Participating state leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (Creative Commons. Courtesy of Flickr User Gobierno de Chile.)

Greg Mitchell on November 13, 2013 | The Nation

WikiLeaks has been promising a potential bombshell today, and now it’s here, a very recent draft chapter from the already much-criticized Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty (which involves nations all the way from the US and Peru to Australia and Japan). The Verge summarizes, as it digs deeper into the doc:

The leaked chapter focuses on intellectual property rights, and is part of a broader agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that has been in the works for several years now between the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and several other countries. Though the draft is being written in secret, it’s rumored to be moving toward a fast track through Congress. Some details of the agreement have been leaked in the past, but today’s come from a quite recent draft, dated August 30, 2013—it’s also the only one to detail which countries are in support of which proposals.

The Sydney Morning Herald received an early look at the leaked draft, and notes that it focuses on the United States’ federal and corporate interests, while largely ignoring the rights and interests of consumers. “One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations, and the copyright parts of the text support such a view,” Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, tells the Herald. “Hollywood, the music industry, big IT companies such as Microsoft and the pharmaceutical sector would all be very happy with this.”

EFF, up in arms, points to this analysis by KEI. Truthout is ultra-alarmed:

The TPP has been shrouded in secrecy from the beginning because the Obama administration knows that the more people know about it, the more they will oppose the agreement. The release of the full Intellectual Property chapter today by Wiikileaks confims what had been suspected, the Obama administration has been an advocate for transnational corporate interests in the negotiations even though they run counter to the needs and desires of the public.

This is not surprising since we already knew that 600 corporate advisers were working with the US Trade Representative to draft the TPP. This means that for nearly four years some of the top corporate lawyers have been inserting phrases, paragraphs and whole sections so the agreement suits the needs of corporate power, while undermining the interests of people and the planet.

Now from these documents we see that the US is isolated in its aggressive advocacy for transnational interests and that there are scores of areas still unresolved between the US and Pacific nations. The conclusion: the TPP cannot be saved. It has been destroyed by secret corporate advocacy. It needs to be rejected.

Julian Assange today:

“If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

Here’s the site for a prime opposition group. Here’s the full WikiLeaks press release and link to the doc.

Zoe Carpenter discusses Congress’s limited role in green-lighting the Trans-Pacific Partnership.