At the thirteenth round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which kicks off next week in San Diego, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will once again refrain from tabling the most important missing pieces from its controversial access to medicines proposal. When it comes to intellectual property rights, USTR is expected to focus the group discussions on less controversial areas, including copyrights and general IPR provisions, sources said.

An official from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative this week confirmed that the U.S. is facing opposition from other countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks (TPP) on its proposal to make environmental commitments fully enforceable under the same dispute settlement mechanism as commercial obligations.

Experts this week held out the possibility that Japan and the U.S. could still reach a breakthrough agreement by the end of September that would ultimately allow Japan to enter the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. However, they conceded that a variety of political factors make the likelihood of such a breakthrough unclear, and agreed that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is still unable to fully focus his attention on the issue of TPP entry.

(Reuters) - The United States and eight other countries on Monday welcomed Mexico into talks aimed at reaching an Asia Pacific free trade agreement, but continued to mull over Canada and Japan's seven-month-old bids to join the negotiations.

LOS CABOS, Mexico, June 19 (Reuters) - Canada will join 10 other nations in talks aimed at creating an Asia Pacific free trade agreement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Tue sday, part of a bid to reduce reliance on the U.S. market in favor of fast-growing emerging economies. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are aimed at creating a free-trade zone with a combined population of 658 million people and a gross domestic product of more than C$20 trillion ($19.65 trillion).

Trade officials from nine Pacific Rim nations—Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam— are in intensive, closed- door negotiations to sign a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement in 2012. Every Pacific Rim nation from China and Russia to Indonesia and Japan could eventually be included. There are draft texts for many of this pact’s 26 chapters, most of which have nothing to do with trade, but rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health, environmental, and other policies.

After more than two years of negotiations under conditions of extreme secrecy, on June 12, 2012, a leaked copy of the investment chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement was posted at http://tinyurl.com/tppinvestment. Public Citizen has verified that the text is authentic.  

Trade officials from nine Pacific Rim nations—Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam— are in intensive, closed-door negotiations to sign a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement in 2012. Every Pacific Rim nation from China and Russia to Indonesia and Japan could eventually be included. There are draft texts for many of this pact’s 26 chapters, most of which have nothing to do with trade, but rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health, environmental, and other policies.

The draft investment text in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which was leaked yesterday (June 13) by a U.S. civil society group, reveals that TPP countries are offering up radically different visions when it comes defining when a specific government action constitutes "indirect expropriation" of a company's property.