Wikileaks has spilled a final draft of Intellectual Property Rights chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, its release is stoking fears for critics of the controversial deal, who say its regulations will effect everything from civil liberties to internet service.
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The intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership gives signatory countries greater power to stop embarrassing information going public and imposes new restrictions on generic drugs.
“If TPP is ratified, people in the Pacific-Rim countries would have to live by the rules in this leaked text”, Maybarduk, tells Telesurf.
Aside from the WikiLeaks publication, the vast majority of the mammoth deal’s contents are still being withheld from the public-which a WikiLeaks press statement suggests is a strategic move by world leaders to forestall public criticism until after the Canadian election on October 19.
In particular and with limited exceptions, as an analysis by Public Citizen notes (pdf), “all TPP countries-regardless of level of development, poverty or wealth-will be required to adopt the TPP’s pharmaceutical IP rules”. Generic medicine is usually far less expensive.
The chapter on these intellectual property issues is what has been leaked by Wikileaks, and is one of the more controversial chapters in the whole agreement. “The TPP would cost lives”.
The leaked documents are dated October 5, the same day the 12 participating nations – including the United States, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Vietnam – announced a deal had been struck in secret between trade negotiators.
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The idea behind the TPP is free trade – amongst the member states, it aims to lower trade barriers, create a common standard for intellectual property, enforce labour and environmental law standards and promote economic growth. Removal of digital locks or tampering with “rights management information” is also prohibited, and possibly subject to criminal charges. A few countries will be allowed to step up to this extension gradually, including New Zealand, which will have eight years to add to the overall length of copyright, but others, like Canada, will be changing their laws immediately upon signing the agreement.
