Secret negotiations on international trade deals threaten human rights, an independent United Nations expert said on Thursday in comments that appeared aimed at agreements the United States is seeking with the European Union and Pacific nations.
The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) is most concerned about the serious implications of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses and provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and other such agreements and treaties that Malaysia signs.
The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade committee is now accepting public submissions on the NZ-Korea Free Trade Agreement, providing Kiwis with a rare chance to break the silence on the controversial investor-state dispute settlement provisions in that agreement and in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, according to It’s Our Future NZ.
Australia’s medicine subsidies, Canadian films and culture, and capital controls in Chile would be carved out from investment protection rules being negotiated in a Pacific trade pact, according to a draft text released by Wikileaks on Wednesday.
Australia’s primary negotiator on medicines for the US-Australia FTA, Dr Ruth Lopert, warns that the TPP could force the Australian Government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidise medicines.
"Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty," writes Elizabeth Warren.
The corporate media would prefer that people know nothing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other trade deals.