison, Texas in May, CTC delivered over 42,000 petition signatures addressed to U.S. “Our hope is that the U.S. The TPP investment chapter can be found online at:
The Call To Action « Stop TPP We are waking up. The fog is lifting. We are sweeping away the lies and secrecy. From July 2 to July 10, the political leaders of the Pacific Rim nations are meeting in San Diego to turn the Pacific Ocean and its peoples into a giant privatized corporate lake characterized by non-union workers, Wal-Mart supply chain feeders, poisoned, landless agricultural laborers, a dying biodiversity, and rising, drowning sea levels. The TPP meeting is officially referred to as the 13th Round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Talks. The essence of these talks is to privatize natural resources (despite the wishes of the world’s indigenous peoples;) restructure each country’s trade, labor, environmental, and finance laws; and reduce or eradicate social services to the people. Something Is Cooking In San Diego. Download the Call To Action in English Download the Call To Action in Spanish Download the Call To Action in Japanese Download the Call To Action in Italian Demand Transparency
U.S. Trade Position Protecting High Drug Prices Blasted By U.N. Agencies WASHINGTON -- Two major United Nations organizations warned world leaders on Thursday to avoid restrictive free trade agreements that may threaten public health, amplifying international pressure against President Barack Obama's controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. A report issued by the U.N. Development Program and the anti-AIDS UNAIDS detailed a host of drug financing policies and intellectual property standards that inflate the price of medications, and urged governments to reject such terms in trade negotiations. By granting pharmaceutical companies long-term monopolies on lifesaving medications, the U.N. groups noted, poor citizens are denied lifesaving treatments. The Obama administration, in trade talks with eight Pacific nations, is aggressively pursuing the price-protecting standards denounced by the U.N. groups. The report also criticized two U.S. free trade agreements -- one with Bahrain and another with Colombia -- as particularly problematic. Sen. Also on HuffPost: