TPP a Trojan horse
September 27, 2013
By Sachie Mizohata and the Association of University Faculties
(See petition against the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement here in English and or here in Japanese.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement is a proposed trade pact that Japan is negotiating with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam (as of September 2013). The TPP aims to increase the liberalization of economies in the Pacific region through abolition of tariffs on trade as well as reregulation. [1]
In 2008, the United States joined the talks "and has espoused a hard core complete free trade policy", which has vastly expanded the scope of the negotiations. [2] With both the US and Japan as participants, the pact would cover nearly 40% of the world's economy. [3] Japan officially joined one of final rounds of the negotiations in July 2013 in Malaysia, as the participating countries intend to finalize the TPP negotiations (at least partially) by the end of 2013. [4]
The TPP agreement affects not only trade issues, but also non-trade matters that immensely impact lives of citizens in all participating countries. [5] The areas at stake include, for example:
Domestic court decisions and international legal standards (eg, overriding domestic laws on both trade and non-trade matters, foreign investors' right to sue governments in international tribunals that would overrule the national sovereignty);
in full:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-02-270913.html
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