TTIP Update XLIV

The TTIP negotiations have started in earnest - before, meetings were largely preliminary, aimed at establishing the general positions of both the EU and US.  And yet, curiously, very little seems to be happening, at least publicly.  The next official round is not until early February next year, although it seems likely that informal meetings are still taking place behind closed doors. 

One reason for this hiatus is that there has been a change at the top.  Karel De Gucht has relinquished his post, which has been taken by the Swede Cecilia Malmström.  She is adopting a very different style, not least in terms of her attitude to the public.  Faced by the growing scepticism about TTIP's benefits, and anger over its complete lack of any meaningful transparency, Malmström has taken a conciliatory approach, promising more openness, some of which has now been announced.

But Malmström is still trotting out the same old misinformation about TTIP.  In a recent opinion piece she published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the paragraph about ISDS is particularly pernicious.  Malmström says that European member states have signed a total of 1400 agreements that include ISDS; this is presumably to "prove" that ISDS is completely normal and totally harmless.  Neither is true.

Those 1400 agreements were overwhelmingly with developing nations.  The ISDS clauses were there to protect European investments in countries where the judicial systems were perhaps less than fair and reliable.  In a sense, these were one-way ISDS chapters, since companies from those emerging nations almost never invested in Europe, and thus were unable to avail themselves of the ability to sue for alleged expropriation there - that's why European nations have rarely been sued under these trade agreements.

Moreover, just seven of those 1400 agreements were with the US.  The countries involved were former Soviet states, plus Poland.  Even though in retrospect the terms of those agreements were pretty bad, they looked good as a way of escaping the clutches of Russia, and of encouraging the US to support the countries signing them.  Like the other ISDS chapters with developing countries, they are unrepresentative of what will happen with TTIP. 

For a start, US investment in those ex-Warsaw Pact countries is relatively low, which means the opportunities for it to use ISDS clauses are very limited.  Compare that with the whole of the EU, where there are around 50,000 subsidiaries of US companies, representing very substantial investments, and you can see that the risks of the EU or a member state being sued under ISDS in TTIP are vastly greater than was the case for those 7 earlier examples.  So Malmström's claim that ISDS wasn't a problem then, and so won't be a problem now, is simply false.

She then goes to admit that the current ISDS chapters are problematic, but that the EU has already addressed that objection by reforming ISDS in CETA, the trade agreement with Canada.  Specifically, she claims that in CETA:

Nations always have the freedom to decide about health systems, minimum wages and environmental protection.

That sounds good, but when you analyse the detailed wording of CETA's ISDS provisions, as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has done in its excellent, in-depth exploration of the final text, "Making Sense of CETA", this is what you find is actually the case as regards that supposedly strengthened "right to regulate":

The ‘right to regulate’ is mentioned three times in the agreement. In the preamble, the parties simply ‘recognize’ that the Ceta protects the right to regulate (“recognizing that the provisions of this Agreement preserve the right to regulate...”), yet the text fails to clearly and unequivocally confirm this right, especially in the investment chapter. The other mentions are to be found in the labour and environment chapters, so that, in effect, the Ceta shields the right to regulate from any international obligations to protect labour or the environment but not from all the detailed obligations in the investment chapter. Also in the environment chapter, the right to regulate is limited by formulations which require environmental policies to be implemented “in a manner consistent with the multilateral environmental agreements to which they are a party and with this Agreement,” meaning that environmental policies have to be consistent with the Ceta - not the other way round.

As that makes clear, far from protecting the EU's "freedom to decide" in the environmental sphere, as  Malmström claims, CETA actually imposes new constraints on governments.  The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives also points out that CETA is worse than earlier agreements in the way that the so-called "fair and equitable treatment" clause is framed.  This does not inspire confidence for TTIP, since we know from the consultation that the ISDS chapter will be modelled on the earlier agreement.

Even if it weren't, CETA's ISDS will be a disaster for Europe if it is ratified - something that is fortunately still a long way off.  That's because of the following:

The Ceta definition of ‘investment’ and ‘investor’ are overly broad and far beyond what would be advisable from a regulatory or public interest perspective. The Ceta defines an ‘investment’ as, “Every kind of asset that an investor owns or controls, directly or indirectly, that has the characteristics of an investment.” It defines an ‘investor’ as: “a Party, a natural person or an enterprise of a Party, other than a branch or a representative office, that seeks to make, is making or has made an investment in the territory of the other Party. For the purposes of this definition an ‘enterprise of a Party’ is: (a) an enter prise that is constituted or organised under the laws of that Party and has substantial business activities in the territory of that Party”). The reference to ‘substantial business activities’ is not enough to pre vent ‘treaty shopping.’ For example, U.S. investors in Canada would be able to use the C eta investment provisions and ISDS to challenge European state measures.

There's another trade agreement that the EU has recently finalised (but not ratified) that has exactly the same problem.  It's with Singapore, and the dangers of its ISDS chapter are analysed in an important post from the FFII.  If, like me, you don't know much about the EUSFTA, as it is know, this is a good place to start.  Here are a couple of the key issues:

1. The agreement creates a lock-in. Unlike most investment agreements ratified by European countries, it is not a stand-alone investment treaty, from which parties can withdraw. The investment chapter is part of a trade agreement, from which it is near impossible to withdraw.

2. The text lacks basic institutional safeguards for independence, creates perverse incentives and does not observe the separation of powers.

Expanding on the last point:

No institutional safeguards for independence

The text lacks basic institutional safeguards for independence: tenure, prohibitions on outside remuneration by the arbitrator and neutral appointment of arbitrators.

Perverse incentives

Arbitrators are paid for their task at least 3000 US dollar a day. This creates perverse incentives: accepting frivolous cases, letting cases drag on, letting the only party that can initiate cases (foreign investors) win to stimulate more cases, pleasing the officials who can appoint arbitrators.

No separation of powers

Both the claimants and the executive have a 50% influence on the make-up of [ISDS] tribunals. In a [national] court neither the claimant nor the executive has an influence on appointments, as both parties are not neutral.

A government may dislike a law by the former legislative and appoint an arbitrator accordingly. Only independent courts should decide on constitutional matters and questions of law.

It's that last point that remains the central problem with ISDS in TTIP: it effectively allows corporations to attack any legislation that affects their future profits, even if it has been passed by governments with an explicit mandate from the public.  Signing up to any treaty - be it CETA, EUSFTA or TTIP - that contains ISDS is thus nothing less than a fundamental betrayal of European democracy.

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TTIP Update XXXVIII

In my last update, I mentioned plans to organise a European Citizens' Initiative, a formal petition against both TTIP and CETA.  I think everyone assumed that the European Commission would just ignore this, but in fact it has done something rather more spectactular - and stupid: it has refused to allow the ECI to go ahead at all.

In its rejection of the ECI, the European Commission claims that the negotiating mandates on TTIP and CETA are not legal acts but internal preparatory acts between EU institutions and therefore not contestable via an ECI.

“The Commission’s view that only acts with an effect on third parties are permissible for an ECI is obviously a legal error. The negotiating mandate of the Commission is a formal decision of the Council and therefore a legal act. If the Commission’s legal opinion had any substance, then in plain English this would mean that Europe’s population is excluded from participation in the development of any kind of international agreements – information that is as frightening as it is scandalous,” according to Efler.

What’s more, the Commission claims that it cannot make negative ratification proposals and therefore cannot comply with the ECI demand not to conclude the CETA and TTIP negotiations. “Contrariwise, this means that citizens can only applaud international negotiations carried out by the Commission, but not criticize them,” said Efler.

The group behind the petition have realised that they don't actually need the European Commission's permission anyway, and so are simply going ahead without it:

We reject the Commission’s attempt to silence us and will carry out our European Citizens’ Initiative anyway, without approval from Brussels. We are currently preparing an online signature gathering tool as well as paper signature forms and will start collection in early October. At the same time, we will challenge the Commission in court by appealing to the European Court of Justice.

In the past couple of weeks our campaign has gathered support from over 240 civil society organisations in 21 EU member states. It is somewhat ironic that the European Commission, which often complains about the “lack of a European public”, is trying to stop this truly European movement in its tracks. We will continue to speak out against the Commission’s total lack of transparency in the negotiations and favouring of corporate interests over the common good. We will stay very public and very European in our opposition to TTIP and CETA!

This refusal even to allow a largely symbolic petition to proceed is indicative of the contempt with which the European Commission regards any expression of the public's view on these matters, which it seems to think are the exclusive domain of bureaucrats and politicians (and lobbyists).  That was underlined even more strongly last week, when the official text of the trade agreement with Canada, CETA, was finally released.  However, at precisely that moment, the European Commission was also "celebrating" the conclusion of the talks, with the implication that no further changes can be made.  So after telling everyone that the public would have its chance to comment on the CETA text later, it turns out that in fact it can only see the document not change it.  The European Commission has an interesting concept of what democracy means.

Interestingly, the meeting between the European Commission and the Canadian government was called a "celebration" rather than a signing because Germany has indicated that it is not happy with the inclusion of the problematic investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) chapter in CETA.  Since it is likely that CETA is a "mixed agreement" - that is, one that requirements approval from all 28 member states, as well as from the European Parliament - if Germany were to say "no", CETA would be dead.

It turns out that ISDS is only one of the really bad ideas contained in CETA.  That's what emerges from an excellent analysis of CETA from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, called "Making Sense of the CETA".  It's very clearly written, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand what the implications of CETA will be for business or, indeed, for all of us. 

Another key factor influencing both CETA and TTIP is the appointment of a new European Commissioner responsible for trade, and thus trade agreements.  The Commissioner-Designate is Cecilia Malmstrom, and she was involved in yet another storm around ISDS at the weekend.

Jon Worth has all the details in a blog post, but essentially a document from Malmstrom indicated that she was willing to drop ISDS from TTIP.  The S&D group in the European Parliament issued a statement welcoming the move, but then Malmstrom tweeted that she hadn't written the words.  This made her appearance yesterday before the European Parliament as part of the process of confirming her as trade commissioner even more important, since it would clarify what exactly she thought on this matter.

Her statements during that session were unequivocal: she will not take ISDS out of CETA, which she regards as finished.  She claimed she had an open mind on ISDS in TTIP, saying that it might be taken out, but she was unconvincing here.  It seems clear that she wants ISDS in TTIP.  Her justification was very weak.  She kept on saying that ISDS existed in other treaties (true), was problematic there (true), and therefore required a new, improved version to be used in TTIP (false).  She seemed to be under the impression that "improving" ISDS in TTIP would somehow rectify all the deeply-flawed versions elsewhere, when they are completely unrelated.

It's true that there are some EU countries that have bilateral trade agreements with the US that includes ISDS.  These are ex-Soviet countries that clearly signed up to bad deals because they were desperate to escape the clutches of Russia.  But that's not a reason to include ISDS in TTIP, and inflict the same problems on everyone else.  The East European treaties can all be cancelled in due course, and that is what those countries should do.  Adding ISDS to TTIP simply gives new life to the idea. 

Equally, the view that ISDS can be "improved" sufficiently to make it acceptable is wrong: it is just not needed between the EU and US, both of which have well-functioning legal systems.  Creating new rights for corporates that allow them to challenge national regulations outside the legal system is just anti-democratic and bad policy. 

Finally, it was clear that Malmstrom laboured under the delusion that we "need" this ISDS in TTIP so that we can demand that China accepts it in a trade agreement that is currently under discussion.  What this overlooks is the painful fact that soon China will be investing more in Europe than Europe invests in China, such is the strength of the China's economy, and the size of its reserves.  This means that ISDS will be chiefly a weapon that can be used by Chinese companies *against* the EU, not for EU companies to use in China.  Not only will ISDS by harmful in TTIP, it will be actively dangerous in any agreement with China.

Although it was clear from the meeting yesterday that Malmstrom is not another Karel De Gucht, who was far more abrasive and arrogant than she is, equally she will not be deviating much from his policy, even if she dresses it up differently.  She made vague but essentially empty promises about increasing transparency, but ignored the real issue: that we do not have access to negotiating documents. 

Some claim that such documents must be secret, otherwise the EU negotiators will lose the advantage; this is demonstrably not true, since for WIPO talks, all the documents are open by default without problem.  But even were it true, the solution is simple: make available all those documents once they are *tabled*.  At that point, there is no negotiating advantage in keeping them secret, since the US side has already seen them.  That's also true for the lobbyists that have routine access to these documents.  The only group that suffers is - of course - the public, that never has any means of seeing what is supposedly being done in its name.  Instead, as the CETA fiasco shows, at the end of the process we are presented with a fait accompli, and told simply to like it or lump it.

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TTIP Update XXXIV

The previous update detailed the massive rejection of ISDSin TTIP, even at the highest political levels in Europe.  That refusal to allow corporations to be placed above national law has now spread to the other major trade agreement that the European Commission is currently negotiating, the one with Canada, known as CETA.  Here's the bombshell that the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung dropped over the weekend (original in German):

German EU diplomats confirmed in Brussels on Friday that the [German] federal government could not sign the agreement with Canada "as it is now negotiated." Although Germany was, in principle, ready to initial the agreement in September, the chapter on the legal protection of investors is however 'problematic' and currently not acceptable.

Now, it's important to emphasise that this is not saying that Germany will *not* sign CETA, as some have reported.  What it does indicate is that the current text is problematic.  That leaves open the possibility for modifications to be made that would make it acceptable.  But as we've noted before, Germany has already expressed its view that ISDS should not be in TTIP, and presumably feels the same way about CETA. 

Thus the new battle over CETA not only provides important hints about what will happen with TTIP, but will have a direct influence on it.  If CETA includes ISDS it will enable US companies to sue the EU through Canadian subsidiaries, thus making its presence or absence in TTIP somewhat moot.  Equally, if ISDS is dropped from CETA, it is likely to be dropped from TTIP.

That has become even more likely in the wake of this new statement by the S&D Group in the European Parliament:

Following reports in the press that the German government is reluctant to sign the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) as it currently stands, the S&D Group calls for further efforts to conclude this agreement but invites the Commission to seriously consider withdrawing the investor-state dispute settlement clause from the final text. The inclusion of this clause seems to be the main controversial point in the CETA text for the German government.

That's significant, because the S&D Group is the second-largest in the European Parliament: TTIP will not be ratified there unless it's MEPs support it, and this is therefore a further signal that they won't support it if it includes an ISDS chapter.  The wisdom of that position was underlined just yesterday with the annoncement of the biggest award ever made by a tribunal of the kind that lie at the heart of ISDS:

In an historic arbitral award rendered on July 18, 2014, an Arbitral Tribunal sitting in The Hague under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) held unanimously that the Russian Federation breached its international obligations under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) by destroying Yukos Oil Company and appropriating its assets. The Tribunal ordered the Russian Federation to pay damages in excess of USD 50 billion to our clients who were the majority shareholders of Yukos Oil Company.

Yes, you read that correctly: a tribunal of lawyers has decided that Russia ought to pay $50 billion damages (although whether it will is quite another matter.)  This is a useful reminder that there is literally no limit on the awards that these tribunals can make: the ISDS system is not just undemocratic, it is completely outside anyone's control - a recipe for disaster.

The other big TTIP news is the leak of one the key chapters, on "sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures" (SPS) - basically food safety and related areas.  Here's a summary of what it reveals:

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy released the draft version of the central text of the TTIP chapter on sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures; this chapter imposes restrictions on government regulations related to food safety and animal and plant health. Among the many provisional threats to public health safeguards are:

A form of mutual recognition of the safety of imported food from Europe in the U.S. and vice versa that reduces standards to the lowest levels;

 An objective that food safety safeguards should generally be enforced in the least trade restrictive manner, rather than the manner that is most protective of public health and the environment; and

 A system of “exporter country certification” that would  sharply reduce food safety inspections at ports of entry.

That same Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has also provided a detailed and illuminating analysis of what the dry text will mean in practice.  Here's the key section that describes the overall intent of the SPS chapter in TTIP:

trade agreement SPS language about food safety, animal health and plant health outlines the general terms for enabling trade while complying with “the importing Party’s appropriate level of protection.” So, for example, unless the European negotiators object to the use of Maximum Residue Level (MRL) of a specific pesticide on imported grain or a specific veterinary drug in the production of imported meat, without creating “unjustified barriers to trade” (Article 2, paragraph 2), the TTIP regards that product as having an “appropriate level of protection” to enable importation and consumption of the product. Determination of MRLs and other metrics of what is “appropriate” happens in a domestic regulatory process, in which, at least in the U.S., much of the relevant data is classified as Confidential Business Information.

This is the key change proposed by the TTIP draft: "mutual recognistion" would mean that US standards for pesticides or veterinary drugs would be regarded as acceptable in the EU, even when they are manifestly lower than those currently in place here.  As that paragraph also hints, the US regulatory process is pretty much a part of the US agricultural industry, which provides most of the data used for making regulatory decisions.

Not  only that, industry generally won't even provide the "scientific" data on which government decisions are based, since it is "Confidential Business Information."  Of course, when companies won't release data it's a clear sign that they have something to hide, as the experience with clinical trials data has shown.  When it comes to health and safety, open data is even more critical than elsewhere, but the US approach is diametrically opposed to this, with secrecy as the default.  This means that European efforts to make the regulatory process more open would be undermined by the US demand for business confidentiality for their standards, which would also apply in the EU.

In fact, the SPS chapter in the TTIP draft is even worse.  Not content with allowing food that meets US standards to be imported freely into Europe, it would stop checks being carried out on that produce as it enters the EU:

industry has long sought to replace verification of food safety management performance by port of entry inspection of products with export food facility certification, by governments or third parties, verified by audits of facilities. The terms of certification and auditing to verify SPS system equivalence are outlined in Article 12 of the draft. In Article 9, paragraph 1, industry, and particularly the Grocery Manufacturers Association, has gotten its wish to eliminate port of entry inspection and testing results as a factor in the SPS systems equivalence determination. According to the draft text, recognition of SPS systems as “equivalent” by TTIP Parties will occur “without a need for individual re-inspection [of products] or other additional guarantees.

There's an interesting consequence of removing the entry inspection:

The industry rationale for eliminating re-inspection and testing is not just to expedite more food trade more quickly. Detaching re-inspection and testing from SPS systems equivalence determination provides a layer of government verified and certified food safety management insulation from liability for exporting or importing contaminated products.

This means that the kind of food scandals we have seen recently - notably of horsemeat - would be much harder to investigate.  It would also remove incentives for US food companies to worry too much about the issue, since it would be much easier for them to escape any liability.

Finally, many in Europe will doubtless be worried by this aspect of the leadked SPS chapter:

“Prominent coverage of animal welfare” refers to “best endeavor” (we will try), not binding (“shall”) measures to prevent trade in livestock products from animals that have been abused. For example, Article 11, paragraph 1, states “The Parties recognize that animals are sentient beings. They undertake to respect trade conditions for live animals and animal products that are aimed to protect their welfare.” So, while this aspirational language is perhaps new in a trade agreement, it is designed to be unenforceable. There will be no requirements that Parties mandate compliance with animal welfare laws as a condition of being able to trade in animal agriculture products.

That means the opportunity to use TTIP to export Europe's higher animal protection laws to the US in order to mitigate some of the worst horrors of that country's "mega-farms" is being lost.  As a result, European farmers will be at big economic disadvantage compared to their US rivals, since they will be required to spend more money taking better care of their animals. 

This is likely to lead to European farms losing market share, as cheaper US food enters the EU, with no indication that it was produced in inhumane conditions, or that it contains pesticide levels that were previously unacceptable in the EU.  In the face of this unfair competition, the agricultural industry will inevitably push for EU standards for food safety and animal welfare to be lowered to those of the US in order to "level the playing field."  Moreover, whenever the US lowers them yet further - as it is currently doing for chickens - this will have a knock-on effect of pushing EU standards down too.  TTIP not only leads to a race to the bottom on food and health standards, it leads to that bottom being excavated to new depths.

As this indicates, the leak of the SPS chapter is extremely important, because it reveals in detail for the first time just how our food standards will decline, and that the repeated assurances from the European Commission that they will not, are worthless.  It's probably safe to assume that the same will prove to be true of the chapter dealing with intellectual monopolies like copyright and patents, which is likely to turn out to be ACTA 2.0.

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UK TTIP Debate Tomorrow: Please Contact MPs Today

It seems that there will be a rare UK debate about TTIP tomorrow.  This is a great opportunity to contact your MPs and let them know what you think.  Here's what I've just sent - you can use WritetoThem to make things easier.

I believe that the House of Commons will be debating TTIP on Thursday. I hope you are planning to be there, and might be able to convey some of my concerns about the proposed agreement.

TTIP is generally presented as being something that will boost the EU and UK economies, and provide benefits for all. In fact, the European Commission's own study shows that even under the most optimistic assumptions, the GDP gain will only be 119 billion euros. That may sound a lot, but in fact is only about 0.5% of EU GDP. Moreover, that would be after ten years of TTIP, so the extra annual GDP in this optimistic scenario is around 0.05%, which is effectively zero given the uncertainties of all econometric modelling.

Even that 0.05% annual GDP boost will probaby be very hard to achieve. According to the European Commission's own study, it is based on the assumption that only 20% of the boost will come from removing tariff barriers, which are already low between the EU and US, while 80% will come from removing non-tariff barriers (NTBs). But NTBs are essentially regulations, and are not "trade irritants" as some like to describe them, but hard-won protections for health, safety, the environment etc. Removing them would cause huge negative effects on society – none of which are included in the econometric model. In fact, *no* costs are included in the CEPR projections, which is extraordinary.

The European Commission says that regulations will be harmonised, not lowered. But that will rarely be possible. For example, for chemicals in cosmetics, the EU bans 1300 of them, while the US only bans 12. If it is infeasible to harmonise regulations, and standards will not be lowered, achieving the 80% of gains will be hard, if not impossible.

Finally, there is the issue of ISDS. No convincing argument has been offered for why this is necessary. Both the EU and US have extremely well-developed legal systems. The European Commission has been unable to cite any example where an EU company has been discriminated against in the US. Moreover, the size of the investments across the Atlantic prove that there is absolutely no problem that needs solving here: the US has invested 1.5 trillion euros in Europe, while the EU has invested 1.6 trillion euros. Businesses would not be making these massive investments if there were a problem. And for those that are chary, there is always investment insurance.

On the other hand, including ISDS in TTIP will give 19,900 US-based corporations that own more than 51,400 subsidiaries in the EU the ability to sue the EU and members states over regulations that they claim will harm their profits. And while it is true that ISDS cases cannot force governments to repeal laws, many do since the cost in terms of ISDS awards are so high: recently, an award of $50 billlion was made against Russia by an ISDS tribunal. It is clear from past experience that ISDS has a chilling effect on bringing in new laws that protect the public.

I hope these quick thoughts make clear why I am concerned about TTIP, and believe that it in its current form it will bring few, if any benefits, to the UK public, while exposing them and the EU to huge risks.  If you have time, which I fear is unlikely, I have written at greater length about TTIP in this extensive feature for Ars Technica UK.

As ever, thank you for your help.

NSA Spying Fallout Hits French Satellite Deal

Techdirt has already noted how the NSA's massive spying programs around the world are costing US companies money through lost business -- and are likely to cost them even more in the future. But it seems that the fallout is even wider, as this story from The Voice of Russia makes clear: 

On Techdirt.

Russian Authorities Threaten To Block CloudFlare And Other Key Infrastructural Sites

This is getting boring. Every time Techdirt writes about Russian Internet blocking, it's along the lines of: "just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it does." Here's another one. As a post from TorrentFreak explains, Russia's telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor maintains a blacklist of sites that allegedly promote the usual bad stuff -- child pornography, criminal activities, suicide etc. In news that will surprise no one that understands how the Internet works, Roskomnadzor is finding it hard to enforce those blocks on material held on servers located outside Russia: 

On Techdirt.

Russia's Leading Social Network VKontakte Cleared Of Copyright Infringement

VKontakte is not only the largest social networking site in Russia, but is also one of the biggest unauthorized repositories of copyright music, thanks to its file-hosting service. Given the moves to clamp down on copyright infringement in Russia, it seemed only a matter of time before VKontakte found itself in hot water because of this. And yet, as Torrent Freak reports, something unexpected has happened: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Plans To Launch Sputnik Again -- This Time As A Search Engine

Techdirt has been reporting for a while the efforts of the Russian government to bring the Internet there under control. It now seems that it is taking a new approach: as well as banning or criminalizing activities it doesn't like, it wants to compete with them directly. Specifically, it plans to fund a new Russian search engine, called "Sputnik", named after the first artificial satellite, put into space by the Russians in 1957. According to an article in the news magazine "Der Spiegel" (original in German), this is designed to address two problems at once. 

On Techdirt.

Russia's Latest Idea: An Internet Whitelist For Copyright Materials

Now that Sarkozy has been thrown out of office, France is no longer producing the steady stream of bad proposals for the Internet that it once generated. That has left an opening for some other country to take its place, and it seems that Russia is keen to pick up where Sarkozy left off. We've been reporting on previous worrying developments there, and TorrentFreak has news on another one: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Prepares To Block Tor And Anonymizing Proxies

As more and more countries start introducing Web blocks, some people console themselves with the "at least there's always Tor" argument. Politicians may be slow, but they are not all completely stupid, and they are beginning to get the message that Tor and other anonymous services potentially render their Web blocks moot. It's then not a huge leap for them to move on to the next stage -- banning or blocking Tor -- as Russia now seems to be contemplating, according to this article on Russia Today: 

On Techdirt.

Latest 'Think Of The Children' Scaremongering: Pirated Films Might 'Disturb' Them

Just last week we heard how Russia has extended its "think of the children" law to include copyright infringement. That was a classic case of function creep, but here's a more direct invocation of "the children" in order to attack unauthorized downloads of files, this time in the UK: 

On Techdirt.

As Russia Expands Its 'Think Of The Children' Laws To Copyright, Agency In Charge Investigated For Infringement

Last week we wrote about how the Russian equivalent of SOPA had been amended in order to ban swearing online. Although that was worth noting for its entertainment value, probably more important is the fact that the same law -- originally brought in to take down sites about drugs, suicide and child pornography -- has also been widened to include copyright infringement, as TechWeekEurope reports: 

On Techdirt.

Russia To Ban Swearing On The Internet

A year ago, we wrote about a Russian law that introduced a blacklist designed to block access to information on drugs, suicide and child pornography (all for the children, of course.) Strangely, that same law was then used to silence leading reporters who dared to criticize the government (bet nobody saw that coming....) 

On Techdirt.

Russia to Ban Swearing Online: UK to Follow?

Yesterday I wrote about the slide into censorship and self-censorship that the UK government's misbegotten plans to impose a default set of Net blocks could bring about. Of course, the UK is not alone in seeking to introduce disproportionate schemes. Here's one from Russia:

On Open Enterprise blog.

SOPA Didn't Die, It Just Emigrated

It's hard to believe that the heady times that saw SOPA's rise and fall are only a year and a half ago. Of course, SOPA didn't die, but was merely "delayed". But if you've ever wondered what happened to it, wonder no more; it emigrated to Russia, as TorrentFreak reports: 

On Techdirt.

Has Russia's VKontakte Social Network Betrayed Its Users? Or Is It Under Attack For Defending Them?

We last wrote about the Russian social network site VKontakte, often called "The Facebook of Russia," a year ago. Since then, lots of bad stuff has been happening in Russia as a part of clampdown on online activity there, and now VKontakte is back in the news, with a pair of rather contradictory stories. 

On Techdirt.

IIPA Wants Canada And Spain On The 'Naughty' Special 301 List Even Though They Brought In Tough New Copyright Laws

Here on Techdirt, one of the things we look forward to each year is the comedy production known as the 301 Report, where the US makes the world line up in a row, and then names and shames all the naughty countries whose intellectual monopoly laws aren't outrageous enough. In advance of the official naughty list, there are helpful suggestions from the fans of monopoly maximalism, including the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which has just released its 2013 demands. Mostly it's the usual suspects -- China, India, Russia etc. But there's an interesting change from the previous year's list: Canada has moved from the really naughty "Priority Watch List" to the only slightly naughty "Watch List". 

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Another Terrible Idea From Russia: Using Whitelists To Control Access To The Internet

Techdirt has been reporting on a steady stream of bad tech ideas coming out of Russia, including content monitoring, banning children from using WiFi, anti-piracy laws requiring takedowns in 24 hours and -- of course -- site blocking. But such blacklists are too permissive for some Russians: over on Google+, Peter Lemenkov pointed out that one region is now introducing whitelists (original in Russian): 

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Russian Ministry Of Culture Publishes Draft Anti-Piracy Law; Requires Takedowns Within 24 Hours

Presumably as part of the overall agreement for Russia to be allowed to join the WTO, the Ministry of Culture there has published a draft of its anti-piracy law (via @PostActa). Here's the google translation of a story on the roem.ru site: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Blacklists Cultural Wiki Without Explanation, Site Just Moves To Circumvent Block

Techdirt has been following the worsening censorship situation in Russia for some time. Back in July, the country's parliament passed a new law ostensibly designed to "protect the children". It took only a couple of weeks before it was used to shut down the whole of LiveJournal for part of the country. That was apparently because a neo-Nazi blog had been found among the thousands of others hosted there -- an indication of just how blunt this new instrument of censorship is. 

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