[LINK] Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

According to Wikileaks, it looks like Australia, and the Creative Commons, 
are about to be screwed (eg, new international courts with secret evidence) and also we
will screw our neighboring countries even worse: Quote: "Julian 
Assange emphasises that a “cringingly obsequious” Australia is the nation 
most likely to support the hardline position of US negotiators against 
other countries .." 

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

 http://wikileaks.org/tpp/


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. Both pacts exclude China.

Since the beginning of the TPP negotiations, the process of drafting and 
negotiating the treaty’s chapters has been shrouded in an unprecedented 
level of secrecy. Access to drafts of the TPP chapters is shielded from the 
general public. Members of the US Congress are only able to view selected 
portions of treaty-related documents in highly restrictive conditions and 
under strict supervision. 

It has been previously revealed that only three individuals in each TPP 
nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade 
advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such 
as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted privileged 
access to crucial sections of the treaty text.

The TPP negotiations are currently at a critical stage. 

The Obama administration is preparing to fast-track the TPP treaty in a 
manner that will prevent the US Congress from discussing or amending any 
parts of the treaty. 

Numerous TPP heads of state and senior government figures, including 
President Obama, have declared their intention to sign and ratify the TPP 
before the end of 2013.

WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange stated: “The US administration is 
aggressively pushing the TPP through the US legislative process on the 
sly.” The advanced draft of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, 
published by WikiLeaks on 13 November 2013, provides the public with the 
fullest opportunity so far to familiarise themselves with the details and 
implications of the TPP.

The 95-page, 30,000-word IP Chapter lays out provisions for instituting a 
far-reaching, transnational legal and enforcement regime, modifying or 
replacing existing laws in TPP member states. 

The Chapter’s subsections include agreements relating to patents (who may 
produce goods or drugs), copyright (who may transmit information), 
trademarks (who may describe information or goods as authentic) and 
industrial design.

The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to 
detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for 
individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers 
and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological 
and environmental commons. 

Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to 
which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no 
human rights safeguards. 

The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with 
secret evidence. 

The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement 
provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.

The consolidated text obtained by WikiLeaks after the 26-30 August 2013 TPP 
meeting in Brunei – unlike any other TPP-related documents previously 
released to the public – contains annotations detailing each country’s 
positions on the issues under negotiation. 

Julian Assange emphasises that a “cringingly obsequious” Australia is the 
nation most likely to support the hardline position of US negotiators 
against other countries, while states including Vietnam, Chile and Malaysia 
are more likely to be in opposition. 

Numerous key Pacific Rim and nearby nations – including Argentina, Ecuador, 
Colombia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and, most significantly, 
Russia and China – have not been involved in the drafting of the treaty.

In the words of WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, “If instituted, 
the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free 
expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative 
commons. 

If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you 
farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP 
has you in its crosshairs.”

Current TPP negotiation member states are the United States, Japan, Mexico, 
Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand 
and Brunei.

Read the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter here:

http://wikileaks.org/tpp/static/pdf/Wikileaks-secret-TPP-treaty-IP-
chapter.pdf

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