TISA, Yet Another Secret “Trade” Threat
“TALKING TISA — The eighth round of Trade in Services Agreement negotiations kicked off Sunday in Geneva, with negotiators planning to delve into market access offers and rules on financial services, telecommunications, domestic regulation and transparency, the EU has announced.”
That opening sentence in a three-sentence blog item by Adam Behsudi at Politico.com on September 22 was virtually the only public notice announcing the latest round of secret negotiations for the hugely important Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). The four-day TISA event took place September 22-25 at the Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the World Trade Organization. It was held in secret, behind closed doors, of course, the same as with the ongoing talks for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
There was no outcry from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, or Fox News about all the secrecy and the right of the public to know what’s going on. In fact, not even a mention that the TISA Geneva round was underway! No surprise there: We saw the same establishment media blackout in June, when WikiLeaks released the secret draft text of the TISA Financial Services Annex. Aside from the very substantive issues being negotiated (which we’ll get to in a moment), there was the very explosive revelation that the drafters intend for the text of the agreement to remain secret for five years after the proposed TISA rules take effect!
JBS Member or ShopJBS.org Customer?
Sign in with your ShopJBS.org account username and password or use that login to subscribe.
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Print edition delivery (USA)
*Available Outside USA - Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically