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TTIP Documents Leaked

posted by cmn32480 on Monday May 02 2016, @12:22PM   
from the secret-negotiations-are-always-good-for-the-people dept.

q.kontinuum writes:

Apparently, Greenpeace got their hands on a version of the TTIP documents and plans to release them to the public at today, Monday 2nd of May, 11:00am (UTC+2) from Netherlands, while at the same time giving a press conference at the re:publica. While Greenpeace is apparently mainly concerned about the loss of the precautionary principle (in Europe, if a product is thought to pose a risk to the population or environment, it is prohibited until proven safe, as opposed to the US where it is permitted until proven harmful. According to Greenpeace (sorry, only in German), this is a reason that in US, 170 genetically manipulated plants are in the agricultural market, while in Europe it is only one.

While these mainly environmental concerns deserve some consideration, the more fundamental issue is that such a far-reaching contract, invalidating many of hard fought-for consumers rights in one coup and affecting half a billion people alone in Europe, is negotiated secretly. This is entirely unworthy of any democratic government system.

The documents are available for download.

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Original Submission

• Missing the DRM, IP, and Patent Stuff. (Score: 5, Interesting) by Bethany.Saint on Monday May 02 2016, @02:48PM

  by Bethany.Saint (5900) on Monday May 02 2016, @02:48PM (#340264)

  I was disappointed to find that the documents were missing the chapter(s) on DRM, IP, patents, etc. These chapters must be double secret!

  Document 16 (sort of a comments document) does contain this:

  3.5 Intellectual Property Rights, Including Geographical Indications

  A positive feature of the twelfth round of IP discussions was the US submission, for the first time,
  of some texts on relatively consensual areas (international treaties and general provisions).
  However, the US remains unwilling to table, at this stage, concrete proposals on more sensitive
  offensive interests that have been expressed by some of its right holders or that are explicitly
  referred to in its TPA (for instance on patents, on technical protection measures and digital rights
  management or on enforcement).

  When confronted with the EU warning that bringing sensitive proposals that would require changes
  in EU law to the table – and doing it at a late stage of the negotiation – may have a negative impact
  on stakeholders and has very limited chances of being accepted, the US reiterated its understanding
  that the IPR chapter should not be a standard (TPP type) text, but also insisted that such a departure
  from its “model” creates some difficulties in terms of addressing the demands included in the IPR
  related sections of its TPA.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+4
  Interesting=4, Total=4
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		5