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NZ WikiLeaks scoop: NZ, US in trade battle
Secret details show NZ opposed US on issues such as copyright and medicines.
By
Nicky Hager
10 October, 2015
Secret
details of the United States-Pacific trade agreement have been leaked
showing New Zealand in serious dispute with US negotiators on many
issues.
These
include internet freedom, access to affordable medicines, protection
of New Zealand industrial innovation and ownership of native plants
and animals.
READ
MORE: Beginner's
guide: What is the TPP?
After
3 years of intense negotiation and with political calls for an
agreement by Christmas, New Zealand and the US are still far apart in
key areas.
The
UK-based WikiLeaks organisation has obtained the crucial
"intellectual property" chapter of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement and released it exclusively to the Herald and
Mexican, Chilean, US and Australian media.
The
leaked chapter, marked "TPP Confidential", was produced and
circulated to chief negotiators at the end of negotiations in Brunei
in August. Insiders say there has been little progress in two
meetings since then.
The
95-page draft includes some of the agreement's most contentious
issues, such as copyright, patent and pharmaceutical rules.
It
contains more than 250 references to New Zealand supporting or
opposing particular clauses. In about 60 cases, New Zealand supports
the US position. But in most cases the US and New Zealand are opposed
to each other's proposals, usually with several other countries
agreeing with New Zealand.
Intellectual
property is especially important to Hollywood and US pharmaceutical,
biotechnology and entertainment corporations, which have a strong
influence over the Obama Administration's trade policy. Their
influence is seen throughout the draft document.
A
large section reveals the battle between the US pharmaceutical lobby
and countries such as New Zealand that want to continue to buy
cheaper generic medicines. The US negotiators have inserted several
pages of measures to help maintain and extend the dominant position
of big pharmaceutical companies. Only the US supported these
proposals while Australia, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile,
Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei opposed them in full.
New
Zealand is the lead nation for a series of alternative proposals to
"adopt and maintain measures to encourage the timely entry of
pharmaceutical products to the market". Canada, Singapore,
Chile, Malaysia and Vietnam join New Zealand in proposing rules that
would avoid blocks to generic medicines.
Since
this text was written US Trade Representative Michael Froman has
publicly proposed giving developing countries a phase-in period if
they accept the US-promoted pharmaceutical rules, but this would give
no relief to New Zealand.
Other
areas of dispute are provisions that would require internet service
providers to enforce copyright of behalf of foreign corporations,
including closing down their customers' accounts; overseas royalty
payments on all books, music and movies for 20 years longer than at
present; restricting cheaper parallel importing; imposing penalties
for breaking "digital locks" such as regional zones on
lawful DVDs; allowing plants and animals to be patented; and allowing
"diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment
of humans or animals" to be patented.
There
is also dispute over agricultural chemicals.
A
target of Christmas for concluding the agreement was set by President
Barack Obama last year and was reconfirmed at the TPP leaders'
meeting in Bali in October.
However
the wide differences evident between the US and New Zealand mean
someone would have to back down on national interest provisions - or
the US back down - for there to be any prospect of the agreement
being concluded. More than 100 issues are unresolved.
A
coalition of groups, ranging from Internet New Zealand to Trade Me
and the Library Association, have opposed the agreement. The Fairdeal
Coalition's spokeswoman Susan Chalmers said the New Zealand
negotiators have been sticking up for the country and called on the
Government to support them.
"If
New Zealand caves on the intellectual property chapter," she
said, "it will face inevitable economic, cultural and social
losses that in the long-term will likely outweigh any gains from
improved agricultural access."
An
earlier WikiLeaks release of US embassy cables showed former New
Zealand chief TPP negotiator Mark Sinclair privately telling visiting
US State Department Deputy Assistant Frankie Reed in February 2010
that there were "a number of areas sensitive to New Zealand"
in the TPP talks and pharmaceuticals were "bound to be a
contentious issue".
The
deal
The
Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade deal under negotiation between
12
countries: New Zealand, US, Singapore, Chile, Brunei,
Australia, Vietnam,
Peru, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and
Japan.
What's
next
November
19-24: TPP
negotiators gather in Salt Lake City to try to resolve
issues.December
7-9: Trade
ministers meet in Singapore.Christmas: Target
date for concluding agreement
countries: New Zealand, US, Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Australia, Vietnam,
Peru, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan.
Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes 'freedom of expression' fears
Intellectual
property rights chapter appears to give Trans-Pacific Partnership
countries’ countries greater power to stop information from going
public
9
October, 2015
Wikileaks
has released what it claims is the full intellectual property chapter
of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
the controversial agreement between 12 countries that was signed off
on Monday.
TPP
was negotiated in secret and details have yet to be published. But
critics including Democrat presidential hopefuls Hillary
Clinton and Bernie
Sanders,unions
and privacy activists have lined up to attack what they have seen of
it. Wikileaks’ latest disclosures are unlikely to reassure them.
One
chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as
“parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going
public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail
legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a
party’s economic interests, international relations, or national
defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a
trial would cause the information to spread.
A
drafter’s note says that every participating country’s individual
laws about whistleblowing would still apply.
“The
text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates
warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of
expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,”
said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight
for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be
surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing
the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic
companies were given more access to the text than elected officials
and journalists, that this would be the result.”
Among
the provisions in the chapter (which may or may not be the most
recent version) are rules that say that each country in the agreement
has the authority to compel anyone accused of violating intellectual
property law to provide “relevant information [...] that the
infringer or alleged infringer possesses or controls” as provided
for in that country’s own laws.
The
rules also state that every country has the authority to immediately
give the name and address of anyone importing detained goods to
whoever owns the intellectual property.
That
information can be very broad, too: “Such information may include
information regarding any person involved in any aspect of the
infringement or alleged infringement,” the document continues, “and
regarding the means of production or the channels of distribution of
the infringing or allegedly infringing goods or services, including
the identification of third persons alleged to be involved in the
production and distribution of such goods or services and of their
channels of distribution.”
TPP
is now facing a rough ride through Congress where President Obama’s
opponents on the right argue the agreement does not do enough for
business while opponents on the left argue it does too much.
Obama
has pledged to make the TPP public but only after the legislation has
passed.
Michael
Wessel was one of the advisers who was asked by the US government to
review what he said were woefully inadequate portions of the
document. Wessel said the thrust of the TPP does nothing for
Americans. “This is about increasing the ability of global
corporations to source wherever they can at the lowest cost,” he
said.
“It
is not about enhancing or promoting production in the United States,”
Wessel said. “We aren’t enforcing today’s trade agreements
adequately. Look at China and Korea. Now we’re not only expanding
trade to a far larger set of countries under a new set of rules that
have yet to be tested but we’re preparing to expand that to many
more countries. It would be easier to accept if we were enforcing
today’s rules.”
Wessel
said that ultimately, the countries currently benefiting from
increased outsourcing of jobs by American firms aren’t likely to
see wages rise above a certain level. “If you look in other
countries, Mexico and India and others – there’s been a rise in
the middle class but there’s been stagnation for those we’re
hoping to get into the middle class,” Wessel said. “Companies are
scouring the globe for countries they can get to produce most
cheaply.”
That,
he said, results in constant downward pressure on American wages.
“Companies are not invested here the way we’d like them to;
they’re doing stock buybacks and higher dividends,” Wessel
continued. “They may yield support for the stock-holding class but
it’s not creating jobs.”
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