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madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
Thu Oct 9, 2014, 09:08 PM Oct 2014

The trade clause that overrules governments. Meyerson WP column.

I have been aware of this part of the trade deals, but somehow Harold Meyerson has a way of making the issue simpler for me (not an economist) to understand. From the WP October 1.

The trade clause that overrules governments

One of the public policy paradoxes of the past quarter-century is why the center-left governments of advanced economies have supported trade policies that undermine the very environmental and labor protections they fight for at home. Foremost among these self-subverting policies have been the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions included in every significant trade deal the United States has signed since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Under ISDS, foreign investors can sue a nation with which their own country has such treaty arrangements over any rules, regulations or changes in policy that they say harm their financial interests.

These suits aren’t heard in the courts, however. If a U.S. company wants to sue, say, California or the Environmental Protection Agency, it must pursue its claim in a California or federal court. Under ISDS, however, a foreign-owned company suing California or the EPA gets to plead its case to an extra-governmental tribunal of three extra-governmental judges engaged just for that case — and the judges’ ruling can’t be appealed to a higher court. Under ISDS, there are no higher courts.


That was clear and to the point.

The mockery that the ISDS procedure can make of a nation’s laws can be illustrated by a series of cases. In Germany in 2009, the Swedish energy company Vattenfall, seeking to build a coal-fired power plant near Hamburg, used ISDS to sue the government for conditioning its approval of the plant on Vattenfall taking measures to protect the Elbe River from its waste products. To avoid paying penalties to the company under ISDS (the company had asked for $1.9 billion in damages), the state eventually lifted its conditions.

....ISDS provisions began popping up in trade deals during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The mystery is why they continued to be included in trade deals, such as NAFTA, enacted under Democratic administrations in the United States and social democratic governments in Europe and elsewhere. While beloved by Wall Street, they have drawn the increasing ire of environmentalists and labor advocates — two of the center-left’s key constituencies.

....Which raises the question of why the president of the United States thinks the jurisdiction of U.S. and European courts should be subordinated to those special ISDS courts. An E.U.-U.S. treaty with an ISDS clause invites a massive end-run around national regulations: Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has counted 24,200 U.S. subsidiaries of E.U.-based corporations that could avail themselves of ISDS under the treaty, and 51,400 E.U. subsidiaries of U.S.-based companies that could do the same.


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The trade clause that overrules governments. Meyerson WP column. (Original Post) madfloridian Oct 2014 OP
All these trade agreements have been the corporate way to override government and borders and jwirr Oct 2014 #1
It is alarming. madfloridian Oct 2014 #2
Call WH, Senators, house Reps to say NO to SHFTA (Southern Hemospheric "Free" Trade Agreement) Dont call me Shirley Oct 2014 #3
I have called about a lot of them. madfloridian Oct 2014 #4
I call and tell them "just say no" and present the facts against SHFTA (TPP) Dont call me Shirley Oct 2014 #6
I see no advantages in this for the working class. madfloridian Oct 2014 #5
Look at this lawsuit by Exxon against Venezuela. These corporations are basically Dont call me Shirley Oct 2014 #8
"A few people who believe they have the right to own people, to own all the land and the resources" madfloridian Oct 2014 #9
HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!! WillyT Oct 2014 #7
I appreciated the way Meyerson wrote about it. madfloridian Oct 2014 #11
Yep... Remember When We Were Scared Of The Communists ??? WillyT Oct 2014 #13
After reading this from EFF..more scared. How can Democrats do this to their own country? madfloridian Oct 2014 #15
Thirty Pieces Of Silver... i.e. MONEY WillyT Oct 2014 #17
Greg Palast explained it's the Way of the World Trade Org... Octafish Oct 2014 #10
Greedspan has to fit in this somewhere, where? Dont call me Shirley Oct 2014 #12
"The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away." madfloridian Oct 2014 #16
Examples of how this clause has worked in several countries last few years... madfloridian Oct 2014 #14
This clause could change our country forever. madfloridian Oct 2014 #18
World wide corporate government. JEB Oct 2014 #19

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
1. All these trade agreements have been the corporate way to override government and borders and
Thu Oct 9, 2014, 09:24 PM
Oct 2014

replace it with globlization.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
2. It is alarming.
Thu Oct 9, 2014, 10:00 PM
Oct 2014

And it is so sickening to see Democrats approving of it and working for such agreements to happen. Even when they know so many are opposed.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
4. I have called about a lot of them.
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 12:35 AM
Oct 2014

Need to call Bill Nelson again..been a while. Hard to get his aides to listen. It's like turning our country's law over to other countries and vice versa. Makes no sense, and it's scary to me.

Dont call me Shirley

(10,998 posts)
8. Look at this lawsuit by Exxon against Venezuela. These corporations are basically
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 09:27 AM
Oct 2014

suing and winning against these countries to the point of owning them.

SHAFTA will put that on steroids. It is the true definition of Fascism, merger of corporation and state, actually more than that, the corporate ownership of entire countries via lawsuits. Time to end these corporate "kingdoms". Time to stop global ownership by the few. Didn't we fight a Revolutionary war against corporate abuse and ownership?

A few people who believe they have the right to own people, to own all the land and the resources, they march forward in lockstep terrorizing nations, destroying our planet, causing species extinction daily, enslaving billions of people.

These are not our leaders, these are our killers. They have have made us their enemy. They are insane beyond any label we have for insanity. They will not stop on their own because they are delusional in their insanity. They must be stopped.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
9. "A few people who believe they have the right to own people, to own all the land and the resources"
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 10:34 AM
Oct 2014

They really do believe that. And yes we do seem to be the enemy.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
11. I appreciated the way Meyerson wrote about it.
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 12:50 PM
Oct 2014

He is one I don't agree with always, but he writes intelligently and clearly.

This turning over of our country to others scares me so much.

 

WillyT

(72,631 posts)
13. Yep... Remember When We Were Scared Of The Communists ???
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:05 PM
Oct 2014

Now we are scared of the Capitalists...




madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
15. After reading this from EFF..more scared. How can Democrats do this to their own country?
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 02:39 PM
Oct 2014

How can our leaders in good conscience support this?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/another-reason-hate-tpp-it-gives-big-content-new-tools-undermine-sane-digital

Like the rest of the TPP, we only know what has been leaked. Based on that, it seems the negotiators are poised to give private corporations new tools to undermine national sovereignty and democratic processes. Specifically, TPP would give multinational companies the power to sue countries over laws that that might diminish the value of their company or cut into their expected future profits.

Even if this kangaroo court ruled in favor of the defendant nation, court costs alone would scare countries from adopting (or enforcing) pro-user policies where they might potentially inhibit investor profits. The investor-state tribunal bills its time by the day and decides for itself how many days to work, so it can rack up as many days of work they want. Given this system, it's then no surprise that current investor-state court costs average about 8 million dollars per case. So even if it wins, the country has to pay those court fees, the lawyer fees, plus compound interest. That’s money that would doubtless be better spent elsewhere.

The process is absurd as well. Once a decision has been issued, there is no way to appeal it. That's right, if this court rules that the nation is at fault and has to pay huge fees that could even bankrupt a government, there's no other way for the country to overturn that decision.

The supposed “cause” of these lost “investments” can include environmental standards, labor standards, and yes, even intellectual property rules. So far, countries have been forced to shell out almost half a billion dollars thanks to similar provisions in other trade agreements. The cases have mostly dealt with environmental protection regulations (challenged by oil companies), or pharmaceutical companies (complaining about regulations invalidating their medicine patents). Ecuador was ordered to pay 2.3 billion dollars in damages and fees to Occidental Petroleum last year, in a dispute over oil exploration. Eli Lily and Company, a pharmaceutical giant based in the U.S., filed a $500 million lawsuit against Canada last month under a similar investor-state provision contained within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).


This is really nuts!

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
10. Greg Palast explained it's the Way of the World Trade Org...
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 10:43 AM
Oct 2014
THE CONFIDENTIAL MEMO AT THE HEART OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS

By Greg Palast, Aug 22 2013

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

I had to fly to Geneva to get confirmation and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalisation, told me,

“The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people... We don’t have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating.”


Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Larry Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the Bank bigshots to order their lobbyist armies to march:

“As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…”


CONTINUED...

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo

Like Tom Waits observed, "The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away."

Dont call me Shirley

(10,998 posts)
12. Greedspan has to fit in this somewhere, where?
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 12:54 PM
Oct 2014

Last edited Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:52 PM - Edit history (1)


13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve
In office
August 11, 1987 – January 31, 2006

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
14. Examples of how this clause has worked in several countries last few years...
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 02:26 PM
Oct 2014
http://ttip2014.eu/blog-detail/blog/isds%20risks.html

In 2007, South Africa was sued by European mining investors who claimed to be disadvantaged by economic policies aimed at redressing the enduring legacy of apartheid. The resulting settlement effectively exempted the investors from the legislation and landed South Africa with a legal bill of over €5 million.

In 2009, the energy company Vattenfall initiated ICSID proceedings to challenge Germany’s new environmental regulations on coal-fired power stations, claiming over €1.4 billion in compensation. Germany was persuaded to water down the regulations, and Vattenfall are now suing Germany again over its atomic energy policy.

In 2011, Ecuadorian courts ordered Chevron to pay USD$18 billion in compensation for damage to the environment and public health. In response, Chevron are suing Ecuador, claiming that the judgment breaches their protection under the US-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty.


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