Civil Rights
Block on Trump's Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court
The full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement was released November 5, 2015. It was many years in the running -- seven years, basically -- but the masterpiece is finally available for public scrutiny. The Agreement extends its tentacles into approximately 40 percent of the world's annual GDP and almost 1 billion people's lives. Obviously, businesses are some of its greatest proponents.
The text is extremely lengthy and not terribly well organized. In-house lawyers are likely most interested in the intellectual property provisions that address marketing exclusivity time periods. Full details cannot be given here, but round numbers are provided.
Signatory countries still must ratify the agreement as presented. But if they do so, they bind themselves to the structure described in the first few chapters of the the agreement, sans certain country-tailored exceptions as provided for in Article 18.82.4 and Annexes 18-A through D.
It probably marks the first time in history a trans-national attempt to standardize intellectual property has ever progressed this far. In-house lawyers will want to highlight the numbers below.
China is not one of the signatories to the TPP, and there is talk that this will only further strain relations. Some have noted that Obama's rhetoric regarding the TPP os unnecessarily belligerent. The eventual ratification of the relevant sections in the TPP will be a somewhat ironic victory for President Obama: getting the jump on China in writing international trade rules, but also further ruffling the feathers of America's largest trading partner.
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