Killing TTIP - The struggle against corporate power!

While Obama is visiting Europe to drum up support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the 13^th round of negotiations of the treaty is currently taking place in the US. As John Hilary, the Executive Director of War on Want and one of the key initiators of the Stop-TTIP campaign in Europe, declared, TTIP is not only important in itself covering the EU and US. It is also significant, because it is regarded as a blueprint for all future trade deals. In this blog post, I will report on the key themes of his public lecture at Nottingham University, delivered on 26 April.

Towards principles of an alternative fair trade regime

Multilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), praised as engines of development by their supporters, have experienced a revival recently in a number of multilateral negotiations including the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In this blog post, I will critically discuss the record of FTAs and suggest potential key principles of an alternative trade regime from a workers’ perspective, including one set of principles around national sovereignty and another against the increasing structural power of transnational capital. I will, thereby, draw on my freely downloadable paper ‘From ‘free trade’ to ‘fair trade’: proposals for joint labour demands towards an alternative trade regime’, published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Johannesburg/South Africa.