Leaked TPP Texts Reveal a Bonanza of Special Rights for Corporations

All who care about preserving Earth for future Earthlings like us should call their representatives in the U.S. Congress and strongly recommend they object to the fast tracking this Pact for President Obama’s signature.

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Environmental groups slammed leaked text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP’s) draft environment chapter, published by Wikileaks on January 15, saying it is completely inadequate to protecting the planet’s oceans, forests or wildlife.

“If the environment chapter is finalized as written in this leaked document, President Obama’s environmental trade record would be worse that George W. Bush’s,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

“Environmental protections are only as effective as their enforcement provisions, and a trade agreement with week enforcement language will do little or nothing to protect our communities and wildlife,” said Peter Lehner, executive director of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The environment chapter leak follows a line of leaked texts revealing a bonanza of special rights for corporations proposed for the TPP.

In December 2013, HuffingtonPost published leaked documents revealing that the United States was bullying other nations into accepting some of the worst expansions of corporate power proposed in any international agreement.  A heavily-redacted memo summarizing countries’ negotiating positions on a variety of TPP chapters heading into the December 7-to-10, 2013 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial in Singapore showed that the U.S. was behind pushes for new powers for corporations in the investment chapter, financial services chapter, intellectual property chapter and others.

An earlier “cheat sheet”-style chart from prior to the November 2013 Salt Lake City Round of negotiations contained additional information about countries’ positions.

Leaked text of the TPP investmentintellectual propertyregulatory coherence and drug formularies chapters, as well as annexes to the Technical Barriers to Trade chapter, first published by Citizens Trade Campaign in 2011 and 2012, had already revealed the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) pushing for a bevy of special rights for transnational corporations that would come at the expense of environmental protection, consumer safety and access to medicine.

An updated copy of the Intellectual Property chapter published by Wikileaks in November 2013 further helped to shine a light on this secretive pact.

Draft texts are said to exist for some 29 separate TPP chapters, but despite approximately four years of steady negotiations, none have ever been officially released for public scrutiny.

“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.”

These leaked documents have enabled public interest groups, academics and individual citizens throughout the world to respond to the TPP with a much higher degree of specificity.
Source:  citizenstrade.org

About Mike Neuman

Identical twin; Long-time advocate of protection of our environment; Married; Father to three sons; Grandfather to one granddaughter; Born and raised in Wisconsin; Graduate of University of Wisconsin; post graduate degrees in agricultural economics and Water Resources Management fro UWMadison; Former School Crossing Guard for City of Madison; Bike to Work for 31 years with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Retired from DNR in 2007; Biked to school crossing guard site 2 X daily for 7 years retiring in 2019; in addition to being an advocate of safeguarding our environment, I am also an advocate for humane treatment of animal, children, and people in need of financial resource for humane living. I am presently a Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, Madison, Wisconsin. I oppose all long (>500 miles) distance travel (via fossil fuel burning) for nonessential purposes and all ownership of more than one home. I am opposed to militarism in any form particularly for the purpose of monetary gain. I am a Strong believer in people everywhere having the right to speak their minds openly, without any fear of reprisal, regarding any concerns; especially against those in authority who are not acting for the public good?in a timely fashion and in all countries of the world not just the U S.. My identical twin, Pat, died in June 2009. He was fired from his job with the National Weather Service despite having a long and successful career as a flood forecaster with the Kansas City National Weather Service. He took a new position in the Midwest Regional Office in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, Pat’s work for the NWS went sour after he began to see the evidence for concern about rising global temperatures shortly after relocating to Minneapolis, and how they appeared to effect of flooding on the Red River that flows out of Canada before entering the U.S. in North Dakota. . Pat and I conversed on a regular basis with other scientists on the Yahoo Group named “Climate Concern “ and by personal email. The NWS denied his recommendation to give his public presentation o n his research at the “Minneapolis Mall of America” in February 2000, which deeply affected h,im. I will h He strongly believed the information ought be shared with the public to which I concurred. That was the beginning of the vendetta against my brother, Patrick J. Neuman, for speaking strongly of the obligations the federal government was responsible for accurately informing the citizenry. A way great similar response to my raising the issue of too many greenhouse gases being emitted by drivers of vehicles on Wisconsin highway system, my immediate supervisors directed: “that neither global warming, climate change nor the long term impacts upon the natural resources of Wisconsin from expansion of the state highway system were to be any part of my job requirements, and that I must not communicate, nor in a memorandum to all the bureau, shall any person who works in the same bureau I do communicate with me, neither verbally on the phone, by email.

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