
TTIP Secret trade deal can only be read in secure 'reading room' in Brussels - acqq
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ttip-controversy-secret-trade-deal-can-only-be-read-secure-in-reading-room-in-brussels-10456206.html
======
Htsthbjig
Why secret?

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear in a democracy.

Turns out people have to be transparent to Governments, but Governments what
to be opaque. This is not a democracy.

~~~
tptacek
The treaties themselves are public, and are voted on.

The interim negotiating documents are closely-guarded secrets, because trade
negotiations will require give-to-get concessions from some industries, who
would lobby aggressively to avoid being singled out.

~~~
acqq
> The treaties themselves are public

Really? Only you claim that. Can you post the link please?

~~~
anigbrowl
He is not the only person that claims that. In order to become law, the TTIP
would have to be ratified by the Senate in the US and the EU Council of
Ministers and EU Parliament in the EU. At the time it comes up for
ratification it becomes public and is debated.

While it's being negotiated it's not public. I have no problem with that, any
more than I have a problem with the authors of legislation drafting a bill in
private before submitting it to the legislature for consideration, or the
cabinet discussions of a government being private until a policy is settled
upon and presented to the public.

~~~
crusso
The problem comes into play when treaties and laws are negotiated in private
committees and then foisted upon the general legislative bodies with very
little time for debate or review.

Creating opposition takes time and by not allowing that time, the whole
process becomes distinctly less democratic.

~~~
tptacek
What's "very little time"?

------
acqq
That's a good background for

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-08/12/wikileaks-
tti...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-08/12/wikileaks-ttip-reward-
crowdfund-assange)

"Wikileaks crowdfunding €100,000 reward for TTIP secrets"

As as the background on TTIP, they write:

"Together with the TTIP, these treaties (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
(TPP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)) represent the "Three Big
T's", affecting 53 countries, 1.6 billion people and covering two thirds of
the global economy. They aim to create a new international legal regime
allowing transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade
environmental protections, police the internet on behalf of the content
industry, limit the availability of affordable generic medicines, and
drastically curtail each country's legislative sovereignty. Of the "Three Big
T's", the TTIP remains the least exposed to public scrutiny, and the most
significant to the interests of the European public."

And Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Invest...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership)

"The Corporate Europe Observatory (cited in the original Guardian article) had
pointed out, based on a Freedom of Information request, that "more than 93% of
the Commission's meetings with stakeholders during the preparations of the
negotiations were with big business"."

Also:

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/transat...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/transatlantic-
free-trade-deal-regulation-by-lawyers-eu-us)

"In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic
Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if
companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue
[see footnote]. Yes. "If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it
would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation
to the industry involved or let the product in." Would that apply to the
European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial
practice permitted in the US? "That's one example where it might.""

~~~
api
How are these agreements anything less than the end of national sovereignty?

~~~
tptacek
To begin with: because the secret agreements that are only available in
"reading rooms" are _not binding_.

~~~
acqq
It doesn't appear that the user api is discussing the "non binding" variant of
the agreements. Once these agreements are secretly made and they exit the
"look from my hand only, no photographs, no copies allowed" "reading rooms"
they _are_ binding but then it's too late to react (by the definition of them
being binding). The problem is that the interested parties weren't even
allowed to have their own copy of them, even less to discuss the _exact_ texts
with others, as there are no copies.

The last time I've read about such a "secure room" and the computer setup, it
was the way how CIA falsified to the congressmen their data related to the
torture:

[http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-
relea...](http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-
releases?ID=db84e844-01bb-4eb6-b318-31486374a895)

"Now, after noting the disparity between the official CIA response to the
committee study and the Internal Panetta Review, the committee staff securely
transported a printed portion of the draft Internal Panetta Review from the
committee’s secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee
spaces in the Hart Senate Office Building."

~~~
tptacek
I think I understand your argument, but I think it's just excuse-making by
legislators.

The agreements must be voted into law to become binding.

The agreements are typically published, for public review, for many months
prior to that vote.

There is nothing in these trade agreements so prohibitively complex that a
legislator's office --- reasonably well funded in the US --- can't read and
generate an opinion on it.

The reality, I think, is that most US legislators want to vote "yes" on these
treaties. They're jobs bills, and the US has an overwhelming advantage in
trade negotiations due to our market power, so the odds of them being slanted
against our interests are very low.

There are very good reasons not to vote for the bills --- for instance, in the
case of the TPP, you might be worried about stricter IP laws preventing people
from obtaining the best possible medical care. But those issues primarily
affect people who will never vote.

So instead, the legislators wave their hands and shout "ONOZ SECRET LAWS" and
pretend that the treaties are a fait accompli, which saves them the trouble of
actually making a stand on the merits.

The situation might be very different for smaller countries (I don't know
really anything about how treaties are ratified in Europe). But for countries
with the market and political clout of, say, Germany or France, it seems
unlikely that the dynamics are that much different.

~~~
acqq
> The agreements are typically published, for public review,

Typically but obviously not for TTIP, as we see in the articles.

~~~
tptacek
I think this is a non-sequitur, as T-TIP is still being negotiated. There's no
treaty to publish yet.

~~~
acqq
And the topic of the articles linked is that the negotiation process as it is
performed is against the interests of those from whom it is being hidden.

~~~
tptacek
Your comments on this thread are right there for everyone to read. Just a few
comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding binding
treaties. Now you appear to be pretending that was never your argument.

~~~
acqq
> Just a few comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding
> binding treaties.

I don't agree. Please quote where I wrote that with these words. If you mean
"agreements" I refer to the current state of the "agreements" which was all
the time the topic of the articles linked, not the "final all-or-nothing state
of them" that you want to introduce, and that for TTIP don't exist at the
moment, so nobody can write about them at all or comment them. I'm fascinated
that you introduced to the discussion something that doesn't exist and try to
sell that once that exists, in whichever form, it will magically negate the
problems currently written about. But I won't discuss more as the article went
away from the first page.

