[RobertoG]

OK, let's go to the facts:

1. A treaty is negotiated between the two major markets in the world.

2. We know that when this kind of treaties are passed is almost impossible to go back.

3. We know that the most important input to those treaties come from corporations.

4. The conversations happen in secret.

5. The democratic representatives are not allowed to read the treaty except in a hurry and without legal help.

6. Free trade is already a reality but, somehow, a wider treaty that create new tribunals where corporations can sue states is necessary.

You are right. No need for tinfoil conspiracies.

[legulere]

Some further facts:

- the treaty tries to abolish market regulation differences between the two markets

- costumer protection regulations between the US and the EU are incompatible

- In the US often e.g. chemicals are allowed until proven hazardous, in the EU they are outlawed until proven harmless

- the tribunals will operate outside the normal juridical systems of the US and the EU

[consp]

Resulting in:

- No differences, but

- US consumer protection (which is hardly any)

- US (bio)chemical regulations

- A non-conformative tribunal which is not elected, not governed, has no oversight and has no basis in any civil law (as you cannot appeal/trail as a civilian if you are disadvantaged by its rulings)

[belorn]

This "allowed until proven hazardous" vs "outlawed until proven harmless" is such a misrepresenting of the disagreement.

Okey, lets put this concept into practice. I will sell fungus as antibiotics, and I will stop once its proven if it work. This would of course not work, and we follow a "outlawed until proven harmless" when it comes to medicine. In the context of medicine, that is a good rule to have and both US and EU agree on this.

So, its not about "proven to be safe" vs "proven to be unsafe", but rather specific regulations in specific contexts where EU and US disagree which one is best. In medicine, both agree. With additive in food and pesticide residue laying around in crops, they disagree.

There could have been a public debate, but this treaty is not that. It even go as far as forbid laws that grants the consumer a legal right to know what substances they ingest.

[kspaans]

> 4. The conversations happen in secret.

Not commenting on any other aspects of TTIP, but they happen in secret for a reason.[0][1][2] Most trade negotiations are secret too, and if the whole process was public there would be too much bikeshedding and pressure on the negotiators.

EDIT: forgot to include a TL;DR summary of why they are secret. Fixed NPR link

0 - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episo...

1 - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/08/random-t...

2 - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/08/random-t...

[Analemma_]

> and if the whole process was public there would be too much bikeshedding and pressure on the negotiators.

That's a feature, not a bug. Whence this argument that trade negotiations are somehow different from every single other aspect of good governance? For all other mechanisms of government, everyone agrees that transparency is a vital mechanism for preventing corruption, and that whatever inefficiencies it introduces into the system are a necessary evil. Yet somehow free trade agreements operate on a different set of rules; even though time after time it's been shown that this invites boatloads of the exact corruption that government transparency is meant to combat. [source: every TPP/TTIP leak thus far]

[btreecat]

Literally having the exact same conversion on reddit. You are right, it is a feature not a bug.

[astazangasta]

I fucking hate these arguments, that "we need secrecy to negotiate effectively". The problem is, the negotiations are "effective" on behalf of corporations, not the public. Yes, they happen in secret for a reason, but that's not a reason we're bound to respect.

[ASalazarMX]

If only "in secret" really meant "only between diplomats" and not "hidden from the public but not corporations".

[Zigurd]

That might be true in theory. In fact, secrecy is used to hide a vast array of horrors and ram them through under the cover of "trade liberalization."

[jsprogrammer]

The first link doesn't even discuss secrecy, unless the implicit reason is, "because negotiator's lie".

[kspaans]

Thanks, that was indeed the wrong NPR story. Fixed!