TPPA an attack on democracy
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While in the UK, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra spoke eloquently about democracy. While she was extolling the wonders of democracy, the Pheu Thai-led government was busy weakening the foundations of democracy by agreeing to give up its sovereignty in
The TPPA has been labelled “a stealth attack on democratic goverance”, and leading members of the US Senate and Congress have expressed outrage over the extreme secrecy surrounding the negotiations. The people’s representatives are in the dark as to the status of negotiations, and the Obama administration has refused to release the negotiating texts to our elected representatives.
Obama’s trade representatives and their counterparts from Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are negotiating with representatives of 600 global corporations. The 600 corporate representatives have access to the negotiating texts but the elected representatives of the people of the US do not. The recently concluded US presidential campaign was notable for its complete silence about the TPPA. Why hide what is being negotiated from the people likely to be the most affected?
The TPPA will establish super rights for investors in previously sovereign countries. Countries who sign on to the TPPA will give up their right to protect the health, safety and econonmic wellbeing of their citizens. Any attempt to legislate on the environtmen, pollution, health or wage protection will result in that country being sued by the corporation affected by the legislation. This lawsuit will not be tried in accordance with the sovereign laws of the nation and it will not be heard in that country’s courts. Instead an arbitration tribunal extablished by the TPPA will have the sole authority to hear and settle disputes. If the non-public tribunal finds the country in the wrong, the people of that country will be forced to pay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to the corporation. The signatory countries must pledge to elevate global corporate rights over human rights in order to participate in the TPPA.
Before Thailand jumps off the cliff, there should be an open, fully transparent discussion about the extreme consequences of the TPPA to the people of Thailand. Members of Parliament should demand to receive what the US Congress cannot, and that is copies of the negotiating texts to be shared with their constituents. Normally this one-way democracy works. The manner in which the TPPA is being negotiated has no place in a democratic society.
Mike Pirsch
Bangkok
