Wikileaks Release: Secret TPP Treaty. Text of Negotiated Draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states. The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Both pacts exclude China. Since the beginning of the TPP negotiations, the process of drafting and negotiating the treaty’s chapters has been shrouded in an unprecedented level of secrecy. Access to drafts of the TPP chapters is shielded from the general public. Members of the US Congress are only able to view selected portions of treaty-related documents in highly restrictive conditions and under strict supervision. It has been previously revealed that only three individuals in each TPP nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted privileged access to crucial sections of the treaty text. [HR][/HR] Nobody wins on this one. More government power, more corporate power. Democracy is losing its relevance as globalization is co-opted. Why do these proposed laws favor corporations? Why can't Congressmen see this treaty while huge, multinational corporations get full access? Heads of state around the world are literally conspiring and have agreed to sign this deal by the end of 2013 with strong encouragement from Big Business. The entire world's economy will be strongly influenced and the people have no say on the matter.
We shouldn't have a Democracy to begin with, we ought to be a Republic. Democracies are tyrannical systems governed by the majority.
