Global Trade Watch has provided an analysis of the leaked TPP text, which includes this statement:
The leaked text provides stark warnings about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals that TPP negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms that would give foreign investors expansive new substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to domestic firms under domestic law.
The leaked text would empower foreign firms to directly “sue” signatory governments
in extrajudicial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals over domestic policies
that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms that foreign firms claim violate their new substantive investor rights. There they could demand taxpayer compensation for domestic financial, health, environmental, land use and other policies and government actions they claim undermine TPP foreign investor privileges, such as the “right” to a regulatory framework that conforms to their “expectations.”
The leaked text reveals the TPP would expand the parallel ISDS legal system by
elevating tens of thousands of foreign- owned firms to the same status as sovereign governments, empowering them to privately enforce a public treaty by skirting domestic courts and laws to directly challenge TPP governments i n foreign tribunals.
[...]
Foreign corporations have used these claims to attack tobacco, climate, financial, mining, medicine, energy, pollution, water, labor, toxins, development and other non-trade domestic policies. Under U.S. “free trade” agreements (FTAs) alone, foreign firms have already pocketed more than $440 million in taxpayer money via investor-state cases. This includes cases against natural resource policies, environmental protections, health and safety measures and more.
Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty: Advanced Investment Chapter
No comments:
Post a Comment