Malaysia on Track to Meet TPPA’s 2018 Ratification Deadline

In my paper, I am interested in exploring different countries' methods of covering the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Specifically, I would like to study how the angles or tone with which the economic agreement is portrayed in the media reflects the individual country's economic development and its relationship with the United States.

One of the sections of the TPP mandates that participating countries maintain a minimum level of human rights. For example, the agreement prohibits exploitative child labor, guarantees the right to collective bargaining, and prohibits employee discrimination. In the process of seeking ratification, Malaysia has been a country with a particularly visible human rights problem. In 2015, the US State Department published its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, in which Malaysia dropped to a Tier 3 Country on human rights. Thus, a lot of recent media coverage of the TPP in Malaysia has revolved around the country's active efforts to improve its human rights condition so as to be included in the deal.

In this article, the author Tho Xin Yi is explicitly favorable towards the TPP and is optimistic about ratification. He quotes the International Trade and Industry Ministry secretary-general Datuk J. Jayasiri saying that the TPP is a "done deal." Jayasiri is also quoted wanting to raise human rights standards as a sort of display on the global stage. A big part of modernizing is sort of exhibiting progress to the rest of the world.

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/09/25/msia-on-track-to-meet-t...