CLIMATE CHANGE IS BANNED FROM THE TALKS

Blacked out trade secrets take centre stage

Global Justice Now’s campaign to expose the pro-corporate agenda behind a US-UK trade deal hit the headlines in November when our freedom of information request became a major moment in the general election campaign.

We have long been demanding information from the government about what is under discussion in the trade ‘working groups’ it has set up with many countries in preparation for post-Brexit trade deals. The Department for International Trade had initially refused our freedom of information requests for the agendas and minutes of these meetings, but after we appealed to the Information Commissioner, it was forced to release the documents – but ludicrously it redacted almost everything in them. Hundreds of pages were entirely blacked out, including some of the page numbers! So we decided to take the next step by taking a legal challenge, crowdfunded by Global Justice Now supporters, to the Information Tribunal.

In November we published the redacted documents online ahead of the case, and they were picked up by the Labour party. When Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed the documents on ITV during a leadership debate, the blacked out pages vividly illustrated the secrecy with which the government is currently carrying out its trade talks. That publicity in turn brought to light full, unredacted versions of the documents from the US-UK trade talks that had actually been leaked in their entirety online. They confirm many of our fears about the talks (see pages 8-10 for what they reveal).

Despite the leaks, our court case continues. The papers from talks with other countries have not been released, and the principle is important for future meetings with the US. The first hearing was actually on election day, 12 December. Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden gave evidence and we were able to bring several expert witnesses. On top of this, the judges had the leaked papers in front of them, even though the government refused to comment on them. By the time you read this, we will have been in court again in February. Let’s see if the tribunal will order the government to be less secretive about these crucial trade deals.

See the leaked trade documents at:

globaljustice.org.uk/trade-leaks

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with a copy of the redacted documents released to Global Justice Now.