International
Days of Action in May
People on
four continents took action leading up to the Lima negotiations, concentrated
on World Fair Trade Day on May 11. In Australia there were protests
in Sydney and Melbourne reported below.Educational events about the TPP took place in the United States in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, St Louis, Washington. Detroit, New York, Berkley, San Antonio, Chicago and Tampa.
In Canada there was a community assembly in Toronto and a speakers’ tour throughout British Columbia.
There was a major TPP demonstration in Tokyo, Japan; an earlier rally in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; a teach-in in Wellington and banner drops in Auckland, New Zealand; and, of course, educational events and a rally outside the TPP negotiations themselves in Lima, Peru.
Civil society
Actions in Peru
Peruvian civil society groups organized a
series of events in Lima to highlight their opposition to TPP provisions on
pharmaceutical IP rights, copyright and investor-state dispute settlement. The
groups, led by non-governmental organization RedGe also collected signatures
for a petition to Peruvian President Ollanta Humala urging him to establish
non-negotiable limits that guarantee the rights of Peruvians in these three
areas.
Events included the presentation on May 14 of
a new civil society report on TPP's impact on access to medicines; a May 15
press conference with civil society representatives; a series of public fora on
May 16 focusing on IP, investment and labor rights issues; and a public protest
on May 17. There was a strong presence from La Oroya community affected by lead
poisoning from the Renco mine, the owners of which are suing
the Peruvian government because it dared to hold them accountable for the
mine’s pollution.
A lunch meeting on the La
Oroya case was held for investment & environment negotiators, addressed by
the Peruvian Former Vice Minister of Environment, was well
attended. Eduardo Bianco, a doctor from Uruguay also held meetings with
negotiators on the Phillip Morris case against Uruguay’s tobacco
advertising regulation and warned that this could happen under the TPPA ISDS
proposal. Philip Morris is also using an obscure Australia-Hong Kong investment
agreement to sue the Australian Government over its plain packaging
legislation.
Chile’s former
TPPA chief negotiator Rodrigo Contreras warned that TPPA proposals would
restrict options for development in health and education, in biological and
cultural diversity other public policies See http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/589
South American
consumer groups declared that proposals at TPP negotiations in Peru would
weaken protections for consumers on food, privacy and labour standards. See http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/588
Australian
actions: media, symposium and rallies
Dr Deborah Gleeson
and Professor Sharon Friel published an article on The Conversation blog
about the impact of trade agreements on increases in unhealthy foods entering
the domestic market. The TPPA could go even further and increase the influence
of the food industry on domestic regulatory regimes and policies. See http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/578
Drs Gleeson and Professor
Friel also organised a successful symposium about the TPPA impact on
health on May 9 at the Australian National University in Canberra. See http://nceph.anu.edu.au/news-events/new-generation-trade-policy-maximising-benefits-equity-nutrition-and-human-health
As part of the international
day of action on world trade day on May 11, AFTINET organised protest rallies
on the TPP in Martin place in Sydney and Bourke streets in Melbourne. See
pictures on the AFTINET Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Australian-Fair-Trade-and-Investment-Network-AFTINET/219004528130731
Developments in
the Negotiations
The TPPA leaders
announced last year that they were aiming to finish the negotiations by October
2013. Negotiators are under pressure to complete as much text as possible,
leaving only serious areas of disagreement to be determined by leaders at the
political level at a side meeting of the TPPA to be held at the APEC meeting in
Bali in October. However, the entry of Japan into the negotiations from
July is expected to slow the pace, as Japan is reluctant to open markets in areas
like rice and car imports. There is also a strong Japanese movement which
opposes the TPP proposals on medicines, copyright and investor rights to sue
governments.
It was reported that there was progress
made on sanitary and phytosanitary measures, e-commerce, rules of origin, and
legal and institutional issues.
The areas with the biggest differences
still include intellectual property rights, involving both patents on medicines
and copyright issues, environment, state-owned enterprises, and market access
for goods, services and government procurement
US texts on
intellectual property and medicines, and on proposed changes to medicine
pricing schemes like the PBS, were rejected in previous rounds by most
governments. The US is reportedly reconsidering these proposals, but still did
not table a new text in Lima.
There is also
continuing disagreement about the copyright provisions of the intellectual
property chapter, because of disagreement with the US proposals for greatly
increased protections for copyright holders and inadequate safeguards for
consumers, especially on the Internet.
The US proposal
to for legally binding restrictions on state-owned commercial enterprises,
purportedly to prevent them from competing unfairly with other businesses,
remains controversial.
There is still
disagreement over how labour standards will be enforced in the labour
chapter. The environment chapter is further behind, with no agreement
about either standards or enforceability.
There are still
differences over the investment chapter. Australia is still refusing to agree
to apply investor-state dispute process, which would give foreign corporations
the right to sue governments for damages if a law or policy harms their
investment.
It is still
unlikely that the US will offer any increases in access to its own markets for
countries like Australia which have existing bilateral agreements with it. The
US government does not have the trade promotion authority it needs from
Congress to sign the agreement, and there is increasing
Congressional unease in the US about the secrecy of the agreement (see New York
Times opinion piece below). This plus the entry of Japan means that the
negotiations are likely to continue into 2014.
Eighteenth
negotiations July 15-25 in Malaysia
The next round
of negotiations will be held in Malaysia from July 15-25.
Advice from AFTINET www.aftinet.org.au
