Webinar
Apr 21, 2017
11:30 PM - 1:00 AM (GMT-5)
Host:
Trade Justice Alliance
RSVP here
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 percent 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 regulation of the very banks that brought down the global economy, destroy online privacy and data protection, and would legally codify global privatization of the commons, including of access to clean water, public education, and quality health care. TiSA would entrench neoliberal dirty energy projects like fracking and tar sands development at the expense of renewables like solar and wind power.
Despite President Trump's proclaimed opposition to the TPP, and his checkered messaging around NAFTA, he has yet to say one word about TiSA, which has further-reaching implications. TiSA is now the biggest "free trade" deal we've never heard about, which is why Trade Justice Alliance is hosting two prestigious speakers on the topic:
Sanya Reid Smith, Legal Advisor and Senior Researcher, Third World Network,
Deborah James, Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research
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, womens' rights and environmental sustainability.
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 of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, where she worked to inform civil society and governments worldwide about the potential impacts of the WTO's proposed Doha Round expansion.
She was also the Global Economy Director of Global Exchange, where she did similar work around the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. She has written numerous articles and makes regular media appearances in English and Spanish on these issues, and has appeared on CNN en Español, Voice of America, CNN International, and the O'Reilly Factor, among other news outlets. She graduated cum laude in Psychology and Women's Studies from the University of California at San Diego, and holds a Masters in International Policy and Planning from the commerce George Washington University.
