Please share widely and repost with attribution. This content is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Comments, suggestions, and criticism are welcome. Originally posted at To Promote the Progress?
Early Monday morning, Wikileaks released a second set of documents pertaining to the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. Unlike the previous leak, this one does not contain a draft text, and instead consists of a series of comments and analysis by an unidentified negotiating party (clearly not the U.S.), as well as a table reporting each negotiating party’s position on specific issues in each chapter. The documents come from the Salt Lake City round of negotiations, which took place from November 19 to November 24, 2013.
The comments are brief, but well worth reading, as they indicate a degree of frustration with the lack of progress during the Salt Lake City round, and explicitly charge the United States with intransigence (e.g., on the topic of agricultural export subsidies, the author writes “All TPP countries except the U.S. commit to eliminate them”; likewise, with respect to financial services, he/she writes “United States shows zero flexibility.”)
An additional round of negotiations was held from December 7 to December 10 in Singapore. We learned yesterday that contrary to previous expectations, the TPP will not be concluded by year’s end, and instead at least one additional meeting will be held in January 2014.
Following up on my previous post, which analyzed the leaked intellectual property chapter by using network graphs, in this post I analyze overall negotiating positions across the entire agreement, as well as in each individual chapter. This analysis is based on the leaked table reporting negotiating positions.
Visualizing Negotiating Positions
The following graphs take the approach of plotting negotiating “distances” between countries. That is, the more dissimilarity there is between two countries’ negotiating positions, the further apart the countries will appear on a graph. Distances are derived directly from the leaked position table. The centroid is given by the origin point (0,0). In most cases, both axes used the same scale, but in a few cases (which I note) they are different. Scales are not comparable between graphs. All the graphs use “jitter,” which helps avoid overlapping labels, but makes distances slightly inexact. For technical details, see the “Nuts and Bolts” section towards the end.
This first graph represents the overall negotiating position distances between countries across all available chapters. There is a striking separation between the United States and all other TPP negotiating parties. Australia comes closest to the U.S. position, although it is not any further from the centroid than Peru. Overall, this graph serves to provide a simple visual confirmation of the leaked comments and other news reporting on TPP negotiations: the U.S. position is quite distant from the consensus point of all other countries.
Since my area of interest is intellectual property, I look at the IP chapter next. The results suggest my previous analysis was relatively accurate. The U.S. position in the intellectual property chapter is again farthest from the centroid. Australia is also quite far from the centroid, but also far from the U.S. All the other parties are clustered relatively close together, although we can still see differences within this cluster: e.g., Vietnam and Brunei are quite near one another, as are Canada and Malaysia (I had noted both these connections in the previous analysis).
In the remainder of this section, I consider each leaked chapter in alphabetical order.
The competition/state-owned enterprises graph tells a very different story than the previous two graphs. Here we immediately see two clusters on either side of the centroid: a United States/Canada/Australia/New Zealand/Mexico cluster, and a Japan/New Zealand/Singapore/Brunei/Chile cluster. Peru, Vietnam, and Malaysia fall in the middle. Note that the relative level of disagreement when compared to other chapters is low, since the data source reports positions only on a single proposal (sub-national coverage).
In the customs chapter, we see agreement amongst all parties except Japan (who has a “reserved position”) and the United States (who is the only party accepting the proposal). Again, the relative level of disagreement when compared to other chapters is low, since the data source reports positions only on a single proposal (a de minimis exception of $200).
The e-commerce chapter also provides a very different picture. There is a clear United States/Japan/Mexico cluster, which Peru also joins. Canada is nearby, but Australia is not. Brunei and Vietnam, normally close pairs, are quite far apart in this chapter.
The environment chapter also shows a distant United States position. Canada, Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Brunei cluster together quite close to the centroid, while Peru, Chile, Vietnam and Malaysia (all lower-income and middle-income countries) appear on the other periphery.
In government procurement, Mexico and Malaysia are the outliers. Both have rejected the proposal for sub-national coverage of this chapter. Relative distances are still small, given that there are only two proposals shown in the source table.
In the investment chapter, the United States appears again as the country furthest from the centroid. Japan is also relatively distant. Australia/Canada/Mexico cluster together, as do Brunei/New Zealand/Peru/Malaysia/Chile. One of the biggest debates in this chapter surrounds so-called investor-state dispute settlement, which would permit foreign firms to sue governments over alleged trade agreement violations. This type of provision is what has permitted tobacco company Philip Morris to sue the Australian government over its plain packaging legislation.
On labor issues, Australia and the United States cluster together far from the centroid. Mexico is also quite distant. Malaysia and Canada form a pair, but closer to the centroid. Mexico’s peripheral position is due to its rejection of the proposal on forced labor. The other two proposals concern sub-national coverage and dispute settlement.
The legal chapter includes a variety of topics such as the medicines “transparency” annex (i.e., the U.S. taking aim at foreign drug price controls), provisions exempting tobacco regulations from challenge, the “cultural exception” (bonjour Quebec!), and issues concerning when the agreement will enter into force, inter alia. Interestingly, we have almost a circle of positions around the centroid, with the exception of the United States, which is again farthest from the centroid.
The market access chapter is what most people typically think of when discussing trade agreements. Here, we see a wide variety of positions, representing significant disagreement. However, yet again, the United States appears farthest from the centroid. As noted above, the U.S. is the lone holdout on the proposal to eliminate agricultural subsidies. A recent Washington Post article on the U.S. sugar industry suggests that such subsidies aren’t going anywhere. I suppose that’s why the TPP is called a “partnership agreement”, rather than a “free trade agreement.”
Rules of origin are rules defining where a product is deemed to come from. Given that anything other than the simplest products will incorporate materials or parts from multiple countries, such rules are critically important in determining what products benefit from tariff reductions. We can see significant disagreement between most parties, with the United States position yet again farthest from the centroid.
With respect to trade in services, the United States and Canadian positions are identical, but farthest from the centroid. Peru and Chile are also peripheral, while all other parties cluster together near the centroid. The U.S. and Canadian positions are defined by their rejection of the “necessity test” proposal. Necessity tests require domestic regulation of services to be limited to only what is “necessary” to achieve a party’s policy objectives. Peru’s position is defined by its rejection of the open skies (air travel regulation) proposal.
SPS refers to sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which deal with food safety and plant and animal health regulations. If you’re wondering what this has to do with free trade, think of Japan or the European Union banning imports of U.S. beef: such bans may be motivated by legitimate health and safety concerns, but they may also simply provide a convenient cover for protectionism. The graph shows a significant amount of disagreement amongst most parties. In this chapter, the U.S. remains on the periphery, as does Japan, although there is no major consensus cluster amongst the other parties.
TBT stands for technical barriers to trade. Such provisions in trade agreements are designed to ensure that regulations, standards, and testing or certification requirements do not unduly burden free trade. Australia and the United States are clustered near one another, but this time it is a Peru/Chile cluster that is farthest from the centroid. All the Asian members plus New Zealand also form a cluster.
These graphs use ISO standard 2 letter country codes, but for reference, here is a legend:
US |
United States |
CA |
Canada |
JP |
Japan |
AU |
Australia |
NZ |
New Zealand |
MX |
Mexico |
PE |
Peru |
CL |
Chile |
SG |
Singapore |
MY |
Malaysia |
BN |
Brunei |
VN |
Vietnam |
Without access to the text, it’s sometimes difficult to know exactly what the various proposals mean. However, what we do know is that in the majority of chapters for which we have data, the United States appears quite far from the centroid position, and often by itself. This isn’t really news, but I think it’s interesting to systematically consider the distances between negotiating positions, and to note that the distances and clusters vary significantly by chapter and issue.
As for what it means, I think it’s fair to conclude that the TPP – unlike something like ACTA – is by no means an agreement amongst “like-minded countries.” Now, contention and disagreement isn’t always bad; on the contrary, it’s part and parcel of any negotiation. But one has to wonder about which countries are going to end up shifting positions, and in what direction, in order to make consensus and a final text possible. I suspect it won’t be the United States offering the compromises.
There are important issues at stake in the TPP negotiations, affecting access to medicines, national health policies, and national sovereignty inter alia. Yet the negotiating parties are being pushed to come to an agreement within the next two months. I won’t delve into any more detail here about the substantive issues, other than to recommend this Guardian guide to the most contentious issues in the TPP negotiations.
Nuts and Bolts
The approach I use here is called multidimensional scaling (MDS) which visualizes similarity and differences between cases as distances in N-dimensional space. I have to give a hat tip to Zhou Fang, who suggested this approach to me.
The leaked table of negotiating positions lends itself perfectly to MDS. In fact, the hardest part was probably retyping the scanned Wikileaks document. I coded an “accepted” position as 1, a rejected” position as a 0, and a “reserved position” as 0.5. Note that coding is somewhat arbitrary; e.g., I could have chosen 1, -1, and 0 instead. Different coding will affect the nominal distances, but not the relative distances (unless the coding employed unequal intervals).
The dist function creates a distance matrix. The MASS library provides the isoMDS function. isoMDS chokes when cases are identical (zero distance), so I had to add a nominal amount of distance between otherwise identical negotiating positions. Plotting is done with ggplot2, which makes adding jitter very easy. I adjust jitter on a case-by-case basis in order to avoid misleading distortions in the graphs. Most of the graphs use identical X and Y axes, but in a few cases the Y axis would have been highly compressed, so I expand it to make visual differentiation possible. Note carefully the scale changes between graphs.
Data and code available upon request. I’m currently in South Africa, so between the time difference and sporadic access to the Internet, I might not get back to you quickly, but I will do so eventually.
Re: Is it as simple as facts?
The denial letter indicated that I didn't have the "minimum amount" of material to qualify for a copyright, although it also did mention the idea/expression dichotomy. As someone else pointed out, I think the idea is know by other names, such as "Hitler ate sugar" or the "association fallacy."
I actually did Google searches for "monkey bar fallacy" prior to the submission to ensure it wasn't widely used in order to avoid them thinking I was trying to control the use of a phrase. (I couldn't find any uses.)
Re: Re: Re: Link to correspondence
Well, works of the federal government are ineligible for copyright, so thankfully we're not at this point yet. State government is another story.
Link to correspondence
I just scanned it. Here's a link:
https://topromotetheprogress.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tweet_reg_denied.pdf
Re:
Yes, copyright is automatic. However, by registering, you have presumptive proof of ownership, and you are entitled to statutory damages and other benefits.
Also, in cases like my tweet, registration can serve as proof that there is copyrightable material at issue. Of course, the registration could be voided if it went to court and the court found otherwise.
Re: Copyright in photographs?
FWIW, I actually took that photo to use as a lecture example of how United States law doesn't protect geographical indications - which is why you can have domestic "Greek" yogurt where the only thing "Greek" are the blue columns printed on the container.
I did think about the copyright implications of the photo, but I concluded that there's no copyrightable expression on the yogurt container.
Re: Re: Their TV commercials lie, too
I've seen the commercial twice. The second time, I looked at the fine print and didn't see anything that referenced the implicit speed claim. It's possible I missed it, though.
Their TV commercials lie, too
There's a current Comcast (excuse me--Xfinity) TV commercial right now that shows a 2 GB file (a television show) downloading on a tablet in less than 10 seconds.
That works out to about 1.6 Gbps (assuming 8 gigabits per gigabyte). Yet the fastest service Comcast offers is something like 105 Mbps.
Seems like false advertising to me. Wish I could find a recorded version of it to call them out.
In case anyone wants a simple, CC licensed graphic to drive home the point about crime being at its lowest point in years, I made one, available here: http://t.co/Br03ZAk3Nu
Data is from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. The trends are similar across all violent crimes, and across all property crimes, too. The drop off has been so dramatic that even the total number of crimes has gone done in all categories, despite the population increasing.
Furthermore, law enforcement deaths have also been trending downward, though not as quickly. In most years, law enforcement officers are more likely to die by accident (car and motorcycle crashes, being struck by cars, training accidents, etc.) than to be killed by a criminal. Many ordinary jobs, such as truck driving, are more dangerous than being a police officer.
Like the idiot Annapolis police chief who cited a hoax story in his testimony before the state legislature on marijuana legalization, anyone claiming that law enforcement needs military-grade equipment because the U.S. is more dangerous than it used to be is unfit for their job and should be fired.
It's fine for there to be elite police units that can respond to especially dangerous situations. But there is no reason to deploy a SWAT team to handle road closures on Independence Day (Arlington County, VA did this last year).
It's not just Maryland, it's Prince George's County
You know, the county where officers lie about a brutality incident that was caught on video, and the judge presiding over the case was married to an officer with a similar history of brutality.
The county that was for several years under a DoJ consent decree.
Hell, they even beat up other police officers.
Par for the course. I went to the University of Maryland. PG County police love to break out the riot gear, including pepper balls which they used to shoot people in the face. They often "couldn't find" video recordings for investigations. Maybe they'll do everyone a favor and stay on Twitter.
Don't be silly
The U.S. doesn't give a hoot about piracy that affects Pakistani musicians. They even say so in the 301 report - they're concerned about optical disc piracy which presents "serious concerns for U.S. industry."
The Special 301 report isn't about promoting innovation, or even protecting intellectual property in general. It's about airing a laundry list of everything U.S. trade groups are unhappy about in the domestic policy of other countries. This is why 301 now complains about "the poor quality" of China's utility models and design patents.
Re:
Actually, Xerox actively fights against people using the word in that way, because it could lead to trademark genericization.
They took out an ad encouraging people not to say "xerox" when they meant photocopy: http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2010/06/xerox-ad-pretends-we-care-about-its-trademark-rights-to-term-xerox.html
Re: WIPO the global bully
The U.S. can do that just fine by itself, and it does it all the time through bilateral and regional free trade agreements. What do you think the TPP is all about? Or the Special 301 charade? Getting rid of WIPO would not reduce the U.S.'s ability to coerce on IP issues in the least.
I would prefer more IP policymaking take place at WIPO - at least it would be relatively transparent and more balanced than what is currently going on in the TPP and elsewhere.
Re: Re: Going to have to disagree with you here, Mike
Well I guess since the U.S. shot down Iran Air Flight 655, the U.N. supports that too? Good to know. I'll keep that in mind.
Going to have to disagree with you here, Mike
I've met both James Pooley and Francis Gurry, and I suspect there is more going on here than meets the eye.
First, I think it's important to understand that WIPO the organization is separate from WIPO member states. Gurry and Pooley are members of the WIPO Secretariat. Yes, they come from member states, but as members of the secretariat, they are first and foremost supposed to serve the institution. The institution exists to serve administrative and organizational needs of the member states. It is not supposed to take sides with member states.
A lot of the problems we might have with "WIPO" are actually problems with WIPO's powerful member states - the United States, the European Union, Japan, etc. Remember, WIPO also produced the Development Agenda and the Marrakesh Treaty.
In fact, a lot of US rightsholders organizations are unhappy with WIPO precisely because they think it is too biased towards developing countries (seeing as how the whole one-state one-vote deal doesn't allow the US to push its way around as easily).
IMO that is why a number of Congress critters want Gurry out. Also relevant is the fact that Pooley is an Obama appointee to WIPO. Of course, it's not clear the U.S. would like any of the other DG candidates any better. And of course a scandal at a UN agency is always good fodder for Republicans.
Sending computers to North Korea was pretty thick-headed from a PR perspective, if nothing else. But Iran is a different story. You have to remember that WIPO is UN agency. They don't have cause to treat Iran like a complete pariah just because the US does so. The same is true with Cuba.
Re: the letter, honestly it sounds to be like nothing more than a typical nastygram.
40% figure is meaningless
"There's nearly 40% of the world's GDP at stake here (according to the USTR's numbers)"
That's a misleading talking point everyone repeats without understanding what it means. The actual claim is that the countries involved in TPP negotiations represent 40% of the world's GDP, which is very different.
All they've done is total up the GDP of the twelve countries. But obviously the TPP does not affect the entire GDP of a country - it will only affect a fraction of that. Precisely how much is impossible to know in advance because it will be affected by the concessions each country makes.
The TPP represents 40% of the world's GDP in the same way that when I buy a cup of coffee, the two partners in the transaction represent millions of dollars in net worth (the coffee company plus me). That is, it's a virtually meaningless number.
1. Are the 1990 numbers inflation adjusted? I should not need to look this up to find out.
2. Comparing the market caps is stupid. Could it maybe, possibly be that a company like Facebook is overvalued?
3. More revenue with fewer people basically means increased productivity. That is not a bad thing.
I think there are serious economic problems associated with the lack of decent jobs for people, but this chart is basically worthless.
Probably thinks Wikipedia is "thievery"
What's this "free encyclopedia" thing? How does that get to be number two?
Two days after the Oscars, I caught Dallas Buyers Club on a two-dollar Tuesday showing at my local second-run theater. Add in the price of a beer, and it's about the same as a matinee at a first run theater. Except you get to drink beer while watching the movie.
Given how much Hollywood hates RedBox, I wonder if they think paying just $2 for a screening is essentially piracy, and that by selling the beer the theater is making money from piracy.
"As it stands, nothing happens to users after the sixth strike, and nobody tracks users who move from ISP to ISP."
Wait, in what alternate dimension are you living where users can easily switch between multiple ISPs? And can I come?
Don't forget satellite!
"Austin is fast becoming the site of an arms race among broadband providers at a time when many U.S. communities are dominated by one or perhaps two companies."
They forgot about satellite internet, a broadband option for everyone in America! Unless you need low latency, or you live in an apartment building, or you don't have line of sight... or it's raining.
Three providers - now that's real competition!