Thread: International Treaty Negotiated In Secret – Threatens to Destroy National Sovereignty

International Treaty Negotiated In Secret – Hidden Even from Congressmen Who Oversee Treaties – Threatens to Destroy National Sovereignty

Posted on June 14, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

Treaty Threatens Global Government … Run by Giant Corporations

The normally-reserved Yves Smith asks whether Obama should be impeached over it.

Democratic Senator Wyden – the head of the committee which is supposed to oversee it – is so furious about the lack of access that he has introduced legislation to force disclosure.

Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is so upset by it that he has leaked a document on his website to show what’s going on.

What is everyone so furious about?

An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would actually destroy the sovereignty of the U.S. and all other signatories.

It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Wyden is the chairman of the trade committee in the Senate … the committee which is supposed to have jurisdiction over the TPP. Wyden is also on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and so he and his staff have high security clearances and are normally able to look at classified documents.

And yet Wyden and his staff have been denied access to the TPP’s text.

This is similar to other recent incidences showing that we’ve gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making laws in secret.

For example, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio – who is on the Homeland Security Committee (and so has proper security access to be briefed on so-called “Continuity of Government” issues) – inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: “Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.

As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott warned:

If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.

Watch this interview from today explaining why TPP is so dangerous to America … and the rest of the world:

Video at the link really worth watching

International Treaty Negotiated In Secret – Hidden Even from Congressmen Who Oversee Treaties – Threatens to Destroy National Sovereignty - Washington's Blog

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Obama Plans to Put Foreign Companies Above the Law

Zach Carter has a must-read new article up at Huffington Post on leaked documents from trade negotiations that have been posted at the website Public Citizen. You should read his entire article, pronto, but here is the money quote:

The newly leaked document is one of the most controversial of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. It addresses a broad sweep of regulations governing international investment and reveals the Obama administration’s advocacy for policies that environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding key protections currently in domestic laws.

Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings.

[Courtesy Waren Celli, click for larger image]

This is an active effort to undermine US laws and make certain US laws subordinate to non-US tribunal that sits outside any democratic process. President Obama took an oath to uphold the land. I’d like to throw this out to readers. As much as trade agreements (which were approved by Congress) have sometimes run into friction with existing laws, this move by Obama looks to be a far more radical effort to increase the power of multinational companies.

And US companies would argue for, and likely eventually get, similar breaks, assuring a legal/regulatory race to the bottom (if you think what we have is bad now, do not underestimate how much worse it could get).

Let’s set aside the fact that no current Congress will stand in the way of a pro-business measure. I’d like readers to tell me whether they think this initiative is an impeachable offense. Does this sort of effort to gut US laws rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors“?

Update: The use of the “I’ word has led some readers to argue (basically) “What are you talking about? This is just a negotiation.” True, but it is also revealing how little we expect of Congress and how much its standing has fallen. This idea should be so far outside the pale that both the substance as well as the process would, in another era, have elicited a serious pushback from Congress. But of course, in that other era, a cagey politician like Obama would never have gone this far either.

We seem to be living the Frederick Douglass quote:

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

Obama Plans to Put Foreign Companies Above the Law « naked capitalism

Never Thought it Possible

The Obama MAFIA is Out-Doing The G.W. Bush MAFIA

ROUND ALL OF THE SCOUNDRELS UP AND CHARGE THEM UNDER THE RICO ACT


scoundrel

1. villain: a dishonorable or unprincipled person

Synonyms: crook, rogue, rascal, villain, rat, cheat

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Investor State Tribunals and Treason in high places

June 15, 2012 by ppjg

Marti Oakley Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved

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Investor State Tribunals: The Trans-Atlantic Partnership AGREEMENT

A huge collection of federal corporate agents that we call “senators” and “representatives” will soon be jumping in front of Lame Street Media camera’s just for the chance to tell you how this new agreement will create thousands of new jobs. And it will! Only not here in the US. These same corporate puppets will poo-poo the idea that this corporate government agreement will render our laws null and void against marauding corporations. They will tell you that it will boost states economies to have foreign investors buying land and exploiting resources. They will tell you any lie they think will make this sell off of our country more palatable. And, by the time most of you figure out you just got sold out and sold off, these same liars will have taken retirement so that they can spend more time with their families. (Oh! be still my heart!)

What this agreement will effectively accomplish is the eradication of national jurisdiction, national laws and protections and put disputes in the hands of lawyers who also expect to profit from their misdeeds. It will sell off our land to foreign corporations and governments and firmly establish sovereign foreign territories inside the geographical US. akin to the current Free Trade Zones (257 zones) now operating across the states.

How’s that global economy working for ya?

Another massive blow to the American economy, The Trans-Atlantic Partnership, an agreement between the US and eight other countries is looming on the horizon. The corporate agreement, chock full of “investor rights”, is far worse than even the NAFTA and CAFTA treaty’s which began the whole sale push into fascism. These agreements hold the rights of investors above those of the state or individual.

Both allow corporations and even governments to sue us if we have environmental protection laws or any other thing in place they claim hinders them from making profits. The little catch on this is that they can sue for profits they say they might make if the laws or what they deem barriers, were not in place. Since these are future forecasts for events and situations that have not yet occurred and are only speculative, and may not occur, it is apparent that this is really just a cash cow that is being milked regularly.

Federal corporate agreements are exactly that. These are agreements struck between the corporation operating as government, under fraud, as the United States a.k.a the United states of America, or USA Corporation. The federal corporation is not bound by the constitution nor any provisions regarding the treaty process. All trade agreements are corporate contracts.
These are not ratified treaty’s per the constitution.

The (TTP) is actually an international corporate agreement which voids sovereign jurisdiction in environmental protections, health, food, pharmaceuticals and virtually any other thing you can think of.

This agreement also allows for the sale of public lands here in the US so that foreign investors can access and profit from the resources.

The coming all out sale of public lands to foreign investors will in effect, see major areas of the US, now held as scenic waterways, national forests and other high resource areas as owned and controlled by non-American corporations and possibly even governments.

This agreement exposes the reasons for the federal government’s ongoing taking of lands from the states and claiming it as owned and controlled by them while also claiming they are taking the land to “protect” it……from us.

Already we have seen the Department of the Interior (DoI) via the Bureau of Land (mis)Management, lease out or sell outright, the access to public lands for mining and oil and gas drilling particularly in the Western States.

Not only have our wild horses been slated for eradication from the preserves set aside for them, but our cattle ranchers in the West are also being driven off the land and grazing permits limited or retracted as the land is cleared for foreign ownership and exploitation.

It also explains the Forestry Departments mismanagement of our national forests and the continual closing of public access roads into those forests.

The refusal to allow local or national companies to access the massive timber stands in overgrown and mismanaged forests is explained when you realize that what has actually happened is that the forests were allowed to be overgrown in order to construct a saleable and massive logging/timber inventory. As long as the public has access to those forests, the federal government cannot sell it as it exists as a public trust. Once access is denied, it is now viewed as privately (government) owned land that can be sold at will…..along with all the timber. What is not readily sold and exploited will be handed over to the UN to manage as “wildlands” holding it in reserve as other forests and lands are exploited as the UN Agenda 21 regionalism plans are implemented.

But here’s the real clinker in all of this.

Just how are these tribunals staffed?

See: Public Citizen:

• The foreign tribunals would be staffed by private sector lawyers who rotate between acting as “judges” and representing corporations suing governments, posing major conflicts of interest.
• The leaked text includes provisions that submit signatory countries to the jurisdiction of both World Bank and United Nations investor arbitral tribunals staffed by private sector attorneys. The international tribunals that currently rule over investor-state claims lack public accountability, standard judicial ethics rules and appeals processes. In this system, private sector lawyers rotate between roles as “judges” in disputes brought by investors against governments and as advocates.
• Foreign tribunals empowered to order governments to pay unlimited cash compensation out of national treasuries.
• Even when governments win these cases, they waste scarce budgetary resources defending national policies against these corporate attacks, as taxpayer funds must be used to pay large hourly fees for the tribunals and legal costs (Article 12.2.

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We are being systematically de-constructed as a nation. Once this agreement passes, we will no longer own major portions of our land. Land is all we have. Everything comes from it one way or another. Our wealth as a nation is derived from our land.

So I ask again…..How’s that global economy working for ya?

Still think this is about free trade and capitalism?

Your land is being stolen by the federal government, sold to foreign investors and other governments for exploitation as they pay for government protection and privilege. Do you still think that if corporations are regulated and limited it will somehow prevent you from getting rich?

Believe me, you don’t stand a rats chance in a deacon box of surviving this as anything more than newly created, impoverished third world peon.
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http://www.citizen.org/documents/Lea...t-Analysis.pdf List of Foreign-Trade Zones by State

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...esis_Final.pdf

Forest Service official defends closing national forest roads - News - ReviewJournal.com

Closing of 42 Roads Eldorado - HomeForest Service official defends decision to close roadsThe Forest Service is at various stages of updating road designations in dozens of national forests across the West, including the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest that covers more than 6 million acres of Nevada and eastern California, including a good chunk of Elko County.

THE BLM

How Treaty’s are ratified U.S. Senate: Art & History Home > Origins & Development > Powers & Procedures > Treaties


Investor State Tribunals and Treason in high places « The PPJ Gazette

Obama Plans to Grant International Tribunals Power to Supersede US Law and Impose Sanctions

By Shepard Ambellas
theintelhub.com
June 13, 2012

Have you ever heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact?

Obama recently proposed a deal to 8 Pacific Nations pertaining to free trade — however, there is more to it then that.

Under the documented arrangement pushed by Obama’s masters, foreign corporations will essentially be able to slip past all regulations as domestic corporations will continue to be heavily regulated.

Under the arrangement proposed, International Tribunals would be able to impose sanctions on the United States if the US did not uphold the rulings made by a select few whom profiteer from behind the curtain.

An excerpt from a recent Huffington Post article reads;

The leaked document has been posted on the website of Public Citizen, a long-time critic of the administration’s trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.

“The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S.trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch in a written statement.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website.

Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.

The globalists and their minions are selling us out left and right.

Obama Plans to Grant International Tribunals Power to Supersede US Law and Impose Sanctions :

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Using the Trans-Pacific Partnership to Expand NAFTA and Strip National Sovereignty

Dana Gabriel, Contributor

Both Canada and Mexico have been invited to join the U.S., along with other countries already engaged in negotiations which will deepen trade and economic ties within the Asia-Pacific region. Such a deal would surpass NAFTA in size and scope.

The U.S. led talks which have been criticized for their secretive nature, could be used to update aspects of existing trade pacts among member nations. This would provide the perfect opportunity for a backdoor renegotiation of NAFTA without officially having to open it back up.
After expressing interest in joining trade talks back in November 2011, NAFTA partners have been invited to join the U.S. backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which also includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk welcomed both Mexico and Canada into the TPP fold.

He noted that, “Mexico has assured the United States that it is prepared to conclude a high-standard agreement that will include issues that were not covered in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).” He added, “Inviting Canada to join the TPP negotiations presents a unique opportunity for the United States to build upon this already dynamic trading relationship. Through TPP, we are bringing the relationship with our largest trading partner into the 21st century.” A joint statement by the U.S. and Canada acknowledged that, “The TPP presents an opportunity to conclude a high standard agreement that will build on the commitments of NAFTA.”

The Council of Canadians who continue to be vocal opponents of NAFTA and other trade deals that follow the same flawed template, are strongly against Canada’s entry into the TPP. Its national chairperson, Maude Barlow warned that this, “could force Canada to change its drug policies, its copyright policies, its environmental and public health rules – all without going through the normal parliamentary process.”

The organization cautioned how, “TPP negotiations could mean up-front concessions in a number of areas, including intellectual property rights, where the U.S. is making considerable demands on TPP member countries that will undermine access to essential medicines so that its multinational drug firms can increase profits.”

They also emphasized that, “Supply management, which guarantees fair wages and stable prices for farmers in non-exporting sectors, is too valuable to Canada to sacrifice on a negotiating table.”

Others have pointed out that it is important as a buy-local program, as well as key to Canada’s food security and food sovereignty. The Council of Canadians maintains that, “the TPP is by and large a NAFTA renegotiation but on U.S. President Obama’s terms.”

Not surprisingly, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, an organization that lobbies the government on behalf of the country’s largest corporations, welcomed the announcement that Canada has been invited to join the TPP talks. Its President and CEO John Manley stated that:

By signing on to the TPP, the federal government has taken an historic leap toward securing Canada’s long-term strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also applauded Canada and Mexico’s entry into the TPP. Its President and CEO Thomas Donohue argued that, “negotiating the TPP together is an excellent strategic decision for North America.” Back in January, the Council of the Americas explained how, “it makes little sense for the United States to enter into potentially significant trade arrangements with countries in the Pacific region without our NAFTA partners.” They view the TPP as a “promising vehicle to support the updating of our bilateral and trilateral trading relationships within North America to the high standards of twenty-first century free-trade agreements.”

In his article, Will invitation to join TPP talks lead to NAFTA 2.0?, Peter Clark one of Canada’s leading international trade strategists concluded that, “A successful TPP would allow NAFTA to essentially be re-opened without the optics of it actually being re-opened.” He went on to say, “The business leaders in all three NAFTA countries, as strong supporters of TPP invitations to Canada and Mexico, understand that after nearly 20 years, modernization of NAFTA is needed. For rules of origin, supply chain management and manufacturing integration.” Clark stressed that, “All Canadians should be clear about this – TPP is the negotiation of NAFTA 2.0 and it could have major implications for Canada-USA trade relations.”

Meanwhile, both countries are implementing the Beyond the Border Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan which has been described as the most significant steps forward in U.S.-Canada cooperation since NAFTA.Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute observed how, “The TPP negotiating agenda is at once similar to the bilateral agenda that Canada and the United States are pursuing, and also more ambitious and multilateral.”

In May, the TPP held its twelfth round of negotiations with the next set of talks scheduled to take place in San Diego, California from July 2-10. So far, there has been a real lack of transparency, but what is clear is that the TPP seeks to go beyond other trade agreements. According to a leaked text by Public Citizen, it would expand on the investor privileges found in NAFTA, granting corporations more power and further threatening the sovereign rights of member nations. In the meantime, the U.S. continues to spearhead TPP negotiations as a way of countering growing Chinese influence. The door is open for other countries to join which is why it is considered to be a stepping stone to a larger free trade area of the Asia-Pacific and an important part of the international corporate globalization agenda.

Trade deals such as NAFTA and now the TPP are being used to smuggle through a new setof transnational corporate rights, trapping nations in a web of treaties that further trump their own laws. All too often, these agreements fail to deliver on the promise of prosperity and only serve to accelerate the path towards economic enslavement. Globalization has meant sacrificing self-sufficiency and sovereignty for foreign dependency which is a sure path to world government.

Related Articles By Dana Gabriel:
Canada and Mexico to Join U.S. in NAFTA of the Pacific
Building Blocks Towards an Asia-Pacific Union
NAFTA Partners Take Steps to Boost Trilateral Relationship
U.S. Economic, Political and Military Expansion in Asia-Pacific

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com Visit his blog at beyourownleader.blogspot.com

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Activist Post: Using the Trans-Pacific Partnership to Expand NAFTA and Strip National Sovereignty

unCOOL: WTO Infringes National Sovereignty. US Country of Origin food labeling overruled by Geneva-based bureaucrats!

Submitted by Blue Republic on Sun, 07/01/2012 - 06:40
Daily Paul Liberty ForumThe World Trade Organization overrules US laws requiring country-of-origin food labeling. These so-called free trade agreements seem to mostly about undermining national/local/individual sovereignty in favor of supranational bureaucracies and international corporations:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/10528/popular-cool-meat-la...

Note that the Obama administration is continuing to push the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) agreement which will bring more of the same...
http://www.dailypaul.com/236033/rt-democrats-revolt-against-...
(just one of several good DP threads about TPP)

unCOOL: WTO Infringes National Sovereignty. US Country of Origin food labeling overruled by Geneva-based bureaucrats! | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012