BREAKING: WikiLeaks Leaks TPP Draft!!!

[LiberalLovinLug]

283. I will agree with you on one point

What you meant by you were ok to give up a small bit of your sovereignty (for the greater world good) is admirable. You refer to the UN and its lofty goals which most times are not carried out. As a Canadian (one of our PMs was instrumental in creating the UN) we, and other less influential countries need a body like this to make our voice heard. I hear, mostly on Fox News etc, so much anti-UN hate speech. And even in here. Its frightening to those of us in less rich countries to hear that kind of talk from even the left of the US.

But what I want to address is that what is bad about secret high level deals like this, is not about allowing invading armies onto American soil, or any such nonsense. It is about a systematic erosion of labour and environmental protections globally.

This TTP is similar to the NAFTA in that companies can sue a host country if they deem that that countries laws for the environment or worker benifits cause them to lose profits in their eyes.

This is what many Canadians are seeing since NAFTA. Here's one example:

http://www.cela.ca/article/international-trade-agreements-commentary/how-canada-became-shill-ethyl-corp

In early April, 1997 the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, for one of the few times since its election in 1993, acted to "err", as the government put it, on the side of human health and the environment. Invoking its trade powers, Parliament passed a law restricting the import and interprovincial transport of the neuro-toxic MMT (methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl), a gasoline additive that contains the heavy metal, manganese.

Within days, the US multinational Ethyl Corp., the sole supplier of MMT in Canada, invoked the "expropriation" clause (article 1110) of the investment chapter of NAFTA to sue the government for $350 million Canadian for damages and lost income. With the NAFTA agreement working exactly as it was designed to, the pressure of significant potential public liability mounted on the federal government and on July 20th, 1998 it backed down, settling out of court before the NAFTA arbitral panel could rule.

In a final cruel irony the $13 million US ($19.5 million Canadian) compensation payment to Ethyl for lost profits and legal costs exceeds the total 1998 Environment Canada budget for enforcement and compliance programmes ($16.9 million Canadian). The government will also issue a statement to the effect that the manganese-based additive is neither an environmental nor a health risk which, or course, Ethyl will use to market MMT internationally.

Here's one involving our cheaper drug pricing by our laws allowing generic versions:

http://action.sumofus.org/a/eli-lilly/

"One of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world is fighting a dirty war against Canada. Last year, Eli Lilly filed a lawsuit against Canada for $500 million dollars for passing policy that lets companies to make affordable versions of its medicines. But now they're playing really dirty and are lobbying in Washington to get Canada added to a "watch list" of countries that aren't friendly enough to investors."

So while some of you and your fellow Americans are lamenting your own loss of sovernty, American companies are attacking Canadian's hard fought higher standards for environment and labour rights....and winning thanks to this trade law.

And this is not an isolated case. There have been many sues involving different products and different issues. We have a better health care provisions. Here companies must contribute a certain amount to the plan. They have sued for "lost profits" on that issue too.
The net result is the chipping away of protections and rights of workers over time dictated by corporations suing countries that have stricter laws in these regards until eventually the lowest common denominator of protections is established.

The TTP is an extension of this plan on a more world wide scale:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tppa-when-foreign-investors-sue-the-state/5357500

"The investor-state dispute system, whereby foreign investors can sue the host-country government in an international tribunal, is one of the issues being negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
[...........]
Finally, investors can sue on the ground of “indirect expropriation”. Tribunals have ruled in favour of investors that claimed losses due to government policies or regulations, such as tighter health and environmental regulations."



Its like agreeing to a parasite that can invade and pressure governments to either pay large suits or cave in to weakening their own standards for their own people.