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

Jeremy Malcolm jmalcolm at eff.org
Sat Dec 9 21:16:41 PST 2017


So, there are several issues here and the most urgent of them is the
fate of civil society at the Buenos Aires Ministerial. I think there is
a new joint civil society statement coming together about this, which
I'll write back about once there is a draft to share.

About "free flow of information" versus "cross-border data transfer",
well I think we have to speak both languages.  Like many of us, I have a
foot in both camps.  I have been in the consumer movement for the last
decade, fighting against the use trade rules to further corporate
interests.  But I've also been, for even longer, an Internet lawyer
fighting to preserve a global open, free, and interoperable network. And
I happen to think that when it comes to trade agreements, we may have
some common cause with some of the Internet companies that are pushing
for rules that advance their corporate interests, but which can also
advance human rights. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a part of
this multi-stakeholder Dynamic Coalition.

We will be debating these issues soon in Geneva. But for now, we can put
some of the differences aside in order to take a strong joint stand
against the exclusion of activists from the Ministerial, which again
strikes me as the most urgent point of your message.


On 12/09/2017 07:10 AM, Burcu Kilic wrote:
>
>  
>
> As a trade lawyer, I want to echo Parminder’s comments, “Trade
> agreements do not deal with "free flow of information", if anything
> they deal with "free flow of data".
>
> Trade rules seek to commodify everything — to turn everything into a
> form of property — so that it can be traded. In this case, it is the
> data, not the information. It is not even the flow, it is cross-border
> transfer. “Free flow of information” is DC policy elite’s terminology,
> because it sounds human-rights friendly.  Trade negotiators have
> particular sensitivities about that terminology. If we are going to
> talk about trade agreements, let’s use the right terminology.
>
>  
>
> I am in Buenos Aires now for the WTO Ministerial. I have to say
> promoting “multistakeholder governance” sounds uber-romantic in these
> circumstances. We are losing our ground. NGOs have been de-accredited,
> people have been rejected at the border and sent back to their
> countries, the NGOs cannot attend the opening ceremony as the host
> country doesn’t want them (usually NGOs get 50 tickets).  Argentinians
> are making clear that we are not welcomed here. I am afraid this will
> set a really bad precedent for the future meetings and negotiations.
> That’s something we all need to be concerned about.
>
>  
>
> *From: *DC-Trade <dc-trade-bounces at opendigital.trade> on behalf of
> parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> *Date: *Wednesday, August 9, 2017 at 1:03 AM
> *To: *"dc-trade at opendigital.trade" <dc-trade at opendigital.trade>
> *Subject: *Re: [DC-Trade] Proposal for Dynamic Coalition document on
> trade transparency
>
>  
>
> Thanks for this Jeremy
>
> Can we work on the doc without the preamble part, with which my
> organisation may have many issues?
>
> There are two main ones. One with the sentence "International trade
> agreements that support the free flow of information across the
> Internet...... can assist member countries to harness the potential of
> the Internet to promote social and economic development for all."
>
> I am sure you know the problem that trade justice activists have with
> this.... Trade agreements do not deal with "free flow of information",
> if anything they deal with "free flow of data". The two are not
> identical .... Free flow of information globally may perhaps be a
> subject dealt in frameworks like New World Information and
> Communication Order (NWICO, that piece of history!), it could be about
> media, even about social media and networks, but that is not at the
> core of digital issues at trade talks. The latter deal not with
> information flows but with data flows-- as an economic resource, as
> one of the most important economic resources. And speaking about,
> rather promoting, "free global flow of data" in an unqualified manner
> is not acceptable. It speaks to a certain political economy of data
> and digital economy... you sure know this stuff.
>
> Second issue is with promotion of so called "multi-stakeholder
> governance" for global trade negotiations. We have really never been
> able to understand what exactly this term means, and you know this
> well too, have issues with how many people and groups employ it in the
> IG space. We do not look forward, for instance, to promote models in
> trade negotiations where big business has a veto. Replace it is
> "multistakeholder participation" and we are fine...
>
> happy to discuss this further .... parminder
>
> On Wednesday 09 August 2017 03:31 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>
>     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#
>     <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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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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-- 
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/2014/10/09/key_jmalcolm.txt
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122

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