"The EU presented a new transatlantic agenda on Wednesday, laying out a wish-list for better ties with the US on technology, trade, climate change and public health preparedness. EU foreign affairs minister Josep Borrell said the push for closer cooperation with the incoming US president Joe Biden is an attempt to get off a “bumpy road”. “We want to make multilateralism great again,” Borrell said, presenting the plan. The European Commission is proposing a new ‘Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council’ to set joint standards on new technologies. Areas of work would include 5G mobile networks, artificial intelligence and data flows. Borrell dismissed the suggestion that the new proposal is about siding with the US to outflank China and prevent China from dominating important economic and technological sectors. “That would be a crazy objective. We need China,” he said. Washington and Brussels "must work closely together on solving bilateral trade irritants", the commission said in a 12-page paper, noting that EU-US commerce accounts for a third of world trade." Irritants like democracy?
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By Gerhard Dilger Ms. Smith, what chances and what risks are there for the countries of the Global South when negotiating so-called new generation free trade agreements (FTAs), or vampire treaties? Let´s take the Mercosur-EU negotiations as an example. ------------------------ sanya: Latin America is facing many FTA negotiations at the moment and they’re all being negotiated in secret, so they can be called vampire treaties – we don’t know what’s in them unless the text is leaked...
The Trojan Horse of e-Commerce Professor Jane Kelsey (University of Auckland) Intellectual Property and Trade in the Pacific Century Brisbane, 22 June 2017 QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law Research Program The comprehensive chapter on electronic commerce in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) heralded a game changer in the negotiation of international rules. The benign chapter heading belies a fundamental rewriting of the international trade rules to serve the rapid growth of digital economy, controlled by a powerful oligopoly of mega-corporations. Their stated goal is to achieve global rules that protect them from national regulation of their activities for the indefinite future. The TPP text has since been tabled in the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) negotiations and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), judging by a leaked list of the headings of articles in the e-commerce chapter. If adopted, these rules would impose huge and unforeseeable fetters on the sovereignty of governments to regulate their economies, and address related issues of privacy, security and consumer protection. The cross-fertilisation of the e-commerce chapters with others on cross-border services, financial services, telecommunications and transparency would create a regime of unprecedented constraints and complexity that even advanced countries in RCEP would struggle to implement them, let alone the developing and least developed country parties in the RCEP.
Submission to the Parliamentary Committee on International Trade (CIIT) regarding Bill C-30, An Act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measures
This must be watched to understand how certain powerful entities think. This video is also about this report: https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/file/doha-round-setting-deadline-defining-final-deal-interim-report-jan-2011.pdf Pushing through these changes is a key part of the current events. Listen to what is said about US politics.
"The existing (WTO) case-law on non-discrimination indicates that when defining likeness for the purpose of assessing regulation, one should rather focus on the interchangeability of the services by applying a cross-price elasticity test. In Japan – Alcoholic Beverages II, the Panel has stated explicitly that “the appropriate test to define whether two products are ‘like’
This is an excellent recent presentation by a EU public services group about the attacks on public services in the EU by the trade agreements of countries like the US ('next generation' trade deals refers to US style negative list agreements which are particularly aggressive in privatizing and capturing public services, permanently (example, the US capture of healthcare around the globe by transnational corporations) ending public ownership and voter control over irreplaceable services and resources.. It shows the strategies which this global scheme, uses. Very much worth reading.
The problem of domestic regulation versus international trade and international investment. Note: This is part of a larger PDF - THE DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION OF FDI: POLICY AND RULE MAKING PERSPECTIVES Proceedings of the Expert Meeting held in Geneva from 6 to 8 November 2002
Who pays for the risks inherent in life on Earth? Such as a pandemic. Should countries taxpayers indemnify corporations, people, none, or both? We know where corporations interests lie. They always come first. That's what trade agreements are for.
The services sectoral classification list (W/120) is a comprehensive list of services sectors and sub-sectors covered under the GATS. It was compiled by the WTO in July 1991 and its purpose was to facilitate the Uruguay Round negotiations, ensuring cross-country comparability and consistency of the commitments undertaken. The 160 sub-sectors are defined as aggregate of the more detailed categories contained in the United Nations provisional Central Product Classification (CPC). The list is also available at the WTO website at: http://tsdb.wto.org/Includes/docs/W120_E.doc
EUROPEAN UNION SUB-COMMITTEE ON EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (Published by UK "House of Lords") 451 pages, PDF. Contains lots of valuable testimony by people on many sides of the issue.
Markus Krajewski
CCPA recommendations for a better North American trade model The all-party House of Commons trade committee is consulting Canadians on their priorities for bilateral and trilateral North American trade in light of the current renegotiation of NAFTA. In the CCPA’s submission to this process, Scott Sinclair, Stuart Trew, and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood argue for a different kind of trading relationship that is inclusive, transformative, and forward-looking—focused on today’s real challenges, including climate change, the changing nature of work, stagnant welfare gains, and unacceptable levels of inequality in all three North American countries. The CCPA submission largely repeats advice given to Global Affairs Canada during the department’s consultation on the NAFTA renegotiations, but is updated to take into account some of the proposals put forward by Canada and the U.S. during the first three rounds of talks.
Richard Ouellet, Laval University (October 2002) -- "It will be noted that while Canada has avoided the potential effects that the international economic agreements could have on health care, it has done so by taking advantage of the structure of agreements based on quite different approaches. • If the Canadian government wishes to continue exempting our public health systems from the effects of these agreements, it will have to acknowledge that doing so by simultaneously using approaches as different as those of the GATS and the NAFTA is not without risks. What is needed is an integrated approach that reflects trade concerns while respecting the health care priorities of governments."
by Elaine Bernard, Harvard University School of Law. (1993) A good intro to FTA concepts and it illustrates how shamelessly we've beeen manipulated. (and for SO long too) "Here's an example from the investment chapter of NAFTA, Chapter 11. Section 4 of Article 1101 on Scope states "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to prevent a Party from providing a service or performing a function, such as law enforcement, correctional services, income security or insurance, social security or insurance, social welfare, public education, public training, health and child care, in a manner that is not inconsistent with this Chapter." This utterly confusing statement is a standard paragraph found in many of the chapters of NAFTA. Double negatives such as "not inconsistent" are common language in many trade agreements. They are a trade lawyer's version of a positive assertion. That is, they allow the drafters to avoid a clear assertion that something is permitted. Instead, activities are crypticly permitted as "not inconsistent." Double, indeed quadruple negatives are positive assertions. Imagine for a moment how the drafters of NAFTA would have phrased the famous quote "Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus" into "NAFTAese." It would probably have read, "Yes, Virginia, nothing should be construed to prevent you from believing that the existence of Santa Claus is not inconsistent with reality." But what of the substance of this clause and of similarly written clauses? Here's the real problem. Essentially, it says that the services listed in the paragraph, from corrections to childcare, from public education to social security are to be open to the various investment (and services) provisions of NAFTA. This includes giving companies the rights of national treatment, the right of establishment, and exposing these services to tri-national harmonization. Terrific! This illustrates some of the problems with both the language but also the substance of what is being proposed in this agreement. But why NAFTA, and why now? On the one hand, there is a larger economic story about globalization and the increased mobility of capital, increasing international competition, deregulation, privatization and the business quest for lower wages and higher profits. However, the specific drive behind NAFTA is a business fear that growing public demands for control, called re-regulation, over the excesses of capital and business in the last decades could lead to restrictive legislation. Business fears the possibility of a change in government in all three countries, and it realizes that it could face a change in policy. With NAFTA, business has locked in the policies of Bush, Salinas, Mulroney."
by Prof. Jane Kelsey (pub by UNI Global Union) This is an up to date overview of TISA and its global attack on public services of all kinds, as well as a strong, concise explanation of what its aims are. Creation of a global corporate superstate that limits the powers of nation states and by extension, all voters, all of humanity, to regulate even the most important sections of their economies. It's a must read on the extremely undemocratic TISA agreement.
UNITED NATIONS Economic and Social Council E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/9 The present report is submitted in response to Sub-Commission resolution 2001/4 which requested the High Commissioner to submit a report on the human rights implications of the liberalization of trade in services, particularly in the framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
Adlung, Rolf (2005) Adlung is a WTO employee. The EU's social safety net is under attack. Partly due to neoliberal construction via FTAs of a new corporate "right of establishment" that nullifies rights to healthcare and education that have never been created in laws as we would hope. Also WTO rules allegedly against "discrimination" ironically are a tool that's being used to dismantle policies and laws against discrimination in countries like the US.
"Any agreement to liberalize procurement markets should deal with the reality that some states have longstanding policies supporting firms owned and controlled by historically disadvantaged individuals, rooted in the constitutional orders of those states. Substantial noneconomic rationales, grounded in notions of social justice and human rights, support these programmes, but the domain of these rationales as they are currently understood is limited to domestic societies. This limitation affects all negotiations to liberalize trade across national borders, in that states (or their leaders) do not hold the view that they have obligations to support the programmes of other states in the area of social justice. I argue that all WTO members should have an equal opportunity to implement noneconomic policies having to do with promoting justice within their borders for their citizens. "
The 60-page study, " The GATS and Canadian Postal Services," examines the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the current negotiations to expand it for Canada Post and Canadian postal services. US-based multinational courier companies are using the GATS negotiations to try to force Canada Post out of parcel delivery and other competitive services. "Restricting Canada Post to core letter-mail services would doom the Canadian public postal system to gradual erosion and decline," said Sinclair Foreign multinationals are seeking GATS-enforceable rights to Canada Post's advantages without being encumbered by its public service obligations, according to the study. The report's key findings include: The GATS conflicts with existing multilateral rules that ensure the delivery of international mail--the Universal Postal Union rules. The GATS prohibits minimum service requirements in Canada's rural areas and the north. By covering courier services under the GATS, negotiators have exposed Canada Post to challenges under the GATS anti-monopoly rules. A quirk of the United Nations system for classifying services may be all that protects Canada from an even more devastating national treatment challenge. This vital protection however, is at risk in ongoing discussions in Geneva to reclassify postal and courier services. The study urges that Canada's trade policy objectives and negotiating strategy be brought into line with the clear Parliamentary mandate given to Canada Post. The report suggests immediate steps that Canada should take to protect public postal services under the GATS. "But the many threats posed by the GATS to the Canadian public postal system demonstrate that it is a deeply flawed agreement hostile to public services and to regulation in the public interest," Sinclair concludes.
Education International
"Contrary to claims by some critics, the Medicaid expansion in the new health reform law will overwhelmingly provide coverage to people who otherwise would be uninsured, rather than shift people who already have private coverage to Medicaid." --- comment: This concept of "crowd-out" was literally created by the GATS and it's concept of minimal trade restrictiveness which requires that all government-subsidized measures be the most minimal possible - as well as possibly time limited, for example, only available to either an individual for only a few years, or possibly a country - for only a short period, perhaps a decade or less, (or perhaps only if they are and remain an LDC) . In this case, Medicaid is kind of a loan, not an insurance program, as it is subject to repayment, and only available to the destitute, and near destitute with assets that will only become available at their deaths, such as a home - after their other options have been used up. This "prevents healthcare prices from falling", and "preserves the profit in selling insurance", and "the value of the insurance companies investment". These are the most important things in a for-profit healthcare system. Especially as it becomes "The one bright spot in a dismal economy"
WTO White Paper explains the concepts of positive and negative list, standstill, etc.
Oxfam International
by Maine Fair Trade Campaign - What Fast Track is is DANGER, because IMHO these deals are a scam, that no legislator or member of the electorate in their right mind would ever vote for.
"The Achmea case essentially concerned a preliminary reference by the German Federal Court of Justice over whether EU law precluded the application of an arbitration clause in an IIA between EU member states. Slovakia had challenged before German courts the jurisdiction of an investment tribunal constituted under the Dutch–Slovak bilateral investment treaty (BIT). A Dutch investor (Achmea) had seized that investment tribunal over a partial reversal of the Slovak government’s decision in 2004 to privatize the health insurance market. In 2007 Slovakia had prohibited the distribution of profits generated by private health insurance activities. The investment tribunal considered this a breach of the BIT and awarded Achmea damages of EUR 22.1 million."
Use of investment treaties treaties treaties treaties to claim compensation for reversal of privatisation/liberalisation policies
This study, co-published with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, examines the adverse impacts on public services and public interest regulation of the little-known Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), quietly being negotiated in Geneva by a group of 23 governments, including Canada. Senior CCPA trade researcher Scott Sinclair argues that under the guise of expanding international trade in services, TiSA will make it much harder for governments to regulate vital services such as energy, water, banking, transport and online services. The agreement is also designed to pry open public services to commercial involvement. While this agenda may suit the commercial interests of the transnational corporations behind the secretive TiSA negotiations, it will not serve the broader public interest.
The EU's extremely terse outline of the proposed Trade in Services Agreement. (Declassified) Few people understand the meanings of the language its written in. It's not English.
This paper discusses how trade agreements could be modified in the EU to protect their existing public services from trade and investment agreements which are designed to tear them apart and privatize public services against the people's will, behind their backs. _______ Unfortunately the EU examples given are much less applicable to the US because we are trying to do something which we ourselves devoted a great deal of energy into preventing by creating the WTO, other economic governance organizations and making all these conditions binding on ourselves especially, which seem generally to only allow the poorest (LDC) countries to set up new public services and monopolies. Also look up "LDC Services Waiver" for a related issue involving the jobs.
Video - Ellen Gould is a trade expert whose insight here is quite accurate. See what she tells us here about domestic regulations, technical standrds, licensing, medical standards, everything. Lots of info on what they want to do with healthcare. The WTO could sanction us if we wanted our doctors to meet higher standards than those in the developing countries. (around 25:00) The WTO also wants us to allow for profit offshoring of poor patients. Which would be subject to the same problems as the for profit system does now, except likely worse, with less accountability.
Canadian Health Care Reform, Trade Treaties and Foreign Policy - this essay describes the traps in the GATS agreement for Canadian health care, and it also would totally apply to a hypothetical US healthcare plan if it had prexisted the creation of the WTO. it also discusses 'carve outs' and why they are needed by Canada to protect their Medicare (public health care) from Trade Agreements put forward by countries like the US that try to destroy, and privatize them. Note: the situation of the Canadian system is different than the UK's as Canadian Healthcare is exempt from GATS, and the UK's public option the NHS like US's optional short term public experiments like the ACA are subject to the GATS privatization agreements progressive liberalization ratchet, etc. requirements. Unfortunately.
Public higher education is under attack, globally. This attack begun in an WTO agreement called the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or 'GATS'. This is a statement on the GATS by the organizations that accredit literally thousands of universities in the US, Canada, and the EU, including the European University Association on whose web site it is hosted.