Photo: TPPxBorder activists shine a light on the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks in Vancouver this weekend.
North American fair trade activists put the spotlight on secretive international trade negotiations in Vancouver this weekend
Vancouver, June 16, 2013 – Negotiators from 12 Pacific Rim countries are meeting in secret in Vancouver this weekend to set new investment rules within the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). No announcement of this “intersessional” on investment has been made to the public or the media. People in Canada first learned about this TPP ‘mini’ negotiation from an article in the Peruvian media Friday. It was later confirmed by iPolitics.ca with no other details.
“It’s long past time to end the silence on the TPP,” says Kristen Beifus of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition. “It’s outrageous that this investor rights treaty is being developed behind closed doors. What they are negotiating will impact all of us, just as NAFTA has for 20 years, and we deserve to know what is being negotiated in our name.”
Activists from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, under the banner of the TPPxBorder network, have gathered in Vancouver to challenge the TPP investment talks. They held an emergency teach-in on Saturday night and staged a night-time light projection (see photo) aimed at TPP negotiators in the city. A protest is planned for Sunday afternoon.
“What they plan is a new investor rights system within the TPP that will allow corporations around the Pacific to sue communities and governments for their policies. The cases are not decided by the courts but by unaccountable commercial arbitrators. Canada’s had enough of that through NAFTA. The last thing we need is to expand this across the Pacific,” says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership involves 12 countries around the Pacific (Canada, US, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan) and 600 international corporations which also participate in the talks. In addition to new investor rights rules, the TPP aims to extend patents for brand-name pharmaceuticals thereby driving up drug prices, put new restrictions on and even criminalize routine Internet activities such as file-sharing, and poses a threat to environmental and public health laws.
“We’re going to shine the light on all the dark corners of the TPP,” says Beifus.
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More information:
Kristen Beifus, Washington Fair Trade Coalition: 503-539-7471; kristen@washingtonfairtrade.org (in Vancouver)
Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians: 647-222-9782; strew@canadians.org (in Toronto)
For more information on TPP: TPPxBorder.org, TPPxBorder on Facebook, @tppxborder on Twitter
