Archive - 2015

Negotiations in the WTO are heating up – and they are going badly. In November last year, WTO members agreed to come up with a “Work Program” for resurrecting the Doha Round by July 31. In this article Deborah James of OWINFS network articulates civil society position on recent developments in WTO negotiations.

Today, 341 global civil society organizations – including development advocates, trade unions, farmers’ organizations, consumer and environmental groups from over 100 countries – sent a letter to WTO members today urging them to abandon the WTO expansion talks and instead focus on an urgent agenda to fix existing damaging rules in the WTO.

It’s almost impossible to keep anything secret these days – not even the core text of a hyper-secret trade deal, the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which has spent the last two years taking shape behind the hermetically sealed doors of highly secure locations around the world. According to the agreement’s provisional text, the document is supposed to remain confidential and concealed from public view for at least five years after being signed! But now, thanks to WikiLeaks, it has seeped to the surface.

One day after it leaked a trove of documents related to the massive, pro-corporate Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), WikiLeaks on Thursday published another four chapters of the proposed 52-nation trade deal, covering key areas ahead of the next negotiating round on Monday.

Le Tisa (Trade in Services Agreement) est un accord de libre-échange sur le commerce des services, en négociation depuis 2012 hors du cadre de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), dans la plus grande opacité. Avant juin 2014, il était resté presque secret. Seules des fuites avaient permis d’en percevoir l’ampleur et les dangers. Wikileaks vient de révéler à nouveau des documents clé des négociations en cours. Dont l’avant-projet d’avril 2015 qui va servir de base au prochain round de discussions, qui aura lieu la semaine du 6 juillet.

WikiLeaks a rendu public l'avant-projet de libéralisation des services, discuté en secret entre les Etats-Unis et 52 pays (dont la France). Plus de barrières, plus de normes : les grands gagnants seront évidemment les multinationales américaines.

Today, Wikileaks released a second batch of the most updated draft texts on the proposed TISA, along with substantive analysis, on each of four massive services sectors: Financial Services, Telecommunications Services, Electronic Commerce, and Maritime Transport. This follows on their release yesterday of cross-cutting annexes on Domestic Regulation, the "Movement of Natural Persons," Transparency, and Government Procurement, and the Agenda for next week's negotiations, along with what Wikileaks called the journalistic holy grail: the Core Text of the proposed agreement.

Today, Wikileaks released a second batch of the most updated draft texts on the proposed TISA, along with substantive analysis, on each of four cross-cutting annexes: Financial Services, Telecommunications, Electronic Commerce, and Maritime Transport. This follows on their release yesterday of texts on Domestic Regulation, the “Movement of Natural Persons,” Transparency, and Government Procurement, along with what WikiLeaks called the journalistic holy grail: the TISA’s Core Text.

Today, Wikileaks has posted recent texts from April and May 2015, including the proposed core text and annexes on domestic regulation and transparency, and provided expert analysis of those texts (wikileaks.org/tisa/).