The much touted $ benefits are all tiny numbers at some future date – pretty much rounding errors. There may well be gains for some sunset type industries but on the IP side (sunrise) which is really the future of all business we have been handed another level of constraints. Who waits 10 or 25 years to implement minuscule changes to trade rules?
Cartoon credit to @FoxyLustyGrover
As Gordon Campbell on the TPP deal reached in Atlanta notes:
“John Key has already been spinning the “93% tariff free” outcome across the TPP region, as if that situation was entirely due to the TPP deal. To get that figure, Key is adding all pre-existing tariff reductions and adding them to the TPP. To take a relevant example… 80% of US trade with other TPP members is already duty free.”
….
“Over the period from now until 2030, even the rosier projections for New Zealand see the TPP adding only about 1% per annum to this country’s GDP.”
Copyright extension. Under US pressure, we have expanded our copyright term from 50 to 70 years. As some US commentators are already saying, these and other measures in the intellectual property chapter will have a chilling effect on innovation, will place greater restrictions on what counts as fair use, and will criminalise some activities that were hitherto not criminal in either their intention or their effect. While New Zealand is banging about dairy access as part of its traditional role as an exporter of raw agricultural products, the rest of the global economy is seeing a future in adding value and promoting its service industries… And on that score, our innovators stand to lose more than they gain from the intellectual property rights dimension of this deal. The TPP entrenches the position of existing intellectual property owners.”
What I think the TPP does is to make the international stage safer for transnational companies and corporates.
NBR has a story “Lobbies welcome TPP” which I don’t think is intentionally satirical but besides government trade people the only ones who know what is in the TPP are the lobbyists.
What would also be good to know is how TPP is such a fine deal when there is a TTIP in the northern hemisphere – again to make the rest of the world “safe” for US monopolies and other transnational businesses.
It is always good to reduce trade barriers but arguably the TPP is much more subtly putting up new IP barriers that a knowledge based economy will definitely regret.
When Joseph Stiglitz and Adam Hersh write “The Trans-Pacific Free-Trade Charade”
“The biggest regional trade and investment agreement in history is not what it seems.
You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for “free trade.” The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members’ trade and investment relations – and to do so on behalf of each country’s most powerful business lobbies.”
…
“International corporate interests tout ISDS as necessary to protect property rights where the rule of law and credible courts are lacking. But that argument is nonsense. The US is seeking the same mechanism in a similar mega-deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, even though there is little question about the quality of Europe’s legal and judicial systems.
…
“It should surprise no one that America’s international agreements produce managed rather than free trade”
One of the better outcomes from the TPP so far has been that ISD process does not allow the tobacco industry to sue governments for say “plain paper packaging” but it will be another month before anyone here sees any detail of the still secret texts and the next round of lobbying begins to try and pass this in NZ’s parliament.
Given that all the negotiations have been in secret so far it has been very difficult to analyse the agreements. Now that an actual treaty has been signed – lets hope sensible heads will prevail and non-partisan analysis of the fine print can be made.
I don’t think most people are against free trade but the TPP looks to be very much more than that and now is the time for our politicians to front up and be honest. I know “honest politicians” is an oxymoron but we have to start somewhere as there will be an onslaught of PR in favour of TPP by the very same lobbyists.
Postscript: This is why twitter is useful – some instant feedback – that last one about no vote needed in parliament is important.
@jordantcarter maybe – it would be great to be wrong about this but secret process erodes fragile trust
— Jason Kemp @dialogcrm@mastodon.nz (@dialogCRM) October 6, 2015
@dialogCRM it doesn't get passed by parliament… Cabinet ratifies it.. They're being deliberately misleading about this.
— Patrick Davey @patrick@psdavey.com (@psdavey) October 6, 2015
Update: 7 Oct – Process is cabinet can pass the TPP but various law changes need to be debated in parliament so there is still some debate. It also looks like a lot of mis-information from supporters and non-supporters.
The complexity is too much for most of the public. While the text is supposed to be made public within 30 days there is now some suggestion that it could be two years. My view is that the secrecy of the process (so far) is strategically damaging to the governments that do this.
What we need is more transparency and clear eyed analysis of the tradeoffs in plain view.
That analysis needs to show what the true price of this agreement is. Apparently there are 29 chapters – of which 3 have been leaked. Most of the content has not been reviewed by anyone outside the official process and that needs to change.
Listen here for some of the implications
More from InternetNZ here TPPA means copyright law reform needed
See also Bryan Gould: Dairy tariffs still in place – why did we sign TPP?
Jason: It’s an interesting topic you’ve written on.
Empires, nation-states and nomadic groups in history have used treaties repeatedly. I’m thinking here of how sendentary empires such as the Byzantine Empire, and various powers which ruled Persia and China, used treaties with Eurasian nomads over more than two millenia.
From the perspective of these sendentary powers treaties permited them to accomodate some of the Empire’s needs while also providing some satisfaction to the invading Eurasion nomads. The pattern would repeat a lot, ie involving a succession of treaties. A strength and attraction of Byzantium, Persia and China was always their depth of *culture* (a term used here in its broadest definition, inclusive of booty and economic systems) allowing them to both repeatedly attract and “convert” (in China’s case to sinicize) the outsiders.
Now switch to more recent times. Intellectual property laws have a heritage back to the early middle ages for patents and trade marks and half a millenium for copyright. Each is now a mature way of thinking, a mature culture if you will. They certainly frame and regulate important parts of economic systems in the knowledge economy.
These laws or cultures can change in local jurisdiction laws or by cross-jurisdiction treaties. When the treaty approach is used (as has been the case for well over 100 years) the change can be very significant. My sense of it is that the treaty approach seems to be becomming increasingly common (witness TRIPS in the 1990s and the TPP in 2015). It adds layers of complexity to intellectual property laws, and in the case of copyright makes the underlying concepts less rational.
It seems also to be the case that the treaty approach is often an accomodation to perceived challenges or threats by forces outside those cultures, call them outsiders or nomads. If the analogy is useful, who are these outsiders I wonder for TPP?
I’ll stop here before the analogy stretches too far.
Thanks Noric,
I think it is a fine analogy and as economies become much more driven by IP then it makes perfect sense to want to have a regulated playing field of some kind. However in this instance it looks very much like the vested interests of the largest businesses have had too much influence over the subject matter of the treaty.
There seems to be a large area of collateral damage in the IP area that has yet to be fully known. Orphan copyright for example where no rights holders can be found should be part of a workaround but it seems like that won’t be possible.
The balancing act is to to see if the international rules are actually fair and reasonable and the arguments so far are that they favour the dominant interest groups as represented by the lobbyists.
For NZ with 80% of tariffs already gone there was very little left to lose on that front but so far the gains look to be tiny. I don’t know how Australia will do but Canadian dairy farmers are happy and many of the changes in Japan don’t happen for decades.
On one hand we want to be optimistic and hope for the best and on the other the secret process and infestation of lobbyists taints the integrity of the negotiating parties.
The legal position for NZ is that the cabinet can ratify the TTP but the moral position is that they would be arseholes if they do that without coming clean and disclosing all the of the consequences – intended and unintended.
Jason note what this author of a new book on the TRIPS Agreement had to say at his book launch. http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/10/07/new-book-launched-at-wto-the-making-of-the-trips-agreement/
Thanks Noric –
I like this part
“The problem is that there is no ceiling on the level of IP protection, and this ceiling is rising in bilateral agreements. TRIPS lacks the balance towards the increasing rights and also suffers from a lack of discipline, he said.
IP negotiations need a public policy point of view, he said, and not just represent private interests.”
And also on your earlier comments. I was having a fascinating discussion with the 14yr old about how culture builds on earlier cultures in the context of popular songs. She was saying if what you do in music is no different then why bother – because it is not new but it often takes a lot of steps to get to the new.
That got me thinking about your “culture” comments. IP especially builds on earlier content and if a “treaty” can change the rules in favour of the dominant culture – in a sense the game is already over.
(And – sidebar – changing copyright to life + 70years throws a roadblock onto popular culture especially.)
In this context if we look to the simple trade equations where kiwifruit gets a $10m break we are missing the massive potential hole that is coming from ISD legal actions which is the real end game.
Technology innovation has a way of working around constraints but I would really like to see smart analysis of the TPPA and the northern hemisphere equivalent which is still being negotiated in secret.
As Stiglitz comments – the public interest is not being served by secret negotiations and private ISD’s…
“high-priced corporate lawyers in the US, Europe, and Japan will likely outmatch the underpaid government lawyers attempting to defend the public interest. Worse still, corporations in advanced countries can create subsidiaries in member countries through which to invest back home, and then sue, giving them a new channel to bloc regulations.
If there were a need for better property protection, and if this private, expensive dispute-resolution mechanism were superior to a public judiciary, we should be changing the law not just for well-heeled foreign companies, but also for our own citizens and small businesses. But there has been no suggestion that this is the case.
Rules and regulations determine the kind of economy and society in which people live. They affect relative bargaining power, with important implications for inequality, a growing problem around the world. The question is whether we should allow rich corporations to use provisions hidden in so-called trade agreements to dictate how we will live in the twenty-first century. I hope citizens in the US, Europe, and the Pacific answer with a resounding no.”
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-secret-corporate-takeover-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-2015-05#6yiwDysO3ssQ3tpV.99
Just found another article which explains the geo-politics of TPP much more succinctly.
“From an American perspective, the TPP is all about outmuscling China in the Pacific. The Americans want to bring as many Pacific Rim countries as possible under American influence.
President Obama has been explicit in recent days about this. On 12 June he said: “These kinds of agreements make sure that the global economy’s rules aren’t written by countries like China; they’re written by the United States of America”.
President Obama’s statement goes right to the core of why New Zealand needs to think hard about the TPP. The rules are being written by the Americans to benefit America.”
By Keith Woodford see The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) gets caught on American rocks for the rest of his post.
I suspect NZ politicians are caught up in the idea of being relevant on the world stage but the reality is we are being manipulated once again. Given that China is a bigger market for many NZ companies I hope that we don’t get sucked into the petty politics.