TTIP is the farcically secretive, insanely corrupt trade agreement that the US and EU negotiated behind closed doors in parallel with the faltering Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Like TPP, TTIP allows corporations to sue governments to repeal environmental, safety and labor laws that may impact their future profits, in a system of secret courts whose deliberations are not visible to the public.
Opposition to TTIP has been mounting, with the German and French governments suggesting that they will block the deal in the EU. Given that ACTA, the predecessor to TTIP, faltered after public protests caused EU governments to back out, this bodes ill for TTIP's future.
Another nail was just driven into TTIP's coffin by UK opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said that he would also kill the deal if elected; among other reasons, Corbyn cited the deal's potential to compromise the UK's National Health Service.
TTIP has the support of the European Commission, the unelected bureaucracy that administers the political union, as well as UK Tory leader David Cameron, and US Democratic establishment figures like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
"Many thousands of people have written to me, with their concerns about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (or TTIP) the deal being negotiated, largely in secret, between the U.S. and the EU," he said in his speech in London.Jeremy Corbyn speaking in London on Thursday. (Screengrab)"Many people are concerned rightly that it could open up public services to further privatization—and make privatization effectively irreversible," he added. "Others are concerned about any potential watering down of consumer rights, food safety standards, rights at work or environmental protections, and the facility for corporations to sue national governments if regulations impinged on their profits," he said, referring to ISDS tribunals.
Jeremy Corbyn: I Would Kill TTIP
[Andrea Germanos/Common Dreams]
(via Naked Capitalism)
