How Trade Agreements Mess Up with Internet Freedom Time and time again, abusive copyright provisions have been successfully reproduced to multiple trade agreements. These binding instruments are expanding to cover core topics that traditionally were part of the broader internet governance sphere. The impact of these provisions on human rights and Internet are disastrous, but so few are paying attention. Forum shopping and policy laundering are happening at alarming rates as unpopular policies that would likely fail in national public forums are being cycled through non-transparent international negotiations that do not have the same standards of democratic oversight. Clear examples are the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, Korea-US trade agreement, the Canadian-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Transatlantic Partnership. But the list goes on. In a world of policy laundry and forum shopping, this panel aims to identify the challenges ahead for public interest organizations and build a strategy, created through dialogue, on how we should deal with the issues that will arise from these agreements. Speakers will provide perspectives from different countries, but will foster debate on what could be core coordination and strategy efforts

1. How Trade Agreements Mess Up
with Internet Freedoms
Carolina Rossini
Vice President, International Policy
Public Knowledge
http://www.publicknowledge.org
+ 1 6176979389 | skype: carolrossini |
@carolinarossini

6. • US – Oman RTA :
(Article 15.10.29) provides for extensive
procedures regulating internet service providers
who, among other obligations, are required to
cooperate with copyright owners and play an
anti-piracy role.

8. • Freedom of Expression

9. TPP article 16.3 mandates a system of ISP liability that pushes a
framework beyond ACTA and possibly the spirit of the DMCA, since it
opens the doors for:
• Three-strikes policies and laws that require Internet intermediaries
to terminate their users’ Internet access on repeat allegations of
copyright infringement
• Requirements for Internet intermediaries to filter all Internet
communications for potentially copyright-infringing material
• ISP obligations to block access to websites that allegedly infringe
or facilitate copyright infringement
• Efforts to force intermediaries to disclose the identities of their
customers to IP rightsholders on an allegation of copyright
infringement.

10. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement seeks to adopt a
general prohibition on restrictions to the free flow of online
information, raising several questions regarding the role of trade
agreements.
While the free flow of information has undeniable economic
and trade benefits, it is also inextricably linked with complex
social and political considerations that might not be best
resolved in secretive, exclusive closed door trade negotiations.

11. • Data Protection, Privacy and Free Flow of
Information

12. Forum shopping on Data Privacy
• The total number of new data privacy laws globally,
viewed by decade, shows that their growth is
accelerating, not merely expanding linearly: 8 (1970s),
13 (1980s), 21 (1990s), 35 (2000s) and 12 (2 years of
the 2010s), giving the total of 89. [3]
• Is TPP the right place for this discussion???

13. • countries should not use trade agreements to
challenge privacy laws as trade barriers
• we need to make clear about what type of
information we are discussing when discussing “free-
flow”, which historically is related to cross-personal-
data flow
• and if we want the language to go beyond cross-data-
flow and actually deal with freedom of expression,
the e-commerce chapter is a limited venue for that

14. http://www.citizen.org/documents/IP%20out%20of%20TAFTA%20with%20Logos-revisednew.pdf

15. CANADA
TPP
TAFTA
KORUS
CETA

16. Other resources
• https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/International_Digital_Rights#F
oundational_Materials
• World Trade Organization - Economic Research and Statistics Division -
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROVISIONS IN REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
WTO, Manuscript date: 31 October
2012http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/ersd201221_
e.pdf