[CTC] Public Interest Groups Demand Transparency as Secretive Trade Negotiations Resume in LA

[Arthur Stamoulis]

For Immediate Release                                               
Contact: Tim Roberston, 415-987-4870
Monday, April 2, 2012                                                  
Arden Manning, 202-454-5108



As Secretive Trade Negotiations Resume in LA, Public Interest Groups  
Demand Transparency

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — As trade negotiators from throughout the Pacific  
Rim meet in Los Angeles this week for talks aimed at moving the Trans- 
Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP) towards a rapid  
completion, labor, environmental and consumer advocates demanded that  
negotiating proposals be made available for public review and comment.

“Americans deserve the right to know what U.S. negotiators have been  
proposing in our names,” said Tim Robertson, director of the  
California Fair Trade Coalition.  “This is the third year of serious  
negotiations on a pact that’s supposed set the standard for  
international trade and investment across the globe.  It’s outrageous  
that the public hasn’t been told what our representatives are  
negotiating for and what domestic policies they are giving away.”

The TPP is soon entering its twelfth major round of negotiations  
between the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New  
Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, and is explicitly intended as a  
“docking agreement” that other nations will join over time.  Canada,  
Japan and Mexico have already indicated their interest in doing so.   
U.S. negotiators are pushing for the completion of the TPP  
negotiations this year.

The U.S. has reportedly introduced text for most, if not all, of an  
estimated 26 separate TPP chapters covering everything from our  
environment to financial regulations, drug patents to public  
procurement.  While approximately 600 corporate lobbyists and a  
handful of others have been given “cleared advisor” status enabling  
them to review and comment on these proposals, the general public has  
not been allowed to do so.  This is a far less transparent negotiating  
process than many other international agreements, including those at  
the World Trade Organization, where draft negotiating texts are  
published online.

“On the table in these talks are critical issues related to the rights  
of workers, climate change, biodiversity and our global economy.  It  
is crucially important that there is transparency around what is being  
negotiated and time for open debate and public participation,” said  
Ilana Solomon, trade representative with the Sierra Club.

TPP negotiations in Los Angeles are occurring from April 1 to 4 on  
labor, environmental and government procurement provisions.  What  
information is available on U.S. proposals comes primarily from a  
small handful of leaked documents and conversations with negotiators  
from other countries.

“If U.S. negotiators get their way, the public will be barred from  
reviewing any proposals until the negotiations are over, at which  
point it will be virtually impossible to make any substantive  
changes,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade  
Watch.  “That’s a bad way of making public policy, to say the least.   
Frankly, it reinforces the worst public perceptions about government  
working behind-closed-doors with moneyed interests at the expense of  
the general public.”
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