European-Canadian Free Trade Agreement Documents | Hacker News Reader

European-Canadian Free Trade Agreement Documents

netzpolitik.org

69 pointsjk493016 comments

ComputerWorld UK is summarizing TTIP news, a live blog of the slow but steady transition from nation state to corporate lawsuits. The first tier of governance will be done by lawsuit and whatever is left can be done by national governments.

There are implications for all startups: should your incumbent competitor be granted the ability to sue a national government and influence your ability to compete in a geographical market?

A single lawsuit can affect multiple industries, e.g. by changing insurance requirements. For the low low price of one lawsuit, a deep-pocketed competitor can influence multiple nation states and industries, by setting new trans-national "legal" precedent.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-up...

"However, one thing we have learned is that those behind unbalanced laws like SOPA and treaties like ACTA, never give up. If they fail with one, they just try again with another. And so it turns out in the wake of ACTA's demise. We are now witnessing exactly the same secretive approach being applied to TTIP - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – originally known as TAFTA, the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement."

On a positive note, please share the CC-licensed A2K (Access to Knowledge) Handbook (pdf), http://a2knetwork.org/handbook & http://a2knetwork.org/book

"Access to Knowledge (A2K) is the umbrella term for a movement that aims to create more equitable public access to the products of human culture and learning. The ultimate objective of the movement is to create a world in which educational and cultural works are accessible to all, and in which consumers and creators alike participate in a vibrant ecosystem of innovation and creativity."

Leaked the day that FIPA (the Canada-China trade deal) gets ratified by Prime minister Harper [1].

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/harper-oks-potentially...

> "Even if found unconstitutional by a court down the road...once the treaty has been ratified, none of the obligations assumed by Canada can be modified unless China agrees," he said."

Is that assessment based on Canadian law?

Why is this not being reported by any of our national news outlets! Instead I'm fed the latest drivel on rob ford.

Could you try to investigate that question with your usual news providers? I for one would be interested to learn about the reasons, if you can find out any.

I think the reasons are straightforward. Page views. Rob Ford gets clicks, and doesn't take any effort to write. Complex trade deals are boring and take research to make sense of, and after all that research may not even result in a meaningful story.

Is this the "official" reason given by the media though?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-investment-trea...

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/canada-ratifies-investment-de...

http://www.leadnow.ca/stop-fipa/

> "In effect, it will give China access to, and control over, some of Canada’s natural resources for the next 31 years."

Why 31 years, is that number commonly used in other trade agreements? Or is 2045 a special year?

If the next Canadian government decides not to honor this agreement, what could China do (outside of military action) besides negotiate a new agreement? If the next Chinese government decides not to honor this future legacy agreement, what could Canada do, besides negotiate a new agreement?

It seems inefficient to make secret agreements that can be rescinded by massive public opposition once the agreements are made public.

Optimistic locking in databases only works when the chance of a conflicting lock is low.

Wow. I checked CBC, CCTV, and globe and mail myself before commenting and didn't see anything.

After your comment I double checked and saw it buried at the bottom of the politics page.

Sadly, the CBC doesn't provide any insight except for the usual quotes from political parties. CTV is marginally better. But the real question is where do you go for real journalism in this country?

"Real" journalism is difficult to find. Maybe look locally, internationally, and places that you've not been before.

http://thetyee.ca/

http://www.democracynow.org/

http://rt.com/

http://english.aljazeera.net/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

http://dissidentvoice.org/

Some excellent journalists have moved from CBC to Al Jazeera. And, I note that many former American news anchors can be found on RT. Please do your own research, and take everything with a grain of salt.

Let me know what you find out.

Leaked more than a month ago in Germany by Tagesschau http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/ceta-101.html

But incomplete. And they reduced the number of the available documents.

What does that mean to DRM laws, and Patent laws in the EU. What does trade have to do with those laws?? Every country in EU needs to enforce it? Has it come to that already?

More info here, http://stopttip.net/data-security-internet-freedom/

This story was pushed off the front page by three stories that had steadily declined to page 4 over several hours, then suddenly jumped to the front page in 5 minutes.

http://hnrankings.info/8311860,8312295,8312249,8312411/

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Edit: HN moderator response in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8313505

Reply on news.ycombinator.com