Trading away our rights and freedoms

John Quiggin has written about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks (article here, plus commentary at his blog).

This is meant to be a link post, but knowing how lazy people are with links I’ll highlight a few points here with a few comments of my own.

So far the negotiations involve twelve countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. Potential members include India and Indonesia. China, not so far but perhaps eventually.

Quiggin says that apart from agricultural products tariffs, quotas and other restrictions on trade have largely disappeared in our region. The TPP represents the emergence of “new generation” agreements. At the core of these agreements lie investor-state relations where a transnational corporation can sue a government for damaging its commercial interests by passing laws the detract from the corporations profits. Investor-state disputes are settled by a trade panel, usually three lawyers. Their rulings stand and are not appeallable in any court of law. Concerns include the environment, human rights protection, public welfare regulation, and health effects. Any law found u in the dispute ruling to inhibit a corporation’s profits is simply set aside.

For an overview, see AFTINET’s pamphlet and links at the end. For example, under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):

Currently, the US Lone Pine energy company is using ISDS [Investor-State Dispute Settlement] provisions in NAFTA to sue the provincial government of Quebec for $250 million because it suspended shale gas mining pending an environmental study in response to community concerns.

Quiggin didn’t mention this, but the precautionary principle doesn’t apply. Under NAFTA a product must be proven to cause harm before it can be restricted. Any law based on the precautionary principle could be set aside in a dispute.

It’s beyond the imagination to think that the Americans would agree to labelling GM foods in the TPP.

The new generation agreements also have intellectual property components, which enhance the rights of corporations beyond what would be commonly thought reasonable.

Investor-state relations and intellectual property are being used already by Philip Morris and Big Tobacco in an attempt set aside Australian tobacco labelling laws. Philip Morris, for example, has incorporated in Hong Kong to bring a case under investor-state provisions we signed up to way back in 1993. If successful under trade dispute provisions a 6-1 High Court decision supporting the labelling regulations would be set aside.

Politically there has been strong bi-partisanship in Australia under the banner “free trade is good” since Latham and Conroy went to water over the US Free Trade Agreement in 2004. Hence recent agreements have been seen an an unmitigated good. Quiggin points out that one way of concluding agreements quickly, as Robb has done, is to concede the other party’s demands.

In the case of the agreement with Japan, for example, Australia secured some modest concessions regarding tariffs on beef, which will be reduced from 38.5 per cent to 19 per cent over a period of fifteen years. In return, our government accepted the total exclusion of rice from the deal, and the maintenance of most restrictions on dairy products.

The Korean agreement, KAFTA, was arguably even worse. Reversing our previous position, the government agreed to the inclusion of investor–state dispute provisions. This was apparently done not in response to Korean demands but because US negotiators were pushing the provision in the parallel negotiations for the TPP.

Negotiations are going on in secret, but sections revealed through Wikileaks give cause for alarm. In the end:

It seems certain that the final agreement will involve a substantial loss of Australian sovereignty and an acceptance of economically damaging intellectual property rules. In return, Australia will receive marginal and long-drawn-out improvements in market access for agricultural commodities. While a Labor government might perhaps have held out for a better deal, it seems unlikely that the opposition will reject legislation implementing the agreement.

Quiggin is right, I think, when he says:

The new generation agreements are primarily about imposing a particular model of global capitalism, with the United States as the model and multinational corporations as the main engines of economic activity.

Back in 1999 massive protests disrupted the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in the ‘Battle in Seattle’. The WTO countered by holding the next meeting in Doha in 2001, where protester access was impossible, and promoting it as the “development round” ostensibly to meet developing country concerns. Against developing country resistance “New Issues” including investor-state relations, were forced onto the agenda. See the Road to Cancun section of my Webdiary piece Reaching for the Moon: how the poor lost and won at Cancun.

The so-called “New Issues” stemmed from a special WTO meeting in Singapore back in 1996 and included investor-state relations, which were pursued under the infamous and controversial MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) under the aegis of the OECD until they were defeated in 1998.

At Cancun although investment was taken off the table during the meeting, some of the New Issues remained. However, through Japanese and Korean stubbornness and developing country resistance the talks collapsed. Attempts were made to revive the Doha round, but Quiggin says here that it finally broke down in 2008. Since then the US and other free trade advocates have been pursuing their ends through bilateral and regional agreements.

There were protests at Cancun, although the site was a peninsula which was blocked off. A South Korean farmer, Lee Kyung-Hai, famously committed suicide, apparently unable to compete with cheap Australian beef.

Since then there has been little protest and little public discussion in spite of the efforts of AFTINET, Getup and Choice.

Behind closed doors trade negotiators are determining the kind of society in which we will live, and we are letting them do it.

Ironically our best chance is a US Congress stalemate. Not good enough.

9 thoughts on “Trading away our rights and freedoms”

  1. Not many complex issues can be summed up in a single word or a catchy slogan – but this one can:

    Recolonialization.

    Or: Surrender. Or: Oppression. Or: Tyranny.

  2. GB, I think that nails it.

    From the Council for Canadians:

    Canada also holds the record for the most sued country in the world under trade agreements like NAFTA. …

    We had to pay Exxon $17.3 million because Newfoundland and Labrador required it to invest in research and development. …

    We lost again to a company that didn’t like that Nova Scotia refused its quarry for environmental reasons. …

  3. Why is Quiggin ( or anyone else ) against Governments removing artificial costs on the products their constituents buy ?

    A tariff is an added tax that only benefits inferior domestic Corporations and harms both more efficient, overseas producers and the Australian purchasing masses.

    I’d estimate over 98% of the Australian purchasing masses are not Corporations but regular folk and the poor.

    How other Governments punish their people is for their people to address.

  4. Brian: The big argument for things like the WTO free trade agreements is that it allows the market to drive us towards optimal solutions. However, in reality, it stops individual countries from trying to do things that may actually be smarter. (For example, using limited import quotas to give more direct control than tariffs.) In addition, it makes it easier for large countries with large businesses to kill smaller businesses in small countries when temporary blips in things like currency values make the small country less competitive.
    Now we are talking about limiting the right of countries to make decisions that might, shock horror, protect the country from international companies destroying the environment or…..
    This is something that should be strongly opposed. International companies have too much power as it is.

  5. Jumpy: It sounds as though you are happy for the number of unemployed to increase so that you can get a few things cheaper from overseas. Then I suspect you will whinge like mad because your taxes will have go up to pay for the rising costs of increased unemployment.
    Me, I would be happy to pay a bit more to go back to the very low unemployment levels we enjoyed when I joined the workforce in 1960 courtesy of our trade protection system. A world where kids in their final year of school had to think about what they wanted to do instead of worrying about if they would be able to get a job.
    Sure, tariff systems like the one we had had a lot of inefficiencies and gave no encouragement for industries to lift their game. However, it would have made a lot more sense to look for better ways of protecting Australian business instead of believing free trade is the answer to everything.
    As an individual engineer it made economic sense to pay for lawn mowing when I could get all the high paid engineering work I wanted while doing the lawn myself if there was a shortage of engineering work. (Sorry Brian.)
    In terms of Australia the logical thing to do would be something like:
    – Produce what we can produce competitively.
    – Use any surplus from the sales to pay for imports.
    – Then use unused resources to produce other goods that Australians want even though it would be cheaper to import if we had the trade surplus to pay for it.

    My preferred mechanism would be to sell a controlled number of import licences for various products with the number of import licences as a % of Aus sales being higher for less competitive products.

  6. Jumpy, I presume you read the post:

    Quiggin says that apart from agricultural products tariffs, quotas and other restrictions on trade have largely disappeared in our region.

    Except for agricultural produce.

    Quiggin is concerned about “new generation” agreements, which include excessively restrictive intellectual property provisions and the capacity for companies to sue states in the circumstances outlined.

    It actually means our government might have to pay to keep a potentially harmful product out, so the company ends up getting something for nothing. This has already happened in Canada, so it’s for real.

  7. John @6

    Jumpy: It sounds as though you are happy for the number of unemployed to increase so that you can get a few things cheaper from overseas.

    Not at all John, but I would be happy if sectors payed their own way ( not at everyones expense due to subsidise, tariffs or Government winner picking) and have potential employees gravitate naturally to sectors in demand.

    Then I suspect you will whinge like mad because your taxes will have go up to pay for the rising costs of increased unemployment.

    It saddens me some folk think increased taxes is the go to solution to everything.

    Me, I would be happy to pay a bit more to go back to the very low unemployment levels we enjoyed when I joined the workforce in 1960

    You still have that option as a private citizen, why must you be forced to by the State ?

    courtesy of our trade protection system.

    No it wasn’t, trade protection is a subsidy whore that stifled innovation and productivity.

    A world where kids in their final year of school had to think about what they wanted to do instead of worrying about if they would be able to get a job.

    That may have been your ” World ” but the rest of the world had a quite different situation made worse by protectionist interference.

    Sure, tariff systems like the one we had had a lot of inefficiencies and gave no encouragement for industries to lift their game.

    True.

    However, it would have made a lot more sense to look for better ways of protecting Australian business instead of believing free trade is the answer to everything.

    We’ve never had anything like free trade in this country. We have imposts on every single thing we buy.
    Try finding one that doesn’t ( friendly challenge 🙂 )

    As an individual engineer it made economic sense to pay for lawn mowing when I could get all the high paid engineering work I wanted while doing the lawn myself if there was a shortage of engineering work. (Sorry Brian.)

    Totally reasonable.

    In terms of Australia the logical thing to do would be something like:
    – Produce what we can produce competitively.
    – Use any surplus from the sales to pay for imports.
    – Then use unused resources to produce other goods that Australians want even though it would be cheaper to import if we had the trade surplus to pay for it.

    The State doesn’t ” produce ” anything, and nor should it, they should only provide a service that private enterprise can’t.

    My preferred mechanism would be to sell a controlled number of import licences for various products with the number of import licences as a % of Aus sales being higher for less competitive products.

    Again with the State dictating the thing we need/want being more expensive ?
    Why ?
    Central price planing has never ever aided the people anywhere ever in the long run.
    Ask a Venezuelan.

  8. Jumpy: You are right of course. Manufacturing doesn’t have to compete with imports and high unemployment keeps the wages of the people you employ down.
    Only thing is that a country with high unemployment is not a nice place to live and doing things that mean your customers have less to spend isn’t all that good for business in general.
    Just tell me: Where did you get the idea that I am in favour of rampant price control? I seem to remember we tried it when Howard was treasurer. It provided a mechanism for BHP to get bigger price rises than they would have got if it was left to the market.

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