4 ms·

How are these agreements anything less than the end of national sovereignty?

by api 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago
To begin with: because the secret agreements that are only available in "reading rooms" are not binding.
- acqq 11y ago
  It doesn't appear that the user api is discussing the "non binding" variant of the agreements. Once these agreements are secretly made and they exit the "look from my hand only, no photographs, no copies allowed" "reading rooms" they are binding but then it's too late to react (by the definition of them being binding). The problem is that the interested parties weren't even allowed to have their own copy of them, even less to discuss the exact texts with others, as there are no copies. The last time I've read about such a "secure room" and the computer setup, it was the way how CIA falsified to the congressmen their data related to the torture: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=db84e844-01bb-4eb6-b318-31486374a895 http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-relea... "Now, after noting the disparity between the official CIA response to the committee study and the Internal Panetta Review, the committee staff securely transported a printed portion of the draft Internal Panetta Review from the committee’s secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate Office Building."
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I think I understand your argument, but I think it's just excuse-making by legislators. The agreements must be voted into law to become binding. The agreements are typically published, for public review, for many months prior to that vote. There is nothing in these trade agreements so prohibitively complex that a legislator's office --- reasonably well funded in the US --- can't read and generate an opinion on it. The reality, I think, is that most US legislators want to vote "yes" on these treaties. They're jobs bills, and the US has an overwhelming advantage in trade negotiations due to our market power, so the odds of them being slanted against our interests are very low. There are very good reasons not to vote for the bills --- for instance, in the case of the TPP, you might be worried about stricter IP laws preventing people from obtaining the best possible medical care. But those issues primarily affect people who will never vote. So instead, the legislators wave their hands and shout "ONOZ SECRET LAWS" and pretend that the treaties are a fait accompli, which saves them the trouble of actually making a stand on the merits. The situation might be very different for smaller countries (I don't know really anything about how treaties are ratified in Europe). But for countries with the market and political clout of, say, Germany or France, it seems unlikely that the dynamics are that much different.
    - acqq 11y ago
      > The agreements are typically published, for public review, Typically but obviously not for TTIP, as we see in the articles.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        I think this is a non-sequitur, as T-TIP is still being negotiated. There's no treaty to publish yet.
        acqq 11y ago
        And the topic of the articles linked is that the negotiation process as it is performed is against the interests of those from whom it is being hidden.
        tptacek 11y ago
        Your comments on this thread are right there for everyone to read. Just a few comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding binding treaties. Now you appear to be pretending that was never your argument.
        acqq 11y ago
        > Just a few comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding binding treaties. I don't agree. Please quote where I wrote that with these words. If you mean "agreements" I refer to the current state of the "agreements" which was all the time the topic of the articles linked, not the "final all-or-nothing state of them" that you want to introduce, and that for TTIP don't exist at the moment, so nobody can write about them at all or comment them. I'm fascinated that you introduced to the discussion something that doesn't exist and try to sell that once that exists, in whichever form, it will magically negate the problems currently written about. But I won't discuss more as the article went away from the first page.
    - ionised 11y ago
- api 11y ago
  So essentially you're saying (and also re: your other comments) that this is basically a bunch of nothing?
anigbrowl 11y ago
Any time two countries sign a treaty they're agreeing to abide by a common set of rules on some particular topic. Countries have been making treaties with each other for about 800 years without destroying the concept of sovereignty. Indeed, if a sovereign power can't enter into binding legal agreements then I would argue it's constitutionally deficient.

How are these agreements anything less than the end of national sovereignty?

by api 11y ago

How are these agreements anything less than the end of national sovereignty?

tptacek 11y ago

To begin with: because the secret agreements that are only available in "reading rooms" are not binding.

acqq 11y ago
It doesn't appear that the user api is discussing the "non binding" variant of the agreements. Once these agreements are secretly made and they exit the "look from my hand only, no photographs, no copies allowed" "reading rooms" they are binding but then it's too late to react (by the definition of them being binding). The problem is that the interested parties weren't even allowed to have their own copy of them, even less to discuss the exact texts with others, as there are no copies. The last time I've read about such a "secure room" and the computer setup, it was the way how CIA falsified to the congressmen their data related to the torture: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=db84e844-01bb-4eb6-b318-31486374a895 http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-relea... "Now, after noting the disparity between the official CIA response to the committee study and the Internal Panetta Review, the committee staff securely transported a printed portion of the draft Internal Panetta Review from the committee’s secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate Office Building."
- tptacek 11y ago
  I think I understand your argument, but I think it's just excuse-making by legislators. The agreements must be voted into law to become binding. The agreements are typically published, for public review, for many months prior to that vote. There is nothing in these trade agreements so prohibitively complex that a legislator's office --- reasonably well funded in the US --- can't read and generate an opinion on it. The reality, I think, is that most US legislators want to vote "yes" on these treaties. They're jobs bills, and the US has an overwhelming advantage in trade negotiations due to our market power, so the odds of them being slanted against our interests are very low. There are very good reasons not to vote for the bills --- for instance, in the case of the TPP, you might be worried about stricter IP laws preventing people from obtaining the best possible medical care. But those issues primarily affect people who will never vote. So instead, the legislators wave their hands and shout "ONOZ SECRET LAWS" and pretend that the treaties are a fait accompli, which saves them the trouble of actually making a stand on the merits. The situation might be very different for smaller countries (I don't know really anything about how treaties are ratified in Europe). But for countries with the market and political clout of, say, Germany or France, it seems unlikely that the dynamics are that much different.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > The agreements are typically published, for public review, Typically but obviously not for TTIP, as we see in the articles.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I think this is a non-sequitur, as T-TIP is still being negotiated. There's no treaty to publish yet.
      - acqq 11y ago
        And the topic of the articles linked is that the negotiation process as it is performed is against the interests of those from whom it is being hidden.
        tptacek 11y ago
        Your comments on this thread are right there for everyone to read. Just a few comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding binding treaties. Now you appear to be pretending that was never your argument.
        acqq 11y ago
        > Just a few comments up, you're asserting that the T-TIP process is hiding binding treaties. I don't agree. Please quote where I wrote that with these words. If you mean "agreements" I refer to the current state of the "agreements" which was all the time the topic of the articles linked, not the "final all-or-nothing state of them" that you want to introduce, and that for TTIP don't exist at the moment, so nobody can write about them at all or comment them. I'm fascinated that you introduced to the discussion something that doesn't exist and try to sell that once that exists, in whichever form, it will magically negate the problems currently written about. But I won't discuss more as the article went away from the first page.
  - ionised 11y ago
api 11y ago
So essentially you're saying (and also re: your other comments) that this is basically a bunch of nothing?

anigbrowl 11y ago

Any time two countries sign a treaty they're agreeing to abide by a common set of rules on some particular topic. Countries have been making treaties with each other for about 800 years without destroying the concept of sovereignty. Indeed, if a sovereign power can't enter into binding legal agreements then I would argue it's constitutionally deficient.