All international agreements are generally discussed in secrecy. In most democracies even laws are discussed for the most part in secrecy.
This prevents unexpected surprises, allows for a straight forward process, more honest discussion and makes it possible to reach compromises without appearing weak to constituients. It also acts as a filter for bad ideas and makes it easier to figure out, if something has any chance at suceeding without it becoming a public failure.
> All international agreements are generally discussed in secrecy.
People keep repeating this line with no evidence. I've been around for a number of international treaties and this is the first one I recall where the #1 issue is how secretive and un-democratic the process is.
Of course there are always backchannel discussions but with the TPP there has be little indication that ANY of the initiatives are actually being driven by the needs of the electorate.
When my elected official couldn't even see a copy for years (even in secret) and then was only able to when it was basically an all-or-nothing done deal about to signed something is very, very wrong.
I'm not sure which treaties you are referring to but certainly all trade agreements have always been negotiated in secret. And people who were against them have always complained.[1] Are you against climate agreements because they was mostly negotiated in secret?[2] How about US-USSR nuclear disarmament treaties (SALT I, SALT II, ABM)? The Iran nuclear talks?[3]
Do you not understand why they need to be negotiated in public? I guess you don't because you didn't even know they were always negotiated in secret.
Despite your single article, I followed NAFTA and secrecy was not the dominant talking point. Specifics about industries affected were the focal point. Elected officials were actually involved.
Your other two examples are from last year and involve the same president driving TPP.
You should actually watch parliamentary debates sometime. For the most part they are completely boring and debates in name only.
It's rare for parliaments to have actual passionate debates. That usually only happens on controversial and dividing issues, where it's worth it to make a stand to appeal to voters or where public support might help.
Most of the time these debates are just a formality to pass through a compromise everyone already has agreed to pass through beforehand. Accordingly you'll see that parliamentary debates and even votes are attented often only by a small number of representatives, not because they're not doing they're job it's because they've already done theirs at that point and have better things to do.
This also has the added bonus of being functionally an oligarchy (oligarchies are MUCH more efficient even when the oligarchs disagree!) and really has no relationship to any kind of democracy, representative or otherwise.
> According to that, all parliamentary debates should be secret, too.
Not as unreasonable as it sounds. The parliamentary system was devised when hardly anyone could read, and they certainly couldn't see debates on the TV.
By the time something has reached the debate level, which is just theater for the most part, the big decisions have been made. No one is changing their minds or votes at that point, unless something previously unknown and exceptional is revealed, which is rare.
Well, the big decisions often are made in committees, sometimes in parliament, too, though.
The whole process starts with a committee being started, they writing and working on several compromises, and then giving parliament the ability to vote on these.
But the work of the committees – except for the TTIP committee – is also public.
A way to satisfy both sides might be to allow the discussions in private but have them recorded by independent parties who are in turn watched by public watchdogs. Then on conclusion of negotiations and before a law is ratified the entire debate could be made available.
You could have your private negotiations and laws could only be ratified when private compromises that negatively effect the demos hadn't been made.
No, secrecy of this type has no place in a democratic society.
This trade deal will change the lives of millions, if not a few billion people. There is no room for governments to claim the need for secrecy when their true intention is to mask the transfer of wealth from the public to a few megacorps.
This prevents unexpected surprises, allows for a straight forward process, more honest discussion and makes it possible to reach compromises without appearing weak to constituients. It also acts as a filter for bad ideas and makes it easier to figure out, if something has any chance at suceeding without it becoming a public failure.