Consumer rights groups: Trans-Pacific Partnership to hurt consumer

Advocacy groups charge that the partnership weakens protections for consumers around food, privacy and labor standards, calls for new transparencies.

Consumer interest groups from across Latin America met in Santiago to express concerns about a free trade agreement that will unite 12 major economies, saying the deal is being signed in secret and will prevent regulation of contentious items such as genetically modified food. 

More than 30 organizations released a declaration Thursday denouncing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement under extensive negotiations between 12 countries in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.
 
The TPP, an extensively negotiated trade agreement which has already seen 17 rounds of negotiations and aims to promote economic growth and trade by reducing tariffs, will also require limits on domestic policies, which the groups say limit national sovereignty and hurt consumers.
 
An expanded version of an earlier trade agreement known as the P-4, signed in 2005 between Chile, Singapore, New Zealand and Brunei, the TPP now counts Australia, Canada, Japan, Peru, Malaysia, Mexico, Vietnam and the United States among its negotiators. After Japan’s recent addition to the talks last month, China is now also considering joining the U.S.-led negotiations.

But the consumer rights groups object to provisions that would restrict domestic regulations of genetically modified foods, pesticides and additives, as well as raise intellectual property protections above existing World Trade Organization rules.
 
“Many countries will be forced to extend the duration of protection copyright for 20 years or more, which will result in early works of the past century to be closed to the public domain for decades,” the groups’ statement said.
 
Other concerns include an investment dispute stipulation that would allow corporations to sue governments in international commercial court and lower privacy standards for e-commerce transactions.
 
“[These] are bad deals for consumers and will certainly affect us in our daily lives in the future,” said Marcela Ortiz, a communications officer for Consumers International, which represents 220 member organizations in 120 countries.
 
Rodrigo Contreras, Chile’s lead negotiator on the TPP who resigned two months ago, echoes many of these concerns, saying that the agreement as it stands is too much in favor of wealthier, developed countries. He also called for Latin American countries to push harder for their own interests in the negotiations.
 
“Our countries need the flexibility that has been recognized by multilateral trade negotiations on issues such as intellectual property, environmental protection and the proper balance between the rights of private investors and the state,” Conteras wrote in an article for the Peruvian magazine Caretas. 
 
But perhaps of greatest concern to the consumer groups is that no draft texts have been released of the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the insistence of negotiators, and consumer groups have been unable to gain access to the full agreement beyond two chapters that have been leaked.
 
The advocacy groups called for parties to “stop secretly negotiating this agreement and involve consumers and citizens, who will be most affected by its impacts.”
 
“It seems essential that governments circulate TPP texts to be public knowledge, and also believe that consumer organizations are adequately represented,” added Ortiz.
 
But U.S. trade officials maintain that they have expanded meetings with various stakeholders to include more diverse viewpoints and expertise.
 
“A certain degree of confidentiality is required in order for parties to negotiate frankly and productively,” Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, told The Santiago Times.
 
The 18th round of negotiations will take place July 15-25 in Malaysia.

May 31, 2013

Source: Santiago Times