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posted by takyon on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the eats-shoots-and-leaves dept.

Deutsche Welle reports on failed round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) negotiations:

Sticking points were said to have included differences over protecting regional food specialties, the auto trade, and protection for drug makers.

Among other things, New Zealand, the world's largest dairy exporter, has said it will not back a deal that does not significantly open dairy markets.

The question of data protection for drug manufacturers was also a bone of contention, with the US wanting data on biological drug development to remain monopolized for 12 years, as compared with Australia's five years.
The deputy trade minister from Chile, which has no protection at all for drugmakers, said any deal must reconcile public needs with commercial interest. "For us it's vital to have an agreement that balances public policy goals for intellectual property in medicines," Minister Andres Rebolledo said.

The New Zealanders are upset about their distant Canadian cousins protecting their dairy industry, the NZ stuff reports:

The heavily protected Canadian dairy industry has earned the wrath of Federated Farmers president Dr William Rolleston for standing in the way of a good deal for dairy in the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks in Hawaii.
Rolleston said the public position of the Canadians was "unacceptable".

A 2014 paper written by Canadian academic and former Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay says it costs a Canadian family about $300 a year to prop up the dairy industry.
The Canadian government slaps on quotas of 246 percent for cheese, and almost 300 percent for butter.
Outside key dairy electorates, the supply management system that protects farmers is not popular.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20AM (#216920)

    Two words: Hanlon's razor.

    Stupidity is not a sufficient explanation for the sheer levels of corruption that we are seeing.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:01AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:01AM (#216925) Journal

    As I said, stupidity only is not sufficient.
    However, a sprinkle of corruption and useful idiots for the rest is enough.

    Don't forget that it is the trade ministers of the countries that will need to sign the treaty and, where applicable, it is the legislative of those countries to ratify the treaty.
    And, as hard as it may be to believe, not all politicians are corrupt or stupid; here's a report of Australian Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade on Investor-State Dispute Settlement [aph.gov.au] in regards with protecting the public interest - even those that supported the ISDS allowance in treaties pointed out shortcomings (and some suggested safe-guards):

    In recent years the Australian public has become increasingly aware of the shortcomings of ISDS and the risk that it poses to public policy, particularly since the launch of the case against plain packaging by Philip Morris....[A]ccording to UNCTAD, by the end of 2013, 98 states had been respondents in a total of 568 known treaty based cases. Argentina has faced 53 ISDS cases, Canada 22 and the United States 15. The vast majority of ISDS cases—about 75 per cent—are brought by American and European investors.

    The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET), a network of 60 community organisations, noted that the number of known ISDS cases lodged each year has increased from less than five in 1993 to 57 in 2013. Dr Patricia Ranald outlined the concerns of AFTINET:

    ISDS basically gives additional special rights to foreign investors to sue governments for damages in an international tribunal on the basis of a claim that domestic legislation or policy has harmed their investment. It has developed from a system that originally was about compensating for the actual expropriation of property—real property.But over the years, particularly the last 20 years, it has developed into a system based on principles of indirect expropriation that simply do not exist in most legal systems and that are not available to domestic investors. In that sense it is not about free trade; it is about giving special preferential treatment to foreign investors compared with domestic investors.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford