UN Experts Condemn the Human Rights Costs of Secret Trade Agreements | Hacker News Reader

UN Experts Condemn the Human Rights Costs of Secret Trade Agreements

eff.org

190 pointsDiabloD376 comments

Let's not forget TISA which covers 50 countries including EU and US, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_in_Services_Agreement

"The agreement bans government mandates for use of open source software, stating "No Party may require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition of providing services related to such software in its territory." The open source word processing application LibreOffice has been deployed by many local governments throughout the EU to save money..

.. the agreement would strip existing protections which aim to keep confidential or personally identifiable data within country borders or which prohibit its movement to other countries which do not have similar data protection laws in place.

.. seeking to end publicly provided services like public pension funds, which are referred to as 'monopolies' and to limit public regulation of all financial services ."

> The agreement aims at liberalizing the worldwide trade of services such as banking, health care and transport.

Yes these services really need liberalizing. Just look at all the damage that has been caused by the public ownership of these services. You know private elites would be better off being in control of these services.

http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-05-with-controver...

"10 organizations representing more than 10 million Americans called on U.S. Trade Representative -- USTR -- Michael Froman to publicly release all records of communication between himself and representatives of the ten largest U.S. financial institutions -- including his former employer Citigroup -- while he has served in the USTR position."

This sounds so absurd.

Wait, so if I server Javascript to a client's computer, I am a criminal ??

do you what is the greatest monopoly ? government !

We should privatize the government and let the free market decide.

One can view regulatory capture as a successful penetration test of democracy.

What lessons can be learned from analysis of democratic process vulnerabilities?

That is specifically relating only to procurement tendering processes which specify "must be open source" as a requirement.

"No Party may require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition of providing services related to such software in its territory."

Is the intent here to avoid government mandates for open source when tendering? Because it doesn't actually say that. Is parties only the government agency? Worded as it is it seems like it might trample over copyright by making the GPL unenoforcable in certain circumstances.

"Parties" in this context is "parties to the treaty". So, weirdly, a country would be able to require source from suppliers internally but not from suppliers from other countries.

It's fairly obvious that this is intended to prevent Microsoft from being excluded from bids.

If only human rights were a thing people were still in favour of - here in the UK the government and the majority of the population (through a sustained propaganda campaign) strongly oppose human rights, and see them as "EU interference". If you dare point out that Britain practically wrote the echr back in the 50's... Well, you try it. People turn purple and start calling you a terrorist.

It's easy in our little bubble to forget that most of the populace don't know, don't care, don't want to know anything about trade agreements, and will simply take the first opinion handed to them as their own.

The alternative is that people rationally think stuff through, and end up going "Down with humans! Dey took mah jurb!", which I can't believe.

Either way, if the UN keep it up, I'd wager you'll start seeing bits in the British press about how the UN wants to take our freedom and give it to someone else because immigration and terrorists and tigers oh my.

I have no idea what part of the UK you are in where people turn purple and call you a terrorist because you tell the Britain wrote the echr.

Many people don't know that fact, but they don't tend to deny it.

Most people I know don't know about trade agreements, and indeed they don't care, but not because they want "someone else" to give them an opinion, but because they feel (probably rightly) that they can have almost no impact on how business and government cosy up together. Recent history suggests they are right.

I find it easy to understand as well how people can think (in your insulting terms) "Dey took mah jurb!", because once again, I know many people where that is, at least in the small, clearly what happened to them.

Of course if the factory where they worked hadn't fired most the UK workers and replaced them with other workers on lower pay, benefits and safety the factory would have been forced to close and move overseas, but that is a more complex discussion to have.

In short, I'm disappointed but not surprised that the top-most answer here is "Look at all the lowly working class people, how stupid they all are. They clearly couldn't understand, or have any valid point of view".

that is a more complex discussion to have

Indeed. Some people have done very badly out of globalisation, who should have been treated better: compensation, transitional arrangements, possibly medium-term protectionism. There are social housing shortages and rent problems.

There has also been a determined campaign by the rightwing parties and press to put the blame for this firmly on the immigrants themselves. The left has had a disastrous response to this, which is to call anyone complaining about immigration a racist, rather than point to the misdirection and underlying problems of inequality.

(Finally, note that you can't tell someone's immigration status by looking at them, and quite a lot of the UK ethnic minority population aren't "immigrants" but were born here.)

> The left has had a disastrous response to this, which is to call anyone complaining about immigration a racist, rather than point to the misdirection and underlying problems of inequality.

(What I'm going to say is highly simplified, and possibly wrong. I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong in my views. I'd also like to add that in my ideals on social policy I am rather left-wing. I am also aware that the simple left-right divide misses an important axis (social/economical). That said, most people still speak of 'the left' and 'the right', so I'll do that.)

I see this as one of the primary reasons why the right-wing parties have done so well in The Netherlands (including more extreme right-wing parties like that of Geert Wilders and Rita Verdonk), which started when Pim Fortuyn gained in popularity.

Fortuyn rose in popularity because he dared to attack the Left's sacred 'multi-culti' approach. Their reaction was to denounce him as a racist, despite the fact that for the most part he actually acknowledged that the underlying problem was economic inequality.

Of course, over time, their continued denial of problems and refusal to discuss them left space for actual racist and nationalist parties like that of Geert Wilders.

From my point of view, based in part on my dealings with left-wing students, the Left is making two big 'mistakes': 1. their particular brand of 'caring' for the common folk is often really of a rather elitist, condescending and paternal kind, and these 'common folk' notice. 2. they refuse to understand, or perhaps because of 1, acknowledge that their complicated, academic views on things, however correct they may be, need to be translated in a way that everyone understands. At least when it comes to votes and not policy. I think this is possible without devolving into soundbites or pure populism.

Concerning 1, it's sad and a bit ironic that the Left, in a scramble for votes, eventually started acknowledging the problems and now do engage with the (perceived) problems with minorities in a somewhat populist way.

I didn't say anything about working class people. I said the populace in general, which actually largely refers to the hum-drum middle classes with comfortable enough lives that they don't care to think too deeply.

I didn't say that people want someone else to give them an opinion, simply that people will generally take opinion and accept it as truth if they haven't had any alternative view presented.

If anything, the working class is more politically aware than any other class in this country.

The people who turn purple and start getting very unhappy indeed are staunch conservatives, usually middle aged, who severely dislike their world-view being challenged.

Finally, in terms of "they took my job" - who are these they, precisely, and why are they to blame? They didn't take anyone's job - unscrupulous employers did that, and blaming migration or the ECHR is, frankly, asinine - and as per my post, I don't even blame the people who end up thinking this - rather those who orchestrate groupthink in order to make them think this.

The newspaper campaign against human rights law based on exploiting hatred of immigrant criminals has been very effective.

There are some small campaigns aiming to help correct the misinformation put out by most newspapers.

http://rightsinfo.org/infographics/what-human-rights-do-for-...

>> "here in the UK the government and the majority of the population (through a sustained propaganda campaign) strongly oppose human rights, and see them as "EU interference"."

Any source on this because I'm highly sceptical. Anecdotal but everyone I know is either pissed that government is even considering scrapping the Human Rights Act or confident that removing it wouldn't pass a vote.

Fair point re: source - I'm struggling to find something. It's anecdotal from here too, but I encounter right-wing views pretty much daily from all sorts.

Also, if you want to be dismayed, stop by "Have your say" on the BBC site whenever they talk about immigration or the EU or Human Rights.

The sad thing about all of these agreements is that they will most likely all be ratified by participating countries. Democracy has been watered down to; we can choose where we live, where we work and if we are lucky where we get buried when we die. That's it. People no longer get to influence the laws that govern them, society has been reduced down to: we pass these laws to protect you, we have your best interests at heart, because terrorism, because ISIS or some threat to our supposed freedom.

We all frown upon countries like China who restrict what their people can do online and offline, what they can say and do, but the ironic thing is these countries don't try to hide their actions and intents like the US and its corporate lobbyists do. We are told the TPP and all of those other agreements will be great for our countries, but will they?

The TPP specifically is a horrible piece of work. I understand free trade agreements are beneficial to keeping the economy going, but Australia (where I reside) ironically already has trade agreements with 8 of the 11 participating countries in the TPP anyway. Do we really need to sign a new agreement just to trade with 3 extra partners? We have a free healthcare system (free as in paid for using tax) where we get access to subsidised generic medicines and doctor visits that don't cost anything (like Canada) and under the TPP these freedoms thanks to corporate interests could be removed entirely.

The very fact that Australia has had to request exemption from our environment and healthcare system from being affected by the TPP and possible ISDS provisions is worrying in itself. If we even get these exemptions will be another matter entirely. Extending the duration under which pharmaceutical companies can block out generic medicines is a lose-lose situation for the poor.

I'm scared for what the future holds. I want my children to grow up having the same freedoms and benefits that I did, not having to pay exorbitant amounts of money to access medicines that would currently cost $10 or so under the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

You write as though in some mythical past democracy was more open - but the reality is that while things are as bad as they ever have been, democracy has always been a Punch and Judy show for the masses while the man behind the curtain commits atrocities. We're just more aware of it now as the Internet has hurt their information control, and governments' reactive nationalistic propaganda is blatant and overt.

The meat has realised that it's caged, and the people-farmers are trying very hard to get the rest of the herd to trample the ones who say "guys, we could walk out through this open gate".

The question is: walk out and go where? Sad as it is, you can't just let everyone manage everything in truly equal fashion, because almost everyone is totally incompetent in almost everything except their profession and their hobby, and majority has a lifestyle that is not conductive to managing a happy and prospering civilization. It seems to me that you'll always need someone with a vision at the top, because you can't direct things anywhere by committee.

I see. So the need for structure mandates the need for nation-states, as there is no alternative, and there have always been nation-states?

Recommend reading Hobbes' Leviathan and Hayek's Road to Serfdom, if this topic interests you.

I didn't mean that. AFAIK, nation states are quite recent development. But structure was always there, since the beginning of civilization. Sans full-blown digital fluid democracy I don't see how a society can be managed without a hierarchy. That probably reflects more my lack of imagination than something about the real world though.

I have a copy of Leviathan sitting on my desk right now, but I haven't got around to reading it yet :).

Nation states are a very recent development indeed - they've only really existed (as firm concepts) for about 400 years, and Hobbes essentially set out the system of the world we operate to today in Leviathan - prior to that, state power was vested in individuals and families, and was drawn from the divine (think "dieu et mon droit" or "l'etat, c'est moi").

There has been a hierarchical structure for as long as we recall, from tribal "big men" to pharaonic rule through to the POTUS - and we see this mirrored in Chimpanzees and Bonobos - but it does not mean that we must be bound to it. Consensus based rule becomes feasible when your arbiter and enforcer ceases to be human - the tragedy of the commons, Abilene paradox, etc., can be systemically dealt with - and replacing our current systems of governance and our current concepts of nationhood does not require a turn of the wheel, a revolution - rather it can happen from within, and co-exist, and with sufficient mass, simply render the current system an anachronism.

Consider monarchy - why do we still have it? Because thinkers in the enlightenment realised that trying to outright do away with it would be too painful a tear for their societies, so instead, they invented systems (parliament, representation of commoners) which worked within, and then subverted the existing power structure. The English Civil War and its aftermath (Glorious Revolution, specifically) underscored the fact that change happens best when you seek not to replace or overthrow, but simply to do better.

It can happen again. We just need to try.

The underlying problem is the strength of intergovernmental agreements. It turns out that making an international agreement to make or not make certain laws is actually more binding than the local constitution, and less subject to local democratic veto amendment.

All of these experts are involved with the UN Human Rights Council, a thoroughly discredited organization that consists mostly of undemocratic regimes with dismal human rights records, including Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan, Vietnam, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. There is only a single item that is permanently on the agenda and must be discussed at every meeting of the council: supposed Israeli human rights abuses. I'm not surprised to see more anti-Western and anti-capitalist propaganda coming from these people.

I agree with you about the amusingly named Human Rights Council, but that doesn't mean these trade agreements should be negotiated in secret or that these agreements are necessarily good.

What cracks me up the most is that OP just glosses over the fact that the US props up these human rights abusers as long as they play our game, and if they dont we send in the economic hitmen and then the jackals, and what follows is death and destruction beyond even the normal abusers. Also the fact that since the UN is basically a US creature, we control and veto any meaningful action anyway. So yeah OP, you tell us how bad They all are, and in the mean time the MICC will happily be sending them arms and surveillance trchnology to enable those abuses!

Most of the countries that I listed are not US allies. A minority of them receive US military and other aid because it's deemed a necessary evil. The classic example is Saudi Arabia. We don't like what they do internally and we don't like that they push their puritanical form of Islam around the world, but they're an essential ally in a very unfriendly region; and the collapse of their monarchy would create a very dangerous power vacuum. Pakistan is another example where the US has had to bite the bullet and deal with a very flawed ally, because the alternative is deemed to be worse.

As for the UN being unable to do much without US approval, it's simply not relevant to this discussion. This has nothing to do with the Security Council, which is where the US can exercise its veto.

Looking at the wiki page for Vietnam, they seem on par with the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam

  - Minorities pushed off their land so the majority can settle on it? Hello American Indians.
  - Holds 160 political prisoners? Hello Guantanamo Bay. (not to mention the US imprisons 5x as many people by proportion of population, some operating as labour camps) 
  - A bloke arrested and charged with subversion? Hello Snowden, who barely escaped.

Vietnam doesn't have freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech (rates very low on the press freedom index, for example), but apart from that, the US seems to be quite happy to engage in the same kinds of human rights abuses.

Even right down to corruption in police: witness the state of civil forfeiture laws in the US, which isn't recent either - Jello Biafra was singing in the 80s about having his property seized and legally sold before he was tried in court. Or the police abuse of blacks.

I mean hell, one of the greatest violations of human rights in the 20th century was the US war in Vietnam. Atrocities left, right, and centre. I just think it's a bit much to be painting Vietnam as having an atrocious human rights record, all the while implying that the US is some sort of gold standard.

You make valid criticisms about the human rights record of the US, but what is missing is a sense of proportion.

Is it really your view that the US human right record is on par with Vietnam, particularly if you need to qualify it by excluding "freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech" from your comparison?

Eh, I didn't really exclude it - I noted it. I was trying to show that abuses of human rights aren't limited solely to political affiliation and assembly.

And yes, arguments of proportion cut both ways - look at the incarceration rates in the US, a huge proportion of which is for a victimless crime (possessing drugs). Vietnam also doesn't go pounding its military around the world - there are hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, all due to a war started to shore up domestic support in the US, for example.

Human rights extend to all humans, not just citizens of the state in question.

Edit: I guess my fundamental point is that the implication was that the HRC would do better if the US was a member, based on members' track records. But the US's track record isn't particularly good either (particularly in regard to non-US citizens)

In the US it also takes other shapes. Incarceration rates at 1% of the population, including something which could be argued is corporate slavery, with a heavy bias for a particular portion of the population.

If you aren't part of that demographic it may not seem so bad. But the numbers are absolutely awful.

Can we include the illegal invasion of countries and the subsequent clusterfuck of death and destruction as a human rights violation?

Proportionate? The US has killed 4 million Vietnamese and poisoned large parts of the country with chemical weapons.

I doubt that their "regime" has ever done something comparable.

How many millions did any Vietnamese government in past or present kill in the middle east. How many terrorist organizations are currently run out of Hanoi in comparison to those run out of Washington?

Does the Vietnamese president sign kill lists and run torture camps across the globe?

I think the close relationship with Saudi Arabia is really more about oil than anything else. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest financier of Muslim terrorism in the world, and yet is conspicuously missing from the US list of countries that fund terrorism (yet Cuba was on it until recently). Of course Saudi Arabia is also the world's largest producer of oil, and that's the primary reason why the US (and most of the oil consuming world, really) wants to be their friend. It is of course also why they have so much money to fund terrorism.

This is just paranoid nonsense.

Which part in particular? Seems pretty accurate to me.

Maybe I should start by asking which doesn't seem like paranoid nonsense to you?

Well, you're the one who made the declaration. Seems like the onus is on you, right?

To make it easier, maybe you can point to just one of the statements in that comment that hasn't historically happened.

There isn't a single sentence in that paragraph that isn't blatantly false or at least grossly exaggerated.

Ok. Let's pick the first. You're saying that the U.S. has never supported a government or dictator who had a history of human rights abuses?

Never? No, not never. Do we prop them all up like he implies?

Oh, I see. You're making that kind of argument--introducing some new and arbitrary standard called "all".

So, back to the original point: the OP commented that the U.S. does X. You then stated that his claim was "paranoid nonsense".

If someone has a history of doing something, then it's not "paranoid nonsense" to point out that it's something they do. It's just a rational observation.

So, that's it then? His claim is paranoid nonsense because the U.S. hasn't propped up all human rights abusers.

No, I'm pointing out the stupidity of your position. Just because the US "propped up" a handful of dictators out of the hundreds in the world doesn't mean what he's saying isn't paranoid nonsense.

Actually, it does.

In his defence Russia and China don't really apply to what I said so he's got that going for him. Other than that thanks for pointing out the lack of validly articulated criticism, such as doesn't belong on HN. Even more telling is that lack of a valid response to anything you said.

Here is the list of your "handful":

Africa MOBUTU SESE SEKO Dictator of Zaire 1965-1997 MOHAMMED SIAD BARRE President/Dictator of Somalia 1969-1991 GEN. IBRAHIM BABANGIDA Military Dictator/President of Nigeria 1985-1993 GEN. SANI ABACHA Dictator of Nigeria 1993-1998 HASTINGS KAMUZU BANDA Dictator of Malawi 1966-1994 LAURENT-DÉSIRÉ KABILA President/Dictator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1997-2001 GNASSINGBE ETIENNE EYADEMA Dictator of Togo 1967-2005 FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY Dictator/President of the Ivory Coast 1960-1993 HASSAN II King of Morocco 1961-1999 TEODORO OBIANG NGUEMA MBASOGO President/Dictator of Equatorial Guinea 1979-present ZINE EL ABIDINE BEN ALI President-Prime Minister/Dictator of Tunisia 1987-2011 ANWAR EL-SADAT President/Dictator of Egypt 1970-1981 HOSNI MUBARAK President/Dictator of Egypt 1981-present IAN SMITH Prime Minister of Rhodesia (white minority regime) 1965-1979 PIETER WILLEM BOTHA Prime Minister of South Africa (white minority regime) 1978-1984, President 1984-1989 DANIEL ARAP MOI President/Dictator of Kenya 1978-2002 HAILE SELASSIE (RAS TAFARI) Emperor of Ethiopia 1928-1974 WILLIAM J. S. TUBMAN President/Dictator of Liberia 1944-1971 SAMUEL KANYON DOE Dictator of Liberia 1980-1990

Asia MOHAMED SUHARTO Dictator of Indonesia 1966-1998 NGO DINH DIEM President/Dictator of South Vietnam 1955-1963 GEN. NGUYEN KHANH Dictator of South Vietnam 1964-1965 NGUYEN CAO KY Dictator of South Vietnam 1965-1967 GEN. NGUYEN VAN THIEU President/Dictator of South Vietnam 1967-1975 TRAN THIEM KHIEM Prime Minister of South Vietnam 1969-75 BAO DAI Emperor of Vietnam 1926-1945, chief of state 1949-1955 LEE KUAN YEW Prime Minister/Dictator of Singapore 1959-1990; behind-the scenes ruler since then. EMOMALI RAHMONOV President/Dictator of Tajikistan 1992-present NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV President of Kazakhstan 1990-present ISLAM A. KARIMOV President/Dictator of Uzbekistan 1990-present SAPARMURAD ATAYEVICH NIYAZOV President/Dictator of Turkmenistan 1990-2006 MARSHAL LUANG PIBUL SONGGRAM Dictator of Thailand 1948-1957 FIELD MARSHAL THANOM KITTIKACHORN Prime Minister/Dictator of Thailand 1957-58, 1963-1973 CHIANG KAI-SHEK President/Dictator (Nationalist) of China 1928-1949 President/Dictator of Taiwan 1949-1975 CHIANG CHING-KUO President/Dicator of Taiwan 1978-1988; Prime Minister 1972-1978 DENG XIAOPING De facto ruler of China from circa 1978 to the early 1990s FERDINAND MARCOS President/Dictator of the Philippines 1965-1986 SYNGMAN RHEE President/Dictator of South Korea 1948-1960 GEN. PARK CHUNG HEE President/Dictator of South Korea 1962-1979 GEN. CHUN DOO HWAN President/Dictator of South Korea 1980-1988 SIR MUDA HASSANAL BOLKIAH Sultan of Brunei 1967-present GEN. LON NOL Prime Minister/Dictator of Cambodia 1970-1975 POL POT Dictator of Cambodia 1975-1979 MAJ. GEN. SITIVENI RABUKA Dictator of Fiji 1987-1999 ASKAR AKAYEV President of Kyrgyzstan 10/27/1990-2005

Europe FRANCISCO FRANCO Dictator of Spain 1939-1975 ANTONIO SALAZAR DE OLIVEIRA Dictator of Portugal 1928-1968 COL. GEORGIOS PAPADOPOULOS Prime Minister/President/Dictator of Greece 1967-1973

Latin America ANASTASIO SOMOZA GARCIA Dictator of Nicaragua 1937-1947, 1950-1956 ANASTASIO "TACHITO" SOMOZA DEBAYLE Dictator of Nicaragua 1967-1972, 1974-1979 MANUEL ESTRADA CABRERA Dictator of Guatemala 1898-1920 GEN. JORGE UBICO CASTANEDA Dictator of Guatemala 1931-1944 COL. CARLOS ENRIQUE CASTILLO ARMAS Dictator of Guatemala 1954-1957 GEN. JOSE MIGUEL YDIGORAS FUENTES President/Dictator of Guatemala 1958-1963 COL. ENRIQUE PERALTA AZURDIA Military Junta, Guatemala 1963-1966 COL.CARLOS ARANA OSORIO Dictator of Guatemala 1970-1974 GEN. FERNANDO ROMEO LUCAS GARCIA Dictator of Guatemala 1978-1982 GEN. JOSE EFRAIN RIOS MONTT Dictator of Guatemala 1982-1983 MARCO VINICIO CEREZO ARÉVALO President/Dictator of Guatemala 1986-1991 MAXIMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ Dictator of El Salvador 1931-1944 COL. OSMIN AGUIRRE Y SALINAS Dictator of El Salvador 1944-1945 CIVILIAN-MILITARY JUNTA, EL SALVADOR 1961-1962 COL. ARTURO ARMANDO MOLINA BARRAZA Dictator of El Salvador 1972-1977 JUNTA, EL SALVADOR 1979-1982 ALFREDO FÉLIX CRISTIANI BUKARD President/Dictator of El Salvador 1989-1994 TIBURCIO CARIAS ANDINO Dictator of Honduras 1932-1948 COL. OSWALDO LOPEZ ARELLANO Dictator of Honduras 1963-1975 ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA President/Dictator of Honduras 1982-1986 GEN. OMAR HERRERA-TORRIJOS Dictator of Panama 1969-1981 GEN. MANUEL ANTONIO MORENA NORIEGA Dictator of Panama 1982-1989 AUGUSTO PINOCHET UGARTE Dictator of Chile 1973-1990 GEN. JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA Dictator of Argentina 1976-1981 COL. MARCOS PEREZ JIMENEZ Dictator of Venezuela 1950-1958 GEN. ALFREDO STROESSNER Dictator of Paraguay 1954-1989 ALBERTO FUJIMORI Dictator of Peru 1990-2000 FRANCOIS "PAPA DOC" DUVALIER Dictator of Haiti 1957-1971 JEAN-CLAUDE "BABY DOC" DUVALIER Dictator of Haiti 1971-1986 MILITARY JUNTA / LT. GEN. RAOUL CEDRAS, GEN. PHILIPPE BIAMBY and LT. COL. MICHEL-JOSEPH FRANCO Haiti 1991-1994 GEN. RENE BARRIENTOS ORTUNO President/Dictator of Bolivia 1964-1969 GEN. HUGO BANZER SUAREZ Dictator of Bolivia 1971-1978 DR. GETULIO VARGAS Dictator of Brazil 1930-1945, 1951-1954 GEN. HUMBERTO DE ALENCAR CASTELLO BRANCO Dictator of Brazil 1964-1967 CARLOS PRIO SOCARRAS Dictator of Cuba 1948-1952 FULGENCIO BATISTA Dictator of Cuba 1933-44, 1952-1959 GERARDO MACHADO MORALES Dictator of Cuba 1925-1933 RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO Dictator of the Dominican Republic 1930-1961

Middle East MOHAMMED REZA PAHLAVI Shah of Iran 1941-1979 SADDAM HUSSEIN Dictator of Iraq 1969 (1979)-2003 GEN. MOHAMMED AYUB KHAN President/Dictator of Pakistan 1958-1969 GEN. AGHA MUHAMMAD YAHYA KHAN President/Dictator of Pakistan 1969-1971 GEN. MOHAMMAD ZIA UL-HAQ President/Dictator of Pakistan 1977-1988 PERVEZ MUSHARRAF Dictator of Pakistan 1999-2008 ABDUL IBN HUSSEIN I King of Jordan 1952-1999 TURGUT ÖZAL Prime Minister of Turkey 1983-1989, President 1989-1993 SHEIK JABIR AL-AHMAD AL SABAH Emir of Kuwait 1977-2006 Prime Minister of Kuwait 1962-1963, 1965-1978 FAHD IBN ABDUL-AZIZ AL SAUD King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia 1982-2005

I see. So anyone we ever dealt with in any capacity was "propped up". Gotcha.

It's standard practice for negotiations between governments to happen in secret. If they didn't, negotiators would be looking over their shoulders constantly and the natural back and forth of negotiation would be impossible. The final draft will be released well before governments decide whether to sign and ratify.

How does that work with the WTO?

Hard to find specific evidence on this question, but I believe most of the details of the ministerials are public, and its main goals are public (because we're technically mid-Doha round, but we know all the basic arguments and points).

However, when a new member considers accession, they have one on one negotiations with all existing members, sometimes in private.

The common talking point is a little misleading in that it suggests that this is unusual (it's not), or that TPP will become binding before it becomes public (it won't).

The common rebuttal is a little misleading when suggesting that every deal is negotiated this way. (Not every deal, but enough so it's probably not that big a deal.)

I'm curious - based on previous agreements like this, how much time (in weeks or months) would you expect there to be between the terms of TPP being made public in full and the signing of the member governments?

See this Reddit post for the time spans on previous agreements:

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/387elg/wikileaks_...

As you can see, there is a huge range.

The draft documents are classified until 4 years after the agreement comes into force, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/business/trans-pacific-par... & http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/02/australian-m...

There could be several years between the agreement being signed and the agreement coming into force, e.g. http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/10/17/latest...

"..new draft gives some countries extra time to implement the agreement – meaning that current governments won’t necessarily have to carry the can for their decisions. “Developing countries are being asked to accept very restrictive standards for intellectual property in return for transition periods that defer the harm until current governments are no longer held accountable,”.."

Immediate disclosure of drafts also makes it harder to close on the deal. You enable compromise by letting each government save face over its defeats. Releasing the draft versions after four years is already heavily tilted toward transparency.

These historical game theories may need revision in a world of Streisand effects.

That's an interesting point. But I don't think the EFF, for example, really feels that strongly about whether negotiations are conducted publicly or not. They're worried about the intellectual property provisions that are expected to be part of the deal. Secret negotiations is just another line of attack. That kind of mentality doesn't even have to be conscious; it's pretty widespread in politics.

In a world of near-instant feedback channels, should the public (who may become criminals under the proposed agreement) have any opportunity to comment on the proposals?

In which institutions can society debate where to draw the line between the benefits of negotiating "secretly" vs. the benefits of legitimizing the agreement in the eyes of the public?

Given that some details of the agreements are already public, i.e. they no longer have negotiating value, can a democratic society avail itself of the benefits of debating the already-public subset?

Except for this....

"We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back." - Jean-Claude Juncke

Which is quite damning.

Was Juncker extolling this concept, or condemning it?

I do not care if it's standard practice for negotiations to happen in secret. My government should represent me and my interests and I want to know what's going on. If not, I'll scream as loudly as I can because I want a government that's transparent. If the governments of other countries demand less transparency, well I see that as violating the sovereignty of our nation. Also claims that back and forth negotiations would be impossible need evidence. I see this claim repeated without references as if it's a given and I seek education on the matter.

Couple of points:

1. I'm not certain you understand how representative government works. You vote for a person, they do what they believe is in your best interest - and whatever they do must be in your best interest, because you voted for them. Do you want your representatives to send you notice of what they do every day?

Why can't the document be negotiated in secret, if EVERY piece of it is made public before it is signed into law by your government. Other than your 'need' for information, what is the purpose of requiring every step be made public?

2. You don't seem to understand how negotiations work.

It's (relatively) easy to negotiate on behalf of 300 million people. It's impossible to negotiate when a majority of the 300 million "want to know what's going on". What you believe is in your best interest isn't what Jim in Texas believes is in his best interest. What I believe is best for all of us isn't want you believe is best for all of us. A middle ground, based on experience and research is the starting point for any economic negotiations. Experts in the field are used (although we could debate how to define expert, and how to ensure they don't have any conflicts of interest).

You know what kills any negotiation? If one party is seen to be unable to make decisions for the group they represent. What both sides want is to know the other person at the table is able to say yes and no, with relatively strong assurance the decisions will be held in the future, or changed in ways that will still be acceptable.

You know what happens if every step of a negotiation this large is public at every point? Fox News, CNBC, and the like let their screaming head commentators loose on it, thereby undermining the appearance of negotiator authority - REGARDLESS of the actual content of the document. There are people, public, famous people, who make a living by complaining just for the sake of it - and they have a lot of fans.

With this many people involved, there will be loud voices of dissent on every.single.point.

Anyway, what is the difference between you knowing that on Tuesday we agreed to weaken X, in exchange for Y instead of having public access to the document once the initial negotiation process is finished but before it is ratified by our government? You still get your information, you still get to see what's going on, and you still get input. I don't see the issue with that.

And if you are seeking education on the matter, Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago Business School have one metric ton of research and publications out on negotiation theory.

whatever they do must be in your best interest, because you voted for them.

This is a bizarre view. Not only did I not vote for them, the UK conservative government got 37% of the vote. They're not bound to implement their manifesto and there is no real reason to assume the decisions made are in my best interest at all.

Well, this provides no way of amending it piecewise, and the only possibility is then to reject it wholesale in the legislature. Moreover, it can't then easily be changed by a subsequent change of government; it's more like a constitutional change. There may be substantial penalties to accession and withdrawal.

one party is seen to be unable to make decisions for the group they represent

It's worth questioning the extent to which the current leaders of a democratic body can sign away its future freedom of action.

Thanks for sharing this perspective. No offense to you intended, but it sounds incredibly outmoded. Negotiators come off as childish and petty. The idea that terms of an agreement that will have material effects on my life should be decided without my input is patronizing and offensive.

This is 2015. The web has been around for nearly a quarter century, and TV news pundits even longer. Statecraft needs to evolve and adapt, not by ramping up the authoritarian penalties for violating secrecy, but by developing processes and attitudes that can thrive on transparency.

There's nothing wrong with negotiating in secret. I'm not convinced it could be done any other way. At some point, though, it needs to be ratified in some democratic manner, without secret clauses or gentleman's agreements.

but it's not just negotiated in secret. There have been voted in the EU on documents that are classified. In the US, for example, a member of Congress could go to prison for revealing the contents to a constituent, even over things like ISDS provisions which could be massively damaging to democratic integrity.

1. "supposed"? you kidding?

2. if you would care about protecting human rights then you wouldn't care who is in this council. you would only care if their claim has merit or not.

1. Whatever you think about Israel, they're certainly not the most serious human rights abuser in the world. It makes no sense for Israel to be the only permanent item on the agenda.

2. When the EFF is parroting the claims of "UN experts", the credibility of said experts is relevant.

So, again, you dismiss the claims just because they're not the experts they say they are.

No, I disagree with the substance of their argument for a bunch of reasons, but that's not what my comment was about. I'm not writing a formal rebuttal; I'm only pointing out that their credibility, which the EFF is directly appealing to, is hollow.

If you use their expert status to give their claim authority, it actually does matter whether their expert status is justified, even if what they say is correct.

In other words, if you say: "listen to what they say, because they are experts", questioning their expert status is entirely justified. It's different if you were to say: "listen to what they say, because it makes sense".

In this case, I think what they say is correct, but if it's true that Israel is the only item on their agenda, their credibility as experts is still suspect.

And I do agree that Israel has a terrible human rights record, but they are indeed hardly the worst offender. (Was Qatar member of this? They have enslave migrant workers, working them to death for the 2022 world championship!)

You should read up on the fallacy of relative privation.

I do not have knowledge on what happens at the UN, but the latest Gaza conflict is from 2014, with thousands of children killed or wounded, many permanently disabled. To an outsider like me that reads about what's happening there, all I see is ethnic purging. To make matters worse, this perpetual war is basically sponsored by the US and Europe.

Therefore personally I'm glad that Israel is the subject of UN meetings, because they should be.

Just imagine what would happen if the US became a permanent item on the agenda. Fairness and strategy don't always get along.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

See also: cameraoncampus.org, hasbarafellowships.org

> undemocratic regimes with dismal human rights recordsundemocratic regimes with dismal human rights records

Usually the democratic regimes make such claims visit all sorts of human rights abuses on citizens of other countries in the name of human rights and freedom. So there's that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com