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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:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cu2p-gUdAUbPJrHysjWAFQ0SM-CKWabf22D6PGXAgxo/edit#">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cu2p-gUdAUbPJrHysjWAFQ0SM-CKWabf22D6PGXAgxo/edit#</a><br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 15/5/17 12:21 pm, Jeremy Malcolm
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7eb102c2-667d-8a18-b42f-f10bbd3a1901@eff.org">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
Dear all,<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
The advertisements can be seen in POLITICO's Morning Trade
newsletter at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2017/05/nafta-notification-whats-happening-and-when-220315"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2017/05/nafta-notification-whats-happening-and-when-220315</a>
(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: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eff.org/trade"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.eff.org/trade</a>.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
I won't repeat the complete rationales for the recommendations
here because you can read them for yourselves at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eff.org/trade"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.eff.org/trade</a>, but the
headlines are:<br>
<ol>
<li>Publish U.S. textual proposals on rules in ongoing
international trade negotiations</li>
<li>Publish consolidated texts after each round of ongoing
negotiations</li>
<li>Appoint a "transparency officer" who does not have
structural conflicts of interest in promoting transparency at
the agency</li>
<li>Open up textual proposals to a notice and comment and public
hearing process</li>
<li>Make Trade Advisory Committees more broadly inclusive<br>
</li>
</ol>
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.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
Thanks and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://eff.org" moz-do-not-send="true">https://eff.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org" moz-do-not-send="true">jmalcolm@eff.org</a>
Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
Public key: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt</a>
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://eff.org">https://eff.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org">jmalcolm@eff.org</a>
Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
Public key: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt">https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt</a>
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122</pre>
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