Abstract
Trade and investment negotiations as well as dispute settlement take mostly place behind closed doors. Yet, confidential negotiation or dispute settlement documents have increasingly been leaked and calls for more transparency are widespread. The present contribution argues that the current state of affairs may best be labeled “transleakancy”, a kind of para-transparency created by leaked documents, creating numerous problems.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
See European Commission, Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America, COM/2011/0380 final of 24 June 2011.
- 4.
See the European Commission’s rejection of the citizens’ initiative “Stop TTIP” at http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/non-registered/details/2041?lg=en.
- 5.
At least, a Google search of “transleakancy” did not produce any results when conducted (for the last time) on 28 October 2014.
- 6.
See Davérède, Negotiations, Secret, in: MPEPIL online.
- 7.
WT/L/671, 18 December 2006, available at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/trans_mecha_e.htm.
- 8.
E.g., the EU and the US made the early announcement for TTIP under the Transparency mechanism on 8 July 2013, see http://rtais.wto.org/UI/PublicEARTAList.aspx.
- 9.
See Perez-Esteve (2012).
- 10.
See WTO, Procedures for the Circulation and Derestriction of WTO Documents, Decision of 14 May 2002, WT/L/452.
- 11.
WTO, Guidelines for arrangements on relations with Non-Governmental Organizations, Decision adopted by the General Council on 18 July 1996, WT/L/162.
- 12.
See Perez-Esteve (2012), pp. 10 et seq.
- 13.
- 14.
See recent moves for reform of the TPRM, Chaisse and Matsuhita (2013), p. 9.
- 15.
- 16.
See however, Bungenberg (2015), in this volume, p. 32: “Transparency is mostly seen as a means of promoting the credibility and legitimacy of the international economic law system”.
- 17.
Perez-Esteve (2012), pp. 22 et seq.
- 18.
See http://unctad.org/en/pages/DIAE/International%20Investment%20Agreements%20(IIA)/IIA-Tools.aspx. UNCTAD provides the most comprehensive BIT database of the world, but explicitly points out that it is based on voluntary information by its members.
- 19.
- 20.
Sackmann (2012), pp. 63 et seq.
- 21.
UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (as revised in 2010, with new Art. 1, para. 4, as adopted in 2013) and UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration, Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 16 December 2013, available at http://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/arbitration/arb-rules-2013/UNCITRAL-Arbitration-Rules-2013-e.pdf.
- 22.
- 23.
See Article X.33: Transparency of Proceedings of the CETA draft.
- 24.
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, [2001] OJ L 145/43.
- 25.
Commission Decision (2001/844/EC, ECSC, Euratom) of 29 November 2001 amending its internal Rules of Procedure, [2001] OJ L 317/1.
- 26.
Council Decision (2013/488/EU) of 23 September 2013 on the security rules for protecting EU classified information, [2013] OJ L 274/1.
- 27.
European Parliament, Decision of the Bureau of the European Parliament of 6 June 2011 concerning the rules governing the treatment of confidential information by the European Parliament, [2011] OJ C 190/2.
- 28.
Agreement between the Member States of the European Union, meeting within the Council, regarding the protection of classified information exchanged in the interests of the European Union, [2011] OJ C 202/13.
- 29.
See also the Commission’s latest move towards transparency under the auspices of new Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström: European Commission, Press release of 19 November 2014, Commission to Further Boost TTIP Transparency, available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1201
- 30.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
The case of the ill-informed if not deliberately misleading award-winning newspaper article “Die Macht des Geldes”, Die Zeit, No. 10, 27 February 2014, p. 15 is an impressive example of these problems, cf. Griebel (2014); see however on the chance to discuss legal issues based on leaked documents: Streinz (2015), in this volume, pp. 274 et seq. (discussing inter alia whether the TTIP falls under the EU’s exclusive or shared competence).
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Herrmann, C. (2015). “Transleakancy”. In: Herrmann, C., Simma, B., Streinz, R. (eds) Trade Policy between Law, Diplomacy and Scholarship. European Yearbook of International Economic Law(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15690-3_5
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