Portal:TAFTA/Essential points

When ACTA was voted down by the European Parliament in July 2012 it was due to public opposition to the propositions it contained on copyright. Now TTIP/TAFTA is trying to introduce very similar if not identical propositions. Although officially copies of the text being negotiated were not released, leaks have demonstrated that articles on intellectual property are included in TTIP/TAFTA. This free-trade negotiations address not only questions of copyright however but touch on many other subjects. This is not an exhaustive list, but a list of topics and problems related to it.


 * Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). In order to make it easier for corporations to take states to court in case that they feel a contract was broken, this mechanism would give corporations more power vis-a-vis democratically elected governments.
 * Copyright questions. As stated above, TTIP/TAFTA is a kind of ACTA by the backdoor. It appears to contain many of the same clauses as ACTA (link to ACTA dossier).
 * Transparency. This is an issue in and of itself. Neither the European Commission nor the United States Trade Representative (USTR) have published official documents and it is therefore difficult for civil society actors to take positions on these negotiations.
 * Other issues such as fracking, ...

For a treasure trove of documents on TTIP/TAFTA go here: