The following report was prepared by KEI, and reviewed by Daniel Sepulveda of USTR:
Obama Administration To Undertake Review of Transparency of Trade Negotiations
On Thursday, President Obama’s trade officials met with several civil society groups and promised a thorough review of the USTR policies regarding transparency. The review is expected to be completed within a few months. The process will include a meeting within a month to discuss initial specific proposals for openness and transparency. Citizens and NGOs are encouraged to think about the specific areas where openness and transparency can be enhanced and how. Among the specific proposals that will be evaluated are the following at the request of KEI:
1. Disclosure of all negotiating texts and policy papers 2. Disclosure of all meeting agenda (as soon as they are available), and participant lists.... 4. Public consultations and comment periods....
This review will be focused on making the recent statements by President Obama on transparency concrete and effective in the area of trade negotiations....[T]houghtful discussions of the point at which communications with foreign governments should be disclosed and the extent of the disclosure required are more useful than broad high level statements on transparency.
The meeting was chaired by Daniel Sepulveda, a former Obama Senate aide who is now Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Congressional Affairs....
Civil society participants included James Love, Judit Rius and Malini Aisola, of Knowledge Ecology International, Chris Murray of Consumers Union, Marcia Carroll of Essential Action and Eddan Katz of EFF (by phone).
KEI is very impressed with the USTR decision to undertake a review of USTR transparency efforts. They are taking this much further than simply reviewing policies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or recent controversies over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations....
Comment. For some of the background, see our post from last week on the Obama administration's denial of FOIA requests to see the US documents on the ACTA negotiations. Thanks to Daniel Sepulveda and the USTR for listening to public criticism and agreeing to this review. Kudos to KEI and the other participating NGOs for arranging this welcome opportunity.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/20/2009 04:32:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
