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Showing Original Post only (View all)The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose - By Elizabeth Warren [View all]
The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose
By Elizabeth Warren
February 25, 2015
The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?
One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called Investor-State Dispute Settlement, or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but dont be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.
ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Heres how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldnt be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions and even billions of dollars in damages.
If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldnt employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If youre a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when its your turn in the judges seat?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose - By Elizabeth Warren [View all]
FreakinDJ
Jul 2016
OP
Back then Warren was still claiming the agreement would not be released until 4 years AFTER
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#3
TransCanada has also filed a suit in US courts out of desperation. They will be lucky to get
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#6
There's lots of hoopla when the government is sued, but we've never lost an ISDS suit
bhikkhu
Jul 2016
#24
Lost several times to Canada on softwood lumber, though not strictly ISDS (was NAFTA / WTO). nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Jul 2016
#54
Again, can't just look at things from your or my perspective. We live in big world and are 1%ers to
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#30
I like Warren, but on this issue she was either not well informed or preying on people not knowing.
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#27
She was still claiming that back then. Look up her comments if you don't believe it. In fact, there
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#64
At the time OP article was written, she had not read the document. Probably hadn't read NAFTA, UN
Hoyt
Jul 2016
#7
I hope she eliminates Malaysia from the agreement since human trafficking is legal there. I cannot
floriduck
Jul 2016
#61
US has lost several times for its actions against Canada re softwood lumber
Bernardo de La Paz
Jul 2016
#53