The Trans-Pacific Partnership Is a Huge Deal. So Why Is It Being Kept Secret?

[n2doc]

Interesting Point:

Froman and Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, were asked at the World Economic Forum why the Obama administration is concealing the TPP from the public at the same time the European Union has just published the full text of a separate proposed trade agreement with the United States. If, as the Obama administration has argued, some confidentiality is necessary for frank negotiations, was the EU wrong to publish its full proposal?

Froman suggested that nations have varying definitions of transparency.

“It is very important that as we pursue these trade negotiations we do so in a way that takes into account input from the public, from our wide range of stakeholders, our political processes—in our case, Congress—we each have different ways we engage in that process,” he said.

Azevêdo said: “Honestly, this is something that the participants have to solve—the degree of openness and the degree of transparency.” Negotiations require a degree of balance between transparency and secrecy, he said, “otherwise they don’t move.”

That may be true, but the question is why? Why don’t trade deals advance when they are made public?

Perhaps because when citizens learn the details of such trade agreements, they don’t like them—and they end up putting pressure on their leaders to back off.


The rest:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/17608/tpp_negotiations

[WillyT]

1. "our wide range of stakeholders"

The corporations... the 1%...



& Rec !!!

[Cleita]

2. An educated guess is because it will be the last turn of the screwing of

the 99% in favor of the 1%. Speculation is that if the public gets to see the details, it will go down in flames.

[Autumn]

3. Rand Paul is supporting Obamas fast track bid on this, it can't be a good thing.

" our wide range of stakeholders," sure would like to know who they are.

[Maedhros]

4. On governance based on secrets:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

The bolded part sure sounds familiar...

I realize that these passages have been posted numerous times here at DU. But it's important that we learn from the mistakes of the past. Our entire government is being run behind a wall of secrecy: secret trade negotiations, secret rationales for torture, secret rules for blanket surveillance, secret prosecutions of "terrorists."

We should be careful.

[sabrina 1]

11. Those passages can never be posted enough. We know that because we still have people defending

the very same practices described in them.

'Never forget' seems to have been forgotten. Our species isn't very smart it appears. We do seem to keep repeating the past. And when you remind people of that, they seem not to want to hear about it.

[Maedhros]

17. They cry "Godwin's Law!!!" as a means to end the discussion. [n/t]

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. In other (more cynical) words ...

Here's the deal we are proposing for our trade agreement ... What is the deal your deal with them going to look like?"

ETA: For Example, "Here's Our (the Auto-workers') contract proposal. Why won't you show me what your deal with the Sheet Metal, or Electricians, Union looks like?"

While it may be effective in opening up the language to TPP ... it is NOT because the EU gives a crap about transparency; rather, it gives them intelligence, if not, bargaining level, on their own deal.

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. European Labor is represented by real labor leaders in the talks

LABOR IN THE US HAVE NO VOICE AND ARE NOT INVITED.

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. I do not disagree ...

But the EU's demand for transparency/questioning the lack of transparency in TPP, is unrelated to labor, or consumers, or anything other than their own trade negotiations.

[NCTraveler]

6. Because sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Because our government has never been this open and transparent.

Fuck. Never mind.

[sabrina 1]

7. Because 'If the people knew what was in it, they would opposed be to it'. That was stated by

a Democratic member of the Congressional Trade Committee, and by Elizabeth Warren who stated that other members of Congress have conveyed that opinion to HER.

[woo me with science]

9. ^^^^^^^Here's the answer^^^^^^^

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. ...nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton

[msongs]

10. your president values secrecy more than transparency nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. US battle over corporate hijacking of science matters in Europe

On both sides of the Atlantic it would appear that evidence-based policy is in jeopardy. The scientific advice that government and regulators rely upon to inform their decision-making is under attack. In the US the assault comes from the usual suspects, as activist Republican representatives continue their attempts to restrict the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to carry out its functions.

One proposal is the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act. Among its provisions are proposals to restrict experts from “advisory activities that directly or indirectly involve review or evaluation of their own work.”

While such a measure could in theory prevent the very remote possibility of a scientist simply self-certifying their own work, in practice this is likely to debar those with most recognised expertise on a subject from offering advice and public service.

Perverse as this may appear it pales in comparison to the suggestion that scientists with financial ties to industry should be allowed to advise the EPA – as long as they declare such funding. This seems to drive a coach and horses through what is conventionally understood as a conflict of interest.

Admittedly the act is likely to be vetoed by the White House. Another which may not is the Secret Science Reform Act, which aims to increase transparency by making the EPA reveal all the data it cites in making recommendations. Critics fear that in practice, it will give opponents to regulation a basis for making legal challenges to scientific studies that reach undesirable conclusions.

Europe and experts

While those who follow science policy may well be inured to this latest episode in the long-running campaign by the Republican right to dismantle public health and environmental protections in the US, they may not be so used to similar battles taking place in Europe.

Although the stakes are equally high, the politics at play in Europe are quite different from the US context. For a start the pressure in Brussels comes from the Left rather than the Right, and has been growing for a number of years. Second, this issue has crept onto the political agenda at a particularly sensitive moment, when the European institutions are keen to be seen to be responsive to public opinion.

With little fanfare the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, last week issued a recommendation to the European Commission to make its expert groups more balanced and transparent, having launched an inquiry into the subject last May. Expert groups are little known outside the Brussels bubble, but play an important advisory role


http://theconversation.com/why-a-us-battle-over-corporate-hijacking-of-science-matters-in-europe-37296

[jwirr]

14. JF this thing comes up for a vote and we still do not have the details I hope that the majority of

congress votes no. They need to say we will not vote blindly.

[obxhead]

19. It will pass under a Republican Congress

And then Obama will (rightfully) be blamed for it.

[Enthusiast]

15. Kicked

and recommended a whole bunch!

[Octafish]

16. Fast Track

If enough people see it, someone is bound to read it sooner or later.

[blkmusclmachine]

18. It's bad. It's really, really bad. And it's gonna be shoved down our throats by a "Democratic"

president!!!

[JEB]

21. Pig in a poke governance.

Not for me. Not for any rational person.

[Romulox]

22. Only Nixon could go to China. Only Bill Clinton could sign NAFTA. Only Obama can... nt