6 ms·

This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was ma

by dak1 11y ago

This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations), the US Congress could move the bar. The President still has pressure to deliver a sound agreement though or Congress can simply reject it. With regard to the timeline, it takes a lot longer to negotiate terms with multiple actors, where a single sentence or word could be debated for days and months, than it takes to read and understand the effects of the final text.

shmerl 11y ago
> This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations) It's easily fixable - make negotiations public to begin with. Doesn't WIPO follow such practice anyway? So, the only reason not to make it public is to hide something that public will not accept. It should be a simple rule - any negotiations which affect the legal system should be public. Period. And stuff like TPP clearly does affect laws.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Reasonable people can debate whether it's helpful or harmful to precede public ratification of a trade deal with secret negotiations, but I don't think reasonable people can argue that the only reason to do secret negotiations is to slip toxic provisions past a suspicious public. Trade deals happen between whole countries, not individual businesses. Each company compromises many hundreds of businesses. In any trade deal, there will be winner companies and loser companies. The negotiators for each country need to strike terms so that the wins pay for the losses and then some. It's much harder to do that if all the big companies that stand to lose from a deal get a veto vote early in the process.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    Whether it's the only reason to make it secret or not is not really the point. As long as secrecy allows circumventing the democratic process and create laws through a backdoor it shouldn't be allowed. If you paid attention, these agreements aren't about trade. They are about promoting interests of some businesses through legislative means. Companies can gain or lose, but so is the public. Therefore there is no reason to give companies some preferential treatment here.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Reasonable people also debate whether what's happening here "circumvents the democratic process", since the point of the secret negotiation is to generate a proposal that, in the US at least, requires Congressional authorization. Personally: I think the reason people resort to "undemocratic" and "backdoor" rhetoric is because they realize that once the treaty is put to a "it's this treaty or no treaty" vote, it will inevitably pass. The people who want a more "open" process really want more hooks earlier in the process to hold the whole treaty hostage to their interests. They can do that early in the process because the stakes are very low ("accede to our demands or the negotiation will be delayed"). They can't do that once the treaty is finalized ("accede to our demands or there will be no free trade agreement"). That's not a value judgement. Many of those interests are extremely worthy. But they should be argued on their merits, and not through a misleading appeal to democratic process. Democratic process sometimes seems like what many of TPP's opponents seem to be afraid of. (ducking) (I have no idea if I personally support TPP. I'm a LeVeyan liberal Democrat; "Do What's Best For The Public School System Shalt Be The Whole Of The Law".)
      - shmerl 11y ago
        >I think the reason people resort to "undemocratic" and "backdoor" rhetoric is because they realize that once the treaty is put to a "it's this treaty or no treaty" vote, it will inevitably pass. That's exactly what undemocratic means here. I.e. democratic process reduced to rubberstamping farce. > The people who want a more "open" process really want more hooks earlier in the process to hold the whole treaty hostage to their interests. People want laws to have democratic oversight instead of rubberstamping of shady deals. Saying that there is some formal approval is completely irrelevant when you admit that it can't change anything. > That's not a value judgement. Many of those interests are extremely worthy. But they should be argued on their merits That would be an argument of democracy vs plutocracy.

by dak1 11y ago

shmerl 11y ago

> This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations) It's easily fixable - make negotiations public to begin with. Doesn't WIPO follow such practice anyway? So, the only reason not to make it public is to hide something that public will not accept. It should be a simple rule - any negotiations which affect the legal system should be public. Period. And stuff like TPP clearly does affect laws.

tptacek 11y ago
Reasonable people can debate whether it's helpful or harmful to precede public ratification of a trade deal with secret negotiations, but I don't think reasonable people can argue that the only reason to do secret negotiations is to slip toxic provisions past a suspicious public. Trade deals happen between whole countries, not individual businesses. Each company compromises many hundreds of businesses. In any trade deal, there will be winner companies and loser companies. The negotiators for each country need to strike terms so that the wins pay for the losses and then some. It's much harder to do that if all the big companies that stand to lose from a deal get a veto vote early in the process.
- shmerl 11y ago
  Whether it's the only reason to make it secret or not is not really the point. As long as secrecy allows circumventing the democratic process and create laws through a backdoor it shouldn't be allowed. If you paid attention, these agreements aren't about trade. They are about promoting interests of some businesses through legislative means. Companies can gain or lose, but so is the public. Therefore there is no reason to give companies some preferential treatment here.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Reasonable people also debate whether what's happening here "circumvents the democratic process", since the point of the secret negotiation is to generate a proposal that, in the US at least, requires Congressional authorization. Personally: I think the reason people resort to "undemocratic" and "backdoor" rhetoric is because they realize that once the treaty is put to a "it's this treaty or no treaty" vote, it will inevitably pass. The people who want a more "open" process really want more hooks earlier in the process to hold the whole treaty hostage to their interests. They can do that early in the process because the stakes are very low ("accede to our demands or the negotiation will be delayed"). They can't do that once the treaty is finalized ("accede to our demands or there will be no free trade agreement"). That's not a value judgement. Many of those interests are extremely worthy. But they should be argued on their merits, and not through a misleading appeal to democratic process. Democratic process sometimes seems like what many of TPP's opponents seem to be afraid of. (ducking) (I have no idea if I personally support TPP. I'm a LeVeyan liberal Democrat; "Do What's Best For The Public School System Shalt Be The Whole Of The Law".)
    - shmerl 11y ago
      >I think the reason people resort to "undemocratic" and "backdoor" rhetoric is because they realize that once the treaty is put to a "it's this treaty or no treaty" vote, it will inevitably pass. That's exactly what undemocratic means here. I.e. democratic process reduced to rubberstamping farce. > The people who want a more "open" process really want more hooks earlier in the process to hold the whole treaty hostage to their interests. People want laws to have democratic oversight instead of rubberstamping of shady deals. Saying that there is some formal approval is completely irrelevant when you admit that it can't change anything. > That's not a value judgement. Many of those interests are extremely worthy. But they should be argued on their merits That would be an argument of democracy vs plutocracy.