[DC-Trade] Proposal for Dynamic Coalition document on trade transparency

[Jeremy Malcolm]

As we look forward to the upcoming IGF in December, I am following up
(finally) about one of the outputs that we agreed to work towards for
presentation at the inaugural meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Trade
and the Internet.  As explained in my original message, a small working
group has put together a document, which is now ready for comments from
this broader group.  You can find it below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cu2p-gUdAUbPJrHysjWAFQ0SM-CKWabf22D6PGXAgxo/edit#

It remains just a draft, and I would like to invite all of you to
express any comments that you may have on it, either by adding them in
the text, or by following up to this message.  Ideally, this should be a
document that all participants in the Dynamic Coalition can endorse—and
I don't think anyone should have trouble in doing so, since it restates
principles that I suspect we all share, and references many familiar
sources.

Please review the document this month so that, if possible, we can iron
out any wrinkles and have a near-final document ready for presentation
as an output of our Dynamic Coalition at its inaugural meeting in December.

On 15/5/17 12:21 pm, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Today my organization the EFF has launched an advertising campaign
> around trade transparency reforms, which I would like to propose as a
> starting point for a document that this Dynamic Coalition could
> produce as an output this year.
>
> The advertisements can be seen in POLITICO's Morning Trade newsletter
> at
> http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2017/05/nafta-notification-whats-happening-and-when-220315
> (you might need to disable your ad blocker to see the banners, but
> there are also text messages in the middle and at the end of the
> newsletter).  The ads link to this page on EFF's website which
> summarizes five recommendations, and the rationales for these:
> https://www.eff.org/trade.
>
> The campaign is targetted at U.S. trade policymakers and is hence very
> U.S.-centric (even to the point of sounding a little jingoistic), and
> a couple of the recommendations are specific to the U.S. trade
> advisory process.  Nevertheless, I believe that the core concepts
> should find broad agreement amongst members of this Dynamic Coalition
> and that we ought to be able to fashion a consensus document that at
> least finds inspiration from the five recommendations made here.
>
> I won't repeat the complete rationales for the recommendations here
> because you can read them for yourselves at https://www.eff.org/trade,
> but the headlines are:
>
>  1. Publish U.S. textual proposals on rules in ongoing international
>     trade negotiations
>  2. Publish consolidated texts after each round of ongoing negotiations
>  3. Appoint a "transparency officer" who does not have structural
>     conflicts of interest in promoting transparency at the agency
>  4. Open up textual proposals to a notice and comment and public
>     hearing process
>  5. Make Trade Advisory Committees more broadly inclusive
>
> One of the items in this Dynamic Coalition's 2017 action plan is "To
> develop a multi-stakeholder approach to facilitating the transparency
> and inclusiveness in international trade negotiations and the domestic
> consultation processes".  Although that's open-ended, it could include
> the development of a consensus document containing a set of principles
> that generalises from the above five recommendations, and that's what
> I'm proposing.  At this point, I am asking for your feedback on the idea.
>
> If there is broad agreement on the idea, the next step would be to
> form a drafting subcommittee that would propose a strawman text for
> further discussion by the full Dynamic Coalition.  If you support the
> idea of us developing such a document, are you also interested in
> being part of the drafting subcommittee?
>
> Thanks and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above.
> -- 
> Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Global Policy Analyst
> Electronic Frontier Foundation
> https://eff.org
> jmalcolm at eff.org
>
> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>
> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>
> Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
> PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm at eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::

Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122

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