With The US Out, Canada Gets Copyright Out Of TPP And Moves Closer To Agreement

from the but-we-thought-it-couldn't-be-done... dept

We've been talking about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement for many, many years. And one point that we've made over and over again about the TPP and other trade agreements, is that there actually is a lot of good and important stuff in those agreements, and we don't understand why the US (mainly) keeps insisting on two issues that don't belong in these agreements at all: (1) "intellectual property" chapters, which are almost always the opposite of "free trade" in that they focus on ratcheting up government protectionism and monopolies for a few specific industries and (2) a section on what we refer to as corporate sovereignty, which which the trade world calls "investor state dispute settlement" or "ISDS." That's where companies can demand an private tribunal judge if a country unfairly treated that company poorly and order the country to pay the company millions or sometimes billions of dollars.

Of course, the US has been a major driver of both of those provisions -- but over and over again we were told that these kinds of agreements were "impossible" without an intellectual property chapter and corporate sovereignty. Turns out, once you get the US out of the way, things aren't so impossible. Just a couple weeks ago, we noted that many countries around the world (including the new USTR, Robert Lighthizer) appear to be souring on corporate sovereignty provisions, but the really big news is the TPP.

Right after Donald Trump became President, the US officially dropped out of the TPP negotiations, leading many to believe that the entire process was dead. Instead, the other countries have continued to negotiate, and on Friday agreed in principle on key aspects of a deal, for the newly renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)

One of the stumbling blocks, on which Canada allegedly played hardball, was removing much of the intellectual property chapter (including basically all of the really bad stuff). As Michael Geist notes:

The Liberal government demonstrated genuine leadership in demanding significant changes to the flawed TPP intellectual property chapter and refusing to back down under intense pressure from some of the negotiating parties. The result isn’t perfect, but the newly named Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which still requires considerable negotiation, features a significantly improved IP chapter that suspends some of the most problematic provisions.

Weeks after the release of the TPP text in 2015, I wrote a lengthy series on the Trouble with the TPP.  Many of the most problematic provisions, including copyright term extension, digital lock rules, and intermediary liability have been suspended from the CPTPP at the insistence of the Canadian delegation. Their removal is a remarkable victory for those that argued against overbroad, restrictive copyright provisions in the TPP and maintained that there was no reason to include unbalanced copyright provisins in a modern trade agreement.

The new version also appears to remove some of the corporate sovereignty/ISDS provisions.

There's still a lot of work to be done on the agreement, but it certainly appears that Canada has taken the lead with the US out of commission. This is particularly amusing, as Canada was a late entrant into the TPP negotiations, and part of that involved the US demanding that Canada accept the text as it was and not reopen negotiations on key points already agreed upon. And now, the end result is that the US has withdrawn and Canada led the way in ditching some of the key provisions the US had demanded.

And, again, the current deal still has some serious problems. For one, it notes that it's possible that the worrisome intellectual property provisions could re-emerge, zombie-like, at a later date. It also notes that there's still enough of the corporate sovereignty provision to be worried about (and same with telecommunications services provisions). But, on the whole, it appears that the new CPTPP is moving in a much, much better direction, in large part by dumping the intellectual property elements.

Meanwhile, later this week, NAFTA renegotiations will be taking place and intellectual property issues are on the agenda. Perhaps Canada can do the same thing it did with the TPP and convince everyone else to take that issue off the table entirely.

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Filed Under: canada, copyright, corporate sovereignty, cptpp, ip chapter, isds, patents, tpp


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  • icon
    ThaumaTechnician (profile), 13 Nov 2017 @ 12:54pm

    Measured optimism from Mr. Geist's per his G&M op-ed.

    "Indeed, despite pressure to cave on key demands from the Japanese and Australian governments, Canada stood its ground and is helping to craft a trade deal that better reflects a balanced approach on challenging policy issues." https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/no-deal-is-better-t han-a-bad-deal-why-canada-won-the-tpp-stand-off/article36931537/

    Thank goodness it wasn't the Harperites doing the "negotiating". You can pronounce last word "acquiescing".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 13 Nov 2017 @ 1:20pm

    Now if they can just burn out the horrendous pharma and agri (aggro?) IP provisions... Wonder what NZ is up to these days.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Nov 2017 @ 5:35pm

      Re:

      We've just had a change of government, so I'm hoping the answer is no longer "brown-nosing any power players we can".

      Fingers crossed the Pharmac-squashing and corporate-sovereignty provisions are also history before NZ signs off on them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 14 Nov 2017 @ 7:20am

        Re: Re:

        I'm hoping the answer is no longer "brown-nosing any power players we can".

        I thought it was the point of these trade agreements. Do they contain anything actually useful to regular people? If the provisions were uncontroversial, why don't countries just pass one law at a time to fix each problem, rather than this massive coordination and treaty between large groups of countries?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        orbitalinsertion (profile), 14 Nov 2017 @ 8:33am

        Re: Re:

        Best wishes.

        I was curious, as a lot of the pharma demands (i don't recall about anything else right now) were pre-deployed a couple years ago. It sort of surprised me a bit then.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    DONT BE STUPID BE EDUCATED, 13 Nov 2017 @ 4:51pm

    wooohooo

    trudeau did something for his nation IM DAMN IMPRESSED

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    DONT BE STUPID BE EDUCATED, 13 Nov 2017 @ 4:53pm

    wow does this mean

    wow does this mean that the so called extension to 80 years s gonna be kept at 50?

    IF so what year was the frst season of star trek 1967...+50
    2017 ...that means next year the 1st season is public domain....as is all thngs form that......

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ryunosuke (profile), 13 Nov 2017 @ 6:25pm

    The bigger story...

    The bigger story isn't the provisions in TPP. No, the bigger story is that the US is in practice, no longer a superpower. Yes, we do have the ability to do so, but we aren't.

    With the current administration, the world is realizing that they don't NEED the US to do stuff. TPP is being/has been negotiated without US involvement. China has been on record to take the lead on the Paris Agreements, which with their economy, they can and most likely are, developing renewable energy sources. The EU has made a coalition of EU forces under the banner of the EU for the sole purpose of being less reliant on US forces.

    So the bigger story in all this, is that the world woke up, and it found it is stronger than it thought it was before. And that the US is and will not be as dominant as it was before, at least not without consequence.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      jupiterkansas (profile), 14 Nov 2017 @ 8:01am

      Re: The bigger story...

      well... taking an isolationist stance will do that.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      crade (profile), 14 Nov 2017 @ 9:40am

      Re: The bigger story...

      Gotta say I'm pretty sure the world was already awake and already knew they could get by fine without the U.S. The tricky part has always been getting out from under the thumb.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Kronomex, 13 Nov 2017 @ 11:57pm

    Our piss poor excuse of a government in Australia signed up for the intellectual "protections" racket when they agreed to the "free trade" agreement with the US years ago. Malcolm Turnbull(shit) is desperate to leave his mark, a large brown shit coloured stain, on Australia.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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