November 19, 2013
Trans Pacific Partnership will benefit multinational companies
A leading campaigner against the Trans Pacific Partnerhsip says iwi leaders need to wise up about the implications of the trade deal rather than fall in line with corporate and multinational business interests.
Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey says a Wikileaks release of a draft of the agreement allows the public to see for the first time some of the details the negotiators have tried to keep secret.
She says the intellectual property sections being pushed by the United States would make medicines more expensive.
It is also likely to lead to more Maori names being trademarked by foreign companies, and traditional knowledge about things like rongoa or natural medicine being claimed by companies.
"If traditional knowledge and the ability to be able control those kinds of rights, which exist under tikanga rather than existing under pakeha law and theres a bit of a dogfight at present about the extent to which indigenous rights to knowledge can be protected. So all of those things that are really important domestic issues for us here, would get tied up in the rules that they're promoting," she says.
Jane Kelsey says the TPP has been negotiated for the benefit of multiunational companies rather than the citizens of small countries like New Zealand.
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