[governance] TPP: A Worldwide Corporate Power Grab of Enormous Proportions

[Riaz K Tayob]

  TPP: A Worldwide Corporate Power Grab of Enormous Proportions

By Laurel Sutherlin, The Understory

12 September 12

s international trade negotiators gathered this week at a posh golf 
resort in rural Virginia to hammer out details of the proposed Trans 
Pacific Partnership (TPP), they sought to project an image of inclusion 
and receptivity to public input. In reality, this high-stakes global 
corporate pact, now in its 14th round of discussions, is heavily guarded 
by paramilitary teams with machine guns and helicopters as it is 
developed behind closed doors under a dangerous and unprecedented veil 
of secrecy.

What the hell is the TPP, you may ask? While it is among the largest and 
potentially most important 'free trade' agreements the world has ever 
seen, one can hardly be blamed for not being familiar with it yet. The 
corporate cabal behind it, including names like Cargill 
<http://www.ran.org/cargill>, Pfizer, Nike and WalMart, has done an 
exceptional job of maintaining an almost total lack of transparency as 
they literally design the future we will all inhabit.

While 600 corporate lobbyists have been granted access and input on the 
draft texts from the beginning, even high-ranking members of Congress 
have been denied access 
<http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/248277-lawmakers-call-for-openness-over-ip-measures-in-trade-deal> 
to the most basic content of what US negotiators are proposing in our names.

Demand transparency now! Write to US trade representative Ron Kirk and 
lead Cargil trade lobbyist Devry Boughner to demand they make the text 
public <http://ran.org/act/nafta-on-steroids?t=u>.

Thankfully, draft texts of the proposal have appeared on Wikileaks and 
the website of Citizen's Trade Campaign 
<http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2012/06/13/newly-leaked-tpp-investment-chapter-contains-special-rights-for-corporations/>. 
It is difficult to overstate the potential implications on the lives of 
people around the world if anything like the agreement in these leaked 
documents were to be implemented with the force of law.

The TPP is called a 'trade agreement,' but in actuality it is a 
long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global 
corporate governance as bold as anything the world's wealthiest elite 
has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few 
have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights 
and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of 
nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish 
a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a 
tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers 
with little to no process for appeal.

This wild bastardization of the concept of justice endangers everything 
from affordable medicines, internet freedoms and intellectual property 
rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental 
protections. And that's not to mention the massive outsourcing of middle 
class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.

This isn't just a bad trade agreement, it's a wish list of the 1%---a 
worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions.

This week, in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore, 
a group of activists from around the US gathered to plan a spirited week 
of resistance to the TPP. Finally, after three years of secret 
negotiations, the momentum of an opposition movement is building. On 
Sunday, a diverse and raucous crowd of a couple hundred people descended 
on this exclusive golf resort to demand their voices be heard 
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-09/protesters-seek-openness-at-pacific-region-trade-pact-talks-1-.html>, 
chanting after each speaker: "Flush the TPP!"

NAFTA was the last straw that sent the Zapatistas into armed rebellion. 
The WTO negotiations spawned a robust and global anti-globalization 
movement the likes of which the world had never seen. Even after 9/11, 
the FTAA elicited a pushback of people power that even a fully 
militarized Miami police force could not completely suppress.

But near as I can tell, even though the TPP is bigger, bolder and badder 
than any trade agreement before it, the small group gathered this week 
on a grassy hillside in rural Virginia is the backbone of resistance to 
the TPP today.

The elements are there: a diverse coalition of wonky NGOs, social 
justice and trade policy experts, urban anarchists, Occupiers and 
suburban activists painting banners and scheming pranks---labor leaders, 
environmental groups and representatives from Mexico, Peru and beyond, 
but the scale is so far totally out of proportion to the threat we're 
facing.

But this is beginning to change. Speakers at Sunday's rally included key 
labor leaders from the Teamsters, and the Communications Workers of 
America joined with the leaders of environmental groups from the Sierra 
Club, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network.

The TPP was conceived under the second Bush administration, but it has 
been embraced and nurtured into maturity under Obama's watch. The 
widespread belief among people here opposing it is that the current 
Administration is in a race to finish much of the negotiations while 
they can bank on the fact that labor leaders and environmental and human 
rights advocates will shy away from challenging a democratic president 
in an election year. Free trade agreements are particularly unpopular in 
the key swing states Obama needs to win this election---making right now 
a crucial moment of opportunity to pull the TPP out of the shadows and 
leverage our combined political power to kill it before it takes root 
any deeper.

Stay tuned, one way or another history will be made in the coming months 
and the outcome will forever influence how our communities and countries 
relate to each other in an ever-shrinking world.

Flush the TPP!

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/13444-tpp-a-worldwide-corporate-power-grab-of-enormous-proportions

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120913/fb936904/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: rsn-A.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 682 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120913/fb936904/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t