WikiLeaks releases new documents exposing secret Trans-Pacific Partnership talks

Posted 10 Dec 2013

Russell Brandom

The Verge

December 9, 2013

Initiative_TPP

In November, WikiLeaks published a rare draft of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty — revealing the United States’ covert international push for stronger intellectual property rights. Now, nearly a month after the first documents were published, the group is back on the case, publishing a new raft of documents from the TPP negotiations currently taking place in Singapore. The revelations are mostly the same, with the United States leading the charge for SOPA-like penalties on file-sharing and stringent patent reforms, but the new documents suggest that the public outcry against these proposals has had little effect on the negotiations.

The leaks come at a particularly inconvenient time for negotiators, as they enter into their fourth day of talks in Singapore amid growing criticism. The talks are premised on secrecy, allowing countries to push for particular proposals without having to justify their positions publicly, but the continued pressure from WikiLeaks has brought unintended attention to the proceedings.

These latest documents highlight the United States’ role in the process, as it attempts to force the smaller nations to adopt more stringent rules. “The US is exerting great pressure to close as many issues as possible this week,” says a state-of-play summary included in the leaks. “This pressure will increase with every passing day.”