Latest TPP Leaks Reveal That US Is Isolated In Its Desire To Push Through Corporate Exceptionalism

from the good-to-see dept

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With the latest round of TPP negotiations ongoing, the folks over at Huffington Post got a hold of two leaked documents including a very useful spreadsheet highlighting all of the positions and areas of disagreement concerning every chapter of the TPP. What's quite revealing (and very good to see, though we'll see how it holds up) is that on many of the worst proposals, it appears that the US is very isolated, with either no one agreeing or maybe just one or two other countries agreeing. Of course, the US is obviously the most powerful force in these negotiations, so never underestimate the ability of the USTR to pressure countries to agree to these harmful policies -- but so far, it appears that other governments have been willing to push back on the US's extreme view of corporate sovereignty ("investor dispute resolution settlements") which would allow companies to ignore the laws of countries and sue those countries for "lost profits" when they disagree with the legal regime (say, for example, if a patent they wanted isn't granted). These programs have been a disaster in current agreements, and hopefully it appears that other countries now recognize this.It also appears that the US is somewhat isolated in its intellectual property proposals. Only Australia and Peru agree with the US's "patentability criteria." And no one at all agrees with the US's plans for extra protection for patents or to extend protections to new uses (such as plants, animals and surgical procedures). The US is also the only one supporting programs favorable to pharmaceutical companies around data protection. On the copyright side, it appears that everyone disagrees with the US's view of parallel importation (which, if still the same as it was from the last leaked version, disagrees with the US Supreme Court's own ruling on parallel importation). Only the US wants "establishment of criminal offenses for unintentional infringements of copyright, related rights and trademarks."This is good to see -- but, again, the US is the most powerful voice in the room, and you won't believe the tricks that the USTR will pull to try to bend other countries to agree to these proposals. Hopefully, though, the other countries stand firm. Hell, the fact that so many other countries agree on so many other proposals suggests that perhaps they should just kick the US out and make their own agreement.Oh, and the US isn't only isolated in pushing for bad proposals. It's also isolated in rejecting some proposals as well. For example, there's a proposal in the e-commerce chapter on "privacy obligations" whichhas agreed to... except the US. Gee, the US not interested in privacy protections? I wonder why...

Filed Under: copyright, investor state dispute settlement, isds, isolated, patents, tpp, ustr