Janice, I suspect that Norman actually intended to refer not to the PTT, but to the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which does indeed sound like a very nasty piece of work.
Here is an extract from the information accompanying the Avaaz petition that I signed:
The TPP will shape lives across the world from North America to Chile to New Zealand, but most of the text was written in secret by negotiators and corporations, without public input. When Wikileaks revealed a portion, we got a sampling of how bad it is:
- If a nation bans a toxic chemical, or labels genetically modified foods, or tightens environmental regulations, TPP empowers companies to sue governments in secret global tribunals, run by corporate arbitrators. If the government loses, taxpayers could be forced to pay companies billions of dollars for lost profits.
- Under TPP, pharmaceutical giants could extend their monopolies so far that cheap life-saving drugs for cancer and AIDS patients could be prevented.
- The deal could criminalise those who sound the alarm on corporate illegal activity through a computer system.
Those are just a small part of the agreement. We have no idea what corporate lobbyists wrote into the bulk of the treaty because
governments have refused to release the text to the public.
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Did you get the GM bit? Monsanto could sue governments that allow the labelling of consumer products to state that they contain genetically-modified ingredients.
Here is the address of the petition if you're interested.
I believe the text has now been published. I haven't read it, but I understand that among other things, it contains no reference to the problems of global warming; instead, it increases the carte blanche given to the ravagers and despoilers.
You can certainly find a lot more information about the TPP on the Internet.