WikiLeaks publishes TPP intellectual property documents

WikiLeaks releases the final negotiated text for the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter.

“If adopted, the rules will delay generic and biosimilar competition, making the medicines upon which people depend to stay alive expensive for longer and, as a outcome, unobtainable”.

A few countries will have transition periods, and the leaked text shows those periods would last three to ten years.The deal also says the TPP commission will review the period of exclusivity after 10 years.The TPP negotiating countries include the USA, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei.

Aside from the WikiLeaks publication, the vast majority of the mammoth deal’s contents are still being withheld from the public-which a WikiLeaks press statement suggests is a strategic move by world leaders to forestall public criticism until after the Canadian election on October 19.

TPP is a historic Pacific Rim trade agreement with 11 other countries that TV and film producers have been pushing for as a way to expand trade and access to Asia-Pacific markets.

And even in the USA, where similar rules are already in place, “the high prices of medicines-bolstered by TPP-style monopolistic protections-have led to treatment rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe budgetary strains”, Public Citizen concludes.

Keep in mind this is just one chapter.

“The TPP would cost lives”, Maybarduk added. TPP participant New Zealand announced this measure earlier this week, claiming that the provision would cost the country $37 million annually.

The digital rights group said the leak only buttressed that argument.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said this week that the TPP “is a collection of provisions that amount to a wish list for giant multinational corporations,” and that the Office of the US Trade Representative, the American agency involved in negotiations, “was willing to hold up the entire deal to try to extract more concessions for Big Pharma.”

But while the TPP text may be finalized, the agreement must still be ratified by the governments of all signing countries, which could push back against the agreement’s provisions or even abandon the deal altogether.