Have you heard of TiSA? The Trade in Services Agreement or TiSA, is the largest multilateral trade deal ever negotiated, and currently includes 50 countries.  TiSA  would set the rules for “services”  that the text defines so broadly as to encompass almost all areas of our lives. TiSA would apply to approximately 80% of the global economy yet the massive corporate-designed agreement has been negotiated completely behind closed doors without public input. *Without WikiLeaks, we would know very little.

TiSA would inhibit regulations of the very banks that brought down the global economy, destroy online privacy and data protections and would legally codify global privatization of the commons, including access to clean water, public education and quality health care.  TiSA would entrench neoliberal dirty energy projects like fracking and tar sands at the expense of renewables like solar and wind power.

Despite President Trump’s proclaimed opposition to TPP, and his checkered messaging around NAFTA, he has yet to say one word about TiSA which has farther-reaching implications. TiSA is now the biggest free trade deal we’ve never heard about which is why Trade Justice Alliance is hosting 2 prestigious speakers on the topic:

Sanya Reid Smith, Legal Advisor and Senior Researcher at the Third World Network, an international coalition specializing in development issues and North-South affairs.  

Deborah James, Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.  She has over fifteen years of expertise working on issues of trade and democratic global governance.

Sanya Reid Smith will give us a long-overdue overview of the many facets of TiSA, the threats to local rule, and the state of play around the corporate attempts at world governance vis-a vis the “services sector.”

Deborah James, will give us details of global opposition to TiSA and what we can do to stop the global corporate threats to jobs, the commons and the environment that would be legally codified should TiSA be ratified.

About Sanya Reid Smith:

Sanya Reid Smith is a Legal Advisor and Senior Researcher at the Third World Network, an international coalition specializing in development issues and North-South affairs. Sanya travels the world in tireless advocacy for poor people in developing nations, on topics including access to medicines, women’s rights and environmental sustainability.

Talk by Sanya Reid Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WUXTQL03hY

About Deborah James:

Deborah James is Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. She has over fifteen years of expertise working on issues of trade and democratic global governance. At CEPR, her work focuses on the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and US policy towards Latin America. Prior to CEPR, she was the Director of the WTO Program for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Interview with Deborah James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_NzwR0g7M

WikiLeaks TiSA Core Text:   https://wikileaks.org/tisa/document/20160621_TiSA_Core-Text/