Text of the Secretly Negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership
( “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.” - Julian Assange)
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.
Download the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter as a PDF here
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