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Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

Is it anti-consumer?

Convince me. I'm open. But I also want you to include counter-arguments. I want to hear both sides to reach a conclusion.

So far most anti-TPP arguments I've read are high on rhetoric and low on substance.

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One specific part I don't like is that it would require signatories to enforce a DMCA-like ban on circumvention of DRM mechanisms. The US already has such a ban, but putting it in a treaty makes it worse (harder to repeal), and it would create one in countries which don't already have one. In general the intellectual-property related provisions seem not good to me, almost exclusively in the direction of more restrictions on what regular people can do with their data and devices.

How exactly does putting a provision in a treaty make it harder to repeal? The same actions that ratify the treaty (for instance, passing an enabling domestic law) can be used to break it.

It's like how the US is slightly less likely to unilaterally legalize marijuana at the federal level, it is signatory to several UN treaties which forbid it from doing so.

Would you mind saying which treaties, please, I'm interested in researching this further.

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961)

Because it's no longer as simple as repealing/passing a domestic law but in addition to that becomes an issue of reneging on an agreement with other nations. In practice maybe we don't respect treaties very much, but it does seem to be an additional barrier, at least in the public discourse about what laws to repeal/pass.

This is the theory that the EU tries to push on it's member states. They have accepted that international treaties carry greater weight than the local laws and even the constitution of the local countries :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_(European_Union_law)

As to whether it applies to all treaties or just the EU ones, ... good question. In practice courts haven't really followed it.

Also, just as a data point, I've been working in Brussels for close to 20 years now and seen the evolution. I work as a consultant, so it has been a mixed bag for me. However, for just about everyone else, workers, middle class, business owners, ... it has been a consistently worsening disaster.

Having regularly worked for the EU commission, let me tell you this : any idea you may have that this organization has anything but their own economic interests at heart can be cured by chatting with one of them for 5 minutes.

> The US already has such a ban, but putting it in a treaty makes it worse (harder to repeal)

The TPP would not, in US law terms, be a treaty, but a regular federal statute.

The point is that something that is included as part and parcel of a treaty may involve breaking the treaty and suffering all kinds of other consequences.

There's essentially no enforcement of copyright law in many of the signatory states. Yes DRM kind of sucks, but rampant piracy also kind of sucks. The way the US does it I think is closer to optimal than the way Vietnam does it. That's why Google calls the provisions "balanced copyright enforcement."

> The way the US does it I think is closer to optimal than the way Vietnam does it

Specifically with regard to DRM I'd say they are just as ineffective, but more consumer hostile.

With things like WebRTC, I don't think there will be any way to prevent piracy in the future.

Regarding piracy I think it would actually rise because of even more extensive geoblocking.

That is false. Vietnam does not count as "many". As far as enforcement goes, Japan could be said to have stricter enforcement than the US, recently non-commercial infringers actually being arrested by the police and facing imprisonment (I'm not aware of anyone being actually imprisoned yet) for downloading files on Share or Winny.

But this is all red herring since the TPP does not set any goals for measuring actual ENFORCEMENT, it only imposes new IP laws outside of the democratic process, with zero transparency, all while claiming to be a "free trade treaty".

Let's make it clear: Copyright laws have nothing to do with free trade. Let's suppose for a moment the US Copyright law is anywhere near "balanced" (and Canada is a caribbean pirate cove, as xxAA groups and the USTR love to claim). That still has nothing to do with Free Trade. If the Obama administration really wants to use TPP to fix all of the world's evils as they see them, why not push signatories to accept LGBT marriage for instance?

"The Trouble with the TPP" series by Michael Geist [0] is an excellent view of some of the issues with it, and demonstrates how the huge nature of the TPP makes it difficult to create short (digestible) but powerful arguments against it. It was very much written from Canada's point of view, so it isn't the most convincing argument for why the US, or any other country, shouldn't ratify the treaty.

[0] http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tech-law-topics/tpp/

I honestly can't fathom why this question has been downvoted. It's a reasonable question, and one I share.

It's a large and complicated document; there's plenty of room for bad ideas, and plenty of room for good. The real question is, "Would we rather have nothing?" Because the existing ecosystem of loosely-affiliated nation-by-nation policies is a sh-tshow.

Yes, we would certanly rather have nothing. Status Quo is infinitely better than forced data transfer of our data to another nation and infinitely better than selling out IP protection to US corporation under ridiculous copyright laws.

If that's true, why does your local legislature (I don't know where you are) enable the treaty in domestic law?

It doesn't. I'm not sure why that would affect this debate at all?

If your local legislature doesn't enable the treaty, you aren't bound by it: it isn't a part of your law. A trade treaty is essentially a promise to pass a set of laws.

Generally treaties are negotiated by the executive of a country, not the legislative force. Even in the cases where there is still a ratification step, the initiative is taken away from the legislative, and the law is written by indirectly (at best) elected commissars (in the case of the EU), rather than directly elected representatives.

In the case of the EU, there isn't even a ratification step once the EU commission (which isn't elected) agrees to a treaty.

And of course ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_(European_Union_law)

That means that with EU commission agreement you get the supreme court (that supersedes all local courts) arguing that anything the commission agrees to can countermand local constitutions.

So local legislature agreement required, in many cases, is incorrect.

Eh, no it isn't (necessarily). That depends on whether a certain legal system is monistic or dualistic; or rather, adheres to monistic or dualistic principles (it's not a black or white thing). Without knowing where the GP is from, you can't reasonably make any assumptions, because both are common.

The total number of down votes I've gotten is crazy. HN sucks when you don't agree with the hivemind. It's frustrating.

The most discouraging pattern is down-votes on reasonable comments without any feedback whatsoever. Before a person can down-vote they should be required to leave a response OR to up-vote an existing response.

That's because we don't know enough about the actual text to make a substantial argument. All we have are leaked drafts. And by the time the documents are finalized, it will be signed before the ink of the text is dry.

Do you know how many consumer advocacy groups are included in the negotiation process for TPP? I gather it's zero. Given the process is specifically intended to keep out consumers, why should we believe the end result will be any different?

Not true. Full text had been available since November.

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

To expound on this, "by the time the documents are finalized, it will be signed before the ink of the text is dry" is typical FUD from anti-TPP people who've never bothered reading anything on the subject except other anti-TPP FUD.

Negotiating treaties in private is normal, to prevent parties from manipulating public opinion to gain a stronger negotiating position and to prevent kneejerk outcries from the anti-trade crowd for every random provision any party proposes regardless of its likelihood to actually be in the final text. It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy.

As a prominent example of a treaty which was negotiated fully in the open: The UN treaty. Broadcasters were present and recording large parts of the negotiations. Positions papers were printed during the negotiations. Detailed information including drafts was mailed out to citizens of many countries.

Negotiating treaties in private has become normal because its inconvenient to those who wish to find ways getting their pet provisions packaged into something that is hard to resist.

> Negotiating treaties in private is normal, to prevent parties from manipulating public opinion to gain a stronger negotiating position and to prevent kneejerk outcries from the anti-trade crowd for every random provision any party proposes regardless of its likelihood to actually be in the final text. It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy.

Isn’t this the definition of doublethink?

It will prevent the public from influencing the treaty while it is being made (prevent outcries for random provision), but it will not undermine the ability of the public to influence treaties(It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy)

No. It's a deal negotiated between twelve parties with different interests. The public/Congress get ample opportunity to review the completed deal and decide if it's worthwhile, just not access to the minute details of the negotiating process. That protects the treaty from being torpedoed by demagogues stirring up public outrage and drawing arbitrary red lines in order to gain unfair leverage over other parties. It also protects parties from public antagonism for making any concession, even if it's for a worthwhile return.

If everyone is willing to ratify a deal – that is, it's better than no deal at all – it's reasonable to take measures that make it possible for the deal to be reached in the first place.

So what you're saying is that this law is really being kept secret for our own advantage ? Politicians can't be held responsible for their actions because they benefit us ? Can't have public influence over the deal because that would "torpedo" it ?

Maybe you should move to Russia or China, and have all your deals and laws done like this.

And they give the same argument you're giving : "it's for your own good". And I bet in one case out of 10 that's actually true.

But it's not secret. Read it.

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

Not sure what you're trying to say ... obviously it was kept secret and is now being presented as a done deal, even when there are LOTS of things in there that we should never ever agree to [1][2]. Moreover it's something congress would never agree to normally.

It's 10x worse than the DMCA, it's anti-consumer, it advocates worse global warming and prevents people from doing anything about it, it's got disastrously bad anti-employee policies, and so on and so forth. I at one point called it the "Indians get medicine now. Let's fix that" agreement.

Why are you even defending it ? Aren't there any red flags in it from your perspective ? Because I'm pretty sure that if you aren't Lloyd Blankfein, that's guaranteed.

So why are you defending it.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/now-we-know-why-h...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eastwest-center/tpp-the-new-go...

It was secret while being negotiated. The reason was that they knew people wouldn't like it. It was surprising that businesses were allowed to access it for things that affected them.

The public gets to influence the implementation or ratification of the final treaty, but they don't get to be a party to the entire negotiation process.

But they should.

In the US, the signature means little; it must be ratified after the fact by a 2/3 vote of the Senate to come into effect. So - we have a bit of time to influence our lawmakers. It must be a huge, SOPA-level effort, but it can be done. And it must be done.

Trade agreements are basically never treated as treaties, but are, after negotiated, submitted to Congress for passage as regular laws -- as TPP has been -- so it will take a simple majority in each house of Congress, followed by the signature of the President (or, 2/3 of each house to override a veto if one occurs.)

FWIW in June of last year, Obama allied with Senate Republicans, beating his own party, to get TPP fast tracked, meaning that the vote will be all or nothing, up or down, and will receive little debate, oversight, and no amendments before the vote.

The vote was 60-38.

Around that time, Clinton did refer to the secretly-written TPP as the "gold standard" in trade negotiations, but possibly due to pressure from Sanders and the rest of the party, has backed down, saying it was flawed and she doesn't support it.

Trump has also gone after the TPP numerous times, basically shoving a long-standing Republican establishment plank in their faces.

So weirdly both candidates oppose the TPP. I'm wondering if this is going to be saved for after the election, then jammed through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/24/barack-obama-...

> FWIW in June of last year, Obama allied with Senate Republicans, beating his own party, to get TPP fast tracked, meaning that the vote will be all or nothing, up or down,

This is true. A supermajority in Congress chose to preemptively waive its filibuster, as it has routinely in such situations since the 1970s. Article 1 Section 5 of the Constitution grants each house of Congress the power to set its own rules. Many believe the filibuster shouldn't exist.

> and will receive little debate, oversight, and no amendments before the vote.

I don't understand how people are still making this argument.

The text has available for seven months at this point and no vote is in sight. There's been plenty of time for both NGOs and individuals to review. The treaty is fairly lengthy (it did take seven years to negotiate after all), but it's certainly readable.

If you're so concerned about not knowing the text, why don't you read it?

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

60-40 in the Senate for cloture.

Why must it be done? Tell me. So far not a single person in this thread has given a strong argument against the TPP. Not one.

How about anti-national-sovereignty? The secret drafts and the extra-legal processes weaken national sovereignty.

I think a strong nation is good for consumers, and a weak nation destroys the consumer base.

Has there ever been a trade agreement that was not drafted in secret? I mean that's pretty much the point in these things, lots of horse trading behind closed doors.

Has there ever been a trade agreement that was not drafted in secret?

Have there been many trade agreements that were drafted by corporations instead of government representatives?

Of course the government was involved. Of course corporations were involved (it's trade, completely pointless without corporations!).

Trade was a thing for thousands of years before the rise of corporations.

> Have there been many trade agreements that were drafted by corporations instead of government representatives?

Pretty much all major trade agreements of the modern era have been largely drafted by corporate lobbyists, so, I guess "yes" is the answer you are looking for.

Why do you ask?

TPP and TTIP do seem to go quite a bit further than just some agreement about tariffs, though. There are public health issues at stake, and as such, public interest should definitely be involved.

There's nothing anti-sovereignty. ISDS only allows foreign entities to sue for breach of a law voted on by our own Congress inasmuch as it effects them.

Why not just use the US courts, then?

That is what companies do in the U.S.

ISDS is in the treaty to encourage foreign direct investment in developing nations, which often do not have well-functioning, independent and fair courts the way the U.S. does.

Are you referring to the part about corporations being able to sue nations if they take any measures that they can claim hurts their business? [0] I assume that the "ISDS" that Warren refers to in the linked article (which was written before the draft went public), is chapter 28, "Dispute Settlement," in the draft at readthetpp.com. [1] This is already happening, at least with tobacco companies. "Last Week Tonight" did a piece on this.[2]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-set...

[1] https://www.readthetpp.com/ch28.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UsHHOCH4q8

> if they take any measures that they can claim hurts their business?

This is just flat-out false. The second link you provided clearly lays out the criteria for resolution of a conflict via the ISDS:

> the dispute settlement provisions of this Chapter shall apply...wherever a Party considers that an actualor proposed measure of another Party is or would be inconsistent with the obligations of this Agreement or that another Party has otherwise failed to carry out its obligations under this Agreement; or wherever a Party considers thata benefit it could reasonably have expected to accrue to it under [this agreement] is being nullified or impaired as a result of the application of a measure of another Party that is not inconsistent with this Agreement.

That is, the ISDS is for resolution of conflicts which are alleged to be in violation the the treaty, not for "any measures that they can claim hurts their business". The Phillip-Morris case you cite is because PM alleges that the Australian government expropriated their intellectual property without due compensation. This post[0] has a very nice breakdown of ISDS cases, rationale, and outcomes.

Also give this thread[1] a read - SavannaJeff is a well-known professional trade economist, and has a lot of very valuable expert insight on the TPP that's worth reading.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/390p5l/over_2000000...

[1] https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/2srn0u/trade_sec...

Okay, thanks for the correction. I read the posts you linked and understand the issue better. Although we have a different definition of clearly.

And I admit that I still have trouble seeing the plaintiffs in these cases as any kind of victims. The first of your links states that companies can use the mere existence of an ISDS mechanism to produce a real "chilling effect" on countries not even part of the dispute. Is that "fair" to the people of those countries?

But okay, there are two sides. And we know which side the "sensationalist media" is on. And also the people of Europe, who (according to your second link) drove the EU to qualify and then scuttle ISDS language in the TTIP after "a lengthy public consultative process."

So I come away wondering what is the value proposition for the public. Or is this provision all carrot?

> I admit that I still have trouble seeing the plaintiffs in these cases as any kind of victims.

The allegations are breach of contract by the government (Veolia), local government changing the rules after signing a contract in order to make it difficult or impossible for the company to fulfill the contract (Vattenfall), and allegations that the government seized a company's IP without due compensation (Phillip-Morris). If the claims hold up, those are three very good examples of companies being victimized by local governments. The "chilling effect" that you mention is in regards to the Phillip-Morris case, where the author speculates that PM was attempting to use the suit to discourage similar behavior in other signatory countries. It didn't work out for them[0] - the system did what it was supposed to in that case, and (properly) no chilling effect was produced. We cannot simply say that because any threat of legal action may have a chilling effect that the possibility for companies to seek legal remedies is a bad thing.

> So I come away wondering what is the value proposition for the public. Or is this provision all carrot?

The value proposition is that by having an arbitrating entity that is not likely to be under the thumb of this or that sovereign entity, companies are much more willing to conduct business in those countries when they have some assurance that their disputes against a local government won't be heard and denied by a sock puppet court controlled by that same government. It's much the same reason that we domestically use our judicial system and neutral third-party arbitration to resolve disputes, rather than just relying on counterparties to self-police themselves.

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/austra...

Here is the way I see it:

Accept that free trade as a general principal is a good thing for all parties.

NAFTA and agreements modeled after it have this in common: They throw US manufacturing jobs under the bus so that we can all have more competitive, fuel efficient, cheaper, safer cars. (Hooray).

OK, so lets say we just killed ~2,000,000 'decent paying' jobs, many of them union, and did a number on hundreds of rust belt communities. Well thats fine, everyone is better off. We are saving money here. Saving Lives.

But what about other industries? Pharmaceuticals do not support nearly the number of jobs that auto industry does. Maybe 30,000 very well paying white collar jobs, people who are upwardly mobile and educated. It is widely accepted that that industry is sapping US economy of strength. We regularly pay 10X what other countries do. Why don't we open up that market to competition too!

Oh wait, thats an industry with deep connections in Washington. They rank up there with banks as the largest political donors, spend the most on lobbyists, and so on. So count them out, they don't need competition.

OK, so the standard counter argument to this is that Pharma is a special case. We let them keep the fat on their margins because... innovation! Think of all the lives we are saving by shoveling them money! If only it were that simple.

The overwhelming majority of the increase in lifespan over the past 100 years has not been modern medicine; its been public health efforts like sewars, safety standards, and as well as a handful of fluke cures like polio vaccine, penicillin, smallpox vaccine, no thanks to the pharmaceutical industrial complex.

I could go on, the point is that too often trade deals are structured to protect the politically connected and their interests while regressively opening up high employment industries to competition. So even if you believe that free trade is a great thing (I do) it is also valid to acknowledge that it has historically been adopted in a regressive way.

Medicine is by far the most flagrant example, but plenty of others.

Another valid, if more contrived argument is this: A trade agreement is a treaty. Once a treaty is passed, congress cannot easily change it; it become the domain of the executive branch and regulatory agencies specified in the treaty. So a lot of progressive critics see it as a way of creating a court system to mediate trade disputes which is not accountable to the laws that congress makes or repeals.

On example of this is the cigarette industry, which has successfully used NAFTA courts to prevent third word countries from banning sales or making labeling requirements on the grounds that it was a violation of IP and so on.

But the bigger problem is that you have this international body making decisions that effect everyone which is not directly accountable to anyone. So in its way it is a separation of powers and taxation without representation type argument which really requires deeper reading than I can provide here.

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